Mariska Hargitay: 'SVU' star recalls rape in personal essay - USA TODAY

Mariska Hargitay is sharing publicly for the first time the full scope of her own experience of sexual assault.

The "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" star recalled being raped in her 30s and the "reckoning" that came in the years after, in her own words.

In a powerful first-person essay in People published Wednesday, Hargitay, who has become known for her role as a crusader for survivors with Capt. Olivia Benson on the long-running police procedural, opens up about her rape by a former friend and her struggle to process what happened to her.

"A man raped me in my thirties," Hargitay, 59, opens the essay. "It wasn't sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Overpowering control. He was a friend. Then he wasn't."

The actress said she "checked out" of her body amid the assault.

"I tried all the ways I knew to get out of it. I tried to make jokes, to be charming, to set a boundary, to reason, to say no," she wrote. "He grabbed me by the arms and held me down. I was terrified.

"I didn't want it to escalate to violence. I now know it was already sexual violence, but I was afraid he would become physically violent," she continued. "I went into freeze mode, a common trauma response when there is no option to escape. I checked out of my body."

Hargitay struggled to process the assault. Delayed responses are common in cases of sexual violence.

"I couldn't believe that it happened. That it could happen. So I cut it out. I removed it from my narrative," the producer and director said. "I now have so much empathy for the part of me that made that choice because that part got me through it. It never happened. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive."

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Hargitay has long been an advocate for sexual assault victims. She found a voice through "SVU" by taking courses on trauma, started her Joyful Heart Foundation to support assault and abuse survivors and won a News and Documentary Emmy for her "I Am Evidence" project about ending rape-kit backlogs.

In one instance, during speeches for her foundation, the Emmy-winning actress recalled explicitly saying she wasn't "a survivor" and how she downplayed her own experience.

"I wasn't being untruthful; it wasn't how I thought of myself," she wrote. "I occasionally had talked about what this person did to me, but I minimized it. My husband Peter remembers me saying, 'I mean, it wasn't rape.'"

Mariska Hargitay comes to terms with assault in 'reckoning'

Hargitay said her outlook on the incident shifted, with friends and family helping her label the assault for "what it was."

"I began talking about it more in earnest with those closest to me. They were the first ones to call it what it was," she said. "They were gentle and kind and careful, but their naming it was important."

She continued: "'Here is what it means when someone rapes another person, so on your own time, it could be useful to compare that to what was done to you.' Then I had my own realization. My own reckoning."

Hargitay notes the effects of trauma on the brain, fracturing "our mind and our memory. The way a mirror fractures."

Trauma affects our memory cognitively and emotionally and changes our understanding of the world, Emily Sachs, a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, previously told USA TODAY.

Interpersonal traumas, such as rape, are shown to be the most toxic in terms of the chemical response and also in terms of the way it changes our meanings and expectations about the world and our relationships, said Sachs.

The Golden Globe-winning actress labeled her experience with sexual abuse as "acquaintance rape." Also referred to as "date rape," "acquaintance rape" is a sex crime perpetrated by someone who the victim knows, according to the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

"Many people still think of rape as a man jumping out of the bushes," Hargitay said. This was a friend who made a unilateral decision."

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Hargitay said fans of the show have expressed how "SVU" has helped them, saying being a part of fan's lives in that way is an "honor beyond measure."

"Survivors who've watched the show have told me I've helped them and given them strength. But they're the ones who've been a source of strength for me," she said. "They've experienced darkness and cruelty, an utter disregard for another human being, and they've done what they needed to survive. We're strong, and we find a way through."

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She also shared her hope for survivors not to be met with shame and her determination for sexual violence to end.

"Sexual violence persists not because of something unchangeable in our human condition, it exists because power structures are in place that allow it to happen, she wrote. "Those power structures are so pervasive that no one is immune from them."

She continued: "They breed thoughts like 'I must have done something to cause this.' And our society agrees: 'Yes, you brought this upon yourself.' That is false and it must change."

The actress also explains that for her, justice would look like an apology from her unnamed abuser. "'I'm sorry for what I did to you. I raped you. I am without excuse.' That is a beginning," she wrote. "I don't know what is on the other side of it, and it won't undo what happened, but I know it plays a role in how I will work through this."

Hargitay, who turns 60 later this month, said she was "grateful" for where she is in her life despite this "painful part of my story."

"It doesn't come close to defining me, in the same way that no other single part of my story defines me," she ends the essay. "I'm renewed and I'm flooded with compassion for all of us who have suffered. And I'm still proudly in process."

If you are a survivor of sexual assault,RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE &online.rainn.org).

Contributing: Alia E. Dastagir and Anika Reed

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