Self defense

I went to a self defense seminar with my sister the other day. As the speaker was talking, all kinds of memories flooded my mind. I was wondering if yelling "Stop" and throwing my hand in front of myself would have helped when I was essentially kidnapped by 3 black-masked men at knife point. Or if yelling "BACK OFF" would have worked better than prayer and telling him that he wasn't a rapist as one man struggled with me to pull down my pants, as I pushed my knees further apart to prevent the pants from going lower. Evidently when a gun was pointed in my face in demand for sex, I did the right thing to just walk away... maybe I shouldn't have been so bold to say "Shoot me". Or how could I have known that my ex would pick me up be my throat and pin me against the wall?
The question comes to mind... How did I survive all of this and more? How is it, with at least four attempted rapes, I was never raped? Does it seem odd that I'm not sure how many times things like that happened? I suppose that without much thought it may, but when taking into consideration that I was witness to such violence or threat of violence so frequently that over time it became just another fact of life... who knows what memories I've yet to uncover.
How did I survive? And how did my life become what it is today?