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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay opens up about a very personal story of sexual violence.
In an essay published today in People, Hargitay reveals that she was raped in her 30s by a man she thought was a friend.
“It wasn’t sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Overwhelming control,” she wrote. “He was a friend. Then it wasn't him. I tried every way I knew to get out of it. I tried to joke, to be charming, to set a boundary, to argue, to say no. He grabbed my arms and held me tight. I was shocked.”
“I didn’t want it to escalate into violence. “I now know that it was already sexual violence, but I was afraid that he would become physically violent,” she writes.
“I went into freeze mode, a common trauma response when there is no way to escape. I left my body.”
Hargitay says she tried to push the attack into the background to “get through” the trauma.
“It never happened. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive.”
She revealed that she even told her husband Peter Hermann that “it wasn't rape” because she knew the attacker.
“Then things started to change in me and I started talking about it more seriously with those closest to me,” she says. “They were the first to call it what it was. They were gentle and kind and careful, but it was important to give them a name. It wasn't a confrontation like, “You have to deal with what happened,” it was more like looking at it in the light of day: “This is what it means when someone rapes another person, so on your own time, it.” “It might be useful to compare that with what was done to you.” Then I had my own realization. My own assessment.”
Hargitay portrays Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, partly in a role in which she attempts to help victims of sexual and domestic violence heal from their trauma. During her time at SVU, she founded Joyful Heart, a foundation to support victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse. She says her work through the foundation has helped her come to terms with her own healing.
“This is a painful part of my story,” she writes. “The experience was terrible. But it doesn't define me nearly the way no other single part of my story defines me. No single part of a person’s story defines them.”