“They move me around.They change my position. I fail each time I try to resist, my limbs like wet cement on my body, my brain a heavy fog. I am awake and conscious, but my body feels dead. I know what is happening but can do nothing to stop it. I have no voice or choice but to submit and pray that it ends soon.”
That’s an excerpt from Paige VanZant’s new autobiography “Rise: Surviving the Fight of My Life,” detailing the shocking time she got raped as a young girl.
VanZant’s book is released today, nationwide.
In a new interview with MMAFighting.com, VanZant explained why she came out with the story now, and what her new book is all about.
“I had written stuff in high school, and I had written things here and there. It got to the point where it was like, you know, it’s time for me to share it. I guess being on ‘Dancing With The Stars’ and being on all these shows and I kept being asked about it, I guess it was time to just be very transparent. If I was gonna say anything and be open about it, the best way to do it is to write it down in a book and let people read it. So it doesn’t necessarily have to come out of my mouth, but people get to hear my story.”
…
“Just so I got to say it one time — I said exactly what I wanted to say to a person, they wrote it down and then I never had to look at it again. So, it was me voicing everything that happened and I just got it out in the open and I never had to look at it again. It was one of those things where I tell the story and move on.”
“It was totally coincidental and I just couldn’t be more happy with the way it worked out. It’s like just so comforting that other people kind of took those steps almost before I did, because I’m not the first one. I’m not gonna be the first groundbreaking story. I get to kind of follow and learn from how they did it and see that if they did it, I can do it, too.”
“A huge reason I’m getting the book out is because I want to be an advocate for anti-bullying, I want to be an advocate. That’s the main wave I want to start from this. The hardest thing for me was the bullies. That just really sunk me even lower, that no one was even there for me.”
“It almost makes it feel like everything I went through was worth it. Like I went through it for a purpose. Once this book comes out, if it changes someone’s life, then what I went through wasn’t meaningless, it wasn’t something terrible. It wasn’t a tragedy. It was something beautiful and it’s gonna be good and it’s gonna help people.”
