Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

“She knows that when people look at her, judge her, or even feel sorry for her, they are only thinking of what had happened to her. Not who she is now or, maybe even more crucially, who she wants to be. None capture what she sees when she looks into a mirror.”

This quote uses repetition to emphasize how others reduce Shasta to her trauma. The mirror symbolizes self-perception, demonstrating the tension between external judgments and Shasta’s own identity. The phrase “who she wants to be” introduces her desire for transformation and reclaiming agency in her life while Coming to Terms with Surviving. The moment showcases Shasta’s central conflict between victimhood and empowerment, setting the tone for her journey of self-discovery and healing.

“Like other residential therapy programs that fed vast sums of cash into Utah, Vista was about control, twenty-four seven. Kids were brought in, mostly by force, and set down in a structured environment from which they could not deviate.”

This passage uses repetition to emphasize the oppressive nature of Vista. The critique of financial motives exposes systemic exploitation disguised as treatment, showing how failures of systems designed to help can be the result of greed. The description lays the foundation for Shasta’s experiences of financial and emotional exploitation at Vista, all of which got her nowhere.

“Even then and throughout her life, Shasta was left to wonder if her father’s reaction would have been the same if Dylan had survived and she’d gone to heaven.”

This quote explores Shasta’s guilt about being the one to survive, and how she projected that guilt onto her father for many years. The conditional phrasing conveys uncertainty, as Shasta later discovers that her own guilt was the true reason she had those thoughts about her father. The honesty of this realization shows how trauma distorts perceptions of relationships and how this impacted Shasta’s recovery.