Speaker 1: This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doorny. Hello, Let's
Speaker 1: be clear family. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and I'm so excited
Speaker 1: and honored to be guest hosting today. I know, Let's
Speaker 1: Be Clear is all about strong women using their voices
Speaker 1: about issues that they care about, things that are important
Speaker 1: to them, and so I'm just very, very honored to
Speaker 1: be included in that number. Over the past twenty years,
Speaker 1: I have just come to really realize and recognize that
Speaker 1: every person has a story and that we are so
Speaker 1: all interconnected, and that are what we experience can have
Speaker 1: not just a huge impact on our own lives, but
Speaker 1: on the lives all around us. And we will probably
Speaker 1: never ever realize the impact that each one of our
Speaker 1: stories has on those around us. You know, I have
Speaker 1: spent the last twenty plus years in the advocacy world
Speaker 1: in speaking out, in sharing my story of abduction and
Speaker 1: captivity and then my rescue and moving forward, and I've
Speaker 1: had so many people approach me over the years and
Speaker 1: say things like I've experienced something similar, but nothing in comparison.
Speaker 1: And when I hear those words, I am actually heartbroken,
Speaker 1: because we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to anyone No one
Speaker 1: should be looking at my experience and then looking at
Speaker 1: their experience and being like, well, why does she seem okay?
Speaker 1: Why when what I went through doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: like on the same level of what she went through,
Speaker 1: And yet I'm not okay. That is so unfair and
Speaker 1: so wrong. And if we ever cross paths and you
Speaker 1: say that to me, we're not going to be friends,
Speaker 1: because that is not okay. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: paying is pain, and trauma is trauma, and we are
Speaker 1: all so different. There's no way you could ever accurately
Speaker 1: compare your trauma, your story, or your experiences to anyone else's.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to start by saying, give yourself
Speaker 1: some grace, give yourself some love and compassion, and just
Speaker 1: acknowledge that we are we are all different, none of
Speaker 1: us are the same. You know, I was raised in
Speaker 1: a very safe, secure, loving family. I never dreamed that
Speaker 1: anything bad could ever happen to me. I thought that
Speaker 1: my life would just continue on the way that it
Speaker 1: had been going. You know, I thought I'd go to
Speaker 1: I was in junior high at the time. If I
Speaker 1: was going to finish junior high, i'd go to high school.
Speaker 1: I'd go to college, you know, I'd get a job,
Speaker 1: I'd fall in love, I'd get married, I'd have a family,
Speaker 1: and that would pretty much more or less be my life.
Speaker 1: Like that is how I saw going. And prior to
Speaker 1: my kidnapping, I could not imagine my life like anything
Speaker 1: altering that that path forward. It just that just seemed
Speaker 1: like what it would be. And of course it was
Speaker 1: the night before I was about to graduate when my
Speaker 1: world literally flipped upside down. I shared a room with
Speaker 1: my younger sister, Mary Catherine, and we were about five
Speaker 1: years apart, so I was fourteen, she was she was nine, sighing,
Speaker 1: and I remember going to bed that night. I remember
Speaker 1: reading a book to her, and she kept on asking
Speaker 1: me like, oh, read one more chapter, Read one more chapter.
Speaker 1: And I remember by the time I actually finished reading
Speaker 1: just one more chapter, she had actually fallen asleep, and
Speaker 1: I remember it being pretty late, and I remember just
Speaker 1: putting the book down and lying in bed next her
Speaker 1: and falling asleep. The next thing that I remember was
Speaker 1: a man standing over me. He had a knife at
Speaker 1: my neck and he was saying, well, he was telling me,
Speaker 1: I have a knife at your neck, don't make sound.
Speaker 1: Get up and come with me. And I mean initially
Speaker 1: I didn't think that that there could actually be a
Speaker 1: man in my room. That just was not something that
Speaker 1: was a possibility. There's no way that could happen. My
Speaker 1: bedroom was on the top floor of our house. It
Speaker 1: was probably one of the highest, one of the highest,
Speaker 1: if not the highest point of the house. I mean,
Speaker 1: none of my windows were on ground floor. And I
Speaker 1: think that had been very intentional by my parents when
Speaker 1: they were like designing our house and deciding where each
Speaker 1: one of us should sleep. So this was just not
Speaker 1: something that I ever thought could happen. Plus, in that moment,
Speaker 1: I was totally shocked. Like I received probably the same
Speaker 1: safety education that everybody else receives, like look both ways
Speaker 1: when you cross the street, stranger danger, use the buddy system.
Speaker 1: If you catch on fire, you should you stop drop
Speaker 1: and roll. And like if we were all sitting in
Speaker 1: a room together, I'd probably ask you, oh, how many
Speaker 1: of you have ever actually used stop, drop and roll?
Speaker 1: In all my time like speaking and advocating, And I've
Speaker 1: asked that question. It's been so few. Hardly anyone raises
Speaker 1: their hand. If it's a really big audience, maybe there's
Speaker 1: one person, maybe one person that's it. But statistically now
Speaker 1: I know that on average in the United States, one
Speaker 1: out of five women is sexually abused. In my home
Speaker 1: state of Utah, it's about one in three. It varies
Speaker 1: from state to state, and I am willing to bet
Speaker 1: that those statistics aren't accurate because not every woman discloses,
Speaker 1: not every person discloses, and so I don't mean to
Speaker 1: go down a rabbit hole, but sometimes I just think,
Speaker 1: why are we teaching stop, drop and roll, which again
Speaker 1: I'm pro safety education, like we should, yes, absolutely teach
Speaker 1: everything we can to prevent things from happening, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, the chances of you actually using that
Speaker 1: seemed to be, in my experience, very very slim, whereas
Speaker 1: the chances of you experiencing some form of sexual violence
Speaker 1: or abuse are very high. Anyway, that's always kind of
Speaker 1: bothered me. But in that moment, when this man standing
Speaker 1: above me with a knife to my neck saying get
Speaker 1: up and come with me, I really genuinely did not
Speaker 1: feel like I had any other option. There was no
Speaker 1: education that I had been given up to that point
Speaker 1: that really made me feel like I could do something different.
Speaker 1: So I remember just immediately getting up and going with him.
Speaker 1: I didn't know who he was, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was capable of, but he did have a knife
Speaker 1: on me. He was telling me to go with him,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I needed to do everything I
Speaker 1: could to survive. I felt like I needed to do
Speaker 1: everything I could to protect my little sister, who was
Speaker 1: asleep in bed next me. And I got up and
Speaker 1: I went with him, and I remember he took me
Speaker 1: up into the mountains behind my home. The whole way
Speaker 1: as he took me up into the mountains, I remember
Speaker 1: just being so worried and nervous that maybe there was
Speaker 1: a chance to escape, Maybe there was an opportunity to escape.
Speaker 1: And I remember being so worried and concerned that somehow
Speaker 1: I had missed that opportunity, that somehow that opportunity had
Speaker 1: passed me by and I'd missed my chance. I remember
Speaker 1: being absolutely terrified that somehow I'd missed my chance. Of course,
Speaker 1: now like looking back on that night and thinking back
Speaker 1: on that night, I can honestly say that no, there
Speaker 1: was never a chance for me to escape. But you know,
Speaker 1: as a fourteen year old like that was those were
Speaker 1: their thoughts going through my head. I remember it felt
Speaker 1: like we went on all night. Right as we crossed
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain, the sun it was light,
Speaker 1: the sun was up, and he was in a rush
Speaker 1: to get me down the other side, and I remember
Speaker 1: we we were probably we were probably about a quarter
Speaker 1: of the way down the other side of the mountain
Speaker 1: when we came to a stand of trees, which, again
Speaker 1: not that strange. I mean, we had fought our way
Speaker 1: through trees the whole way up the mountain. It stood
Speaker 1: to reason they'd be trees on the other side. So
Speaker 1: when we were about a quarter of the way down,
Speaker 1: he brought me to the stand of trees and they
Speaker 1: all looked the same to me. I honestly don't know
Speaker 1: how he knew that it was this specific stand of trees,
Speaker 1: but he brought me into the middle and I saw
Speaker 1: how part of the mountain side had been leveled out.
Speaker 1: There was a tent set up outside, there were some
Speaker 1: tarps laying on the ground, and there were some tarps
Speaker 1: hanging up in the trees, and there was a woman.
Speaker 1: And my first impression when I saw this woman was
Speaker 1: that it was going to be okay. Because this woman,
Speaker 1: I mean, she was older. I remember, she kind of
Speaker 1: opened her arms to me as she approached me, like
Speaker 1: she was gonna hug me, and I just remember thinking, well,
Speaker 1: if there's there's a woman here, then truly nothing that
Speaker 1: terrible can happen, Like she will protect me if anything
Speaker 1: bad is going to happen. Unfortunately, that thought disappeared pretty
Speaker 1: quickly because when she hugged me, it wasn't really like
Speaker 1: a comforting embrace. It was really more sort of a
Speaker 1: it was it was more sort of an embrace that
Speaker 1: seemed to exert dominance, if that makes sense. It was
Speaker 1: like she wanted me to know that she was in
Speaker 1: control and not me. And I remember she brought me
Speaker 1: inside of the tent. She sat me down on this
Speaker 1: upturned bucket. She started to try to undress me. I
Speaker 1: was very shy as a fourteen year old. I was
Speaker 1: very self conscious as a fourteen year old. I mean
Speaker 1: getting changed for gym class was traumatic to me. Back then.
Speaker 1: It was like I'd like lay my shore out and
Speaker 1: I'd lay my t shirt out so I could make
Speaker 1: the smoothest quickest transition possible from like the rest of
Speaker 1: the day close to the gym clothes and then vice versa.
Speaker 1: When when gym class was over, so I was. I was.
Speaker 1: It'd be fair to say I was pretty awkward as
Speaker 1: a kid, and I was anyway. I wasn't okay with
Speaker 1: her trying to dress me or sponge bathe me. And
Speaker 1: I remember begging her and pleading with her to let
Speaker 1: me do it, which she actually did, which I didn't
Speaker 1: know at that point, but now, of course, in hindsight,
Speaker 1: I know that was actually a very big deal. This woman,
Speaker 1: she never she never changed her mind. Like once she
Speaker 1: made up her mind on something, that was it, that
Speaker 1: was the only way forward. And once I had done
Speaker 1: what she said, she scooped up my clothes and she
Speaker 1: got up and walked out of the tent. And then
Speaker 1: in came this man and he came in and he
Speaker 1: knelt down next to me, and honestly, I wasn't listening
Speaker 1: to what he had to say. I was like, I
Speaker 1: was crying. I was scared. I was wondering, how had
Speaker 1: this happened to me? Why was this happening to me?
Speaker 1: Like I didn't think we had offended anyone, and certainly
Speaker 1: we hadn't offended anyone enough that they would choose to
Speaker 1: kidnap me to like as some form of revenge. Why
Speaker 1: would anyone kidnap me like I wasn't anything special. I
Speaker 1: couldn't understand it. And I remember himkneeling down next to
Speaker 1: me and he started to speak, and initially I really
Speaker 1: wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, but then
Speaker 1: I had a thought that maybe I should, because maybe
Speaker 1: there'd be some clue or some hint or something that
Speaker 1: would let me know why he had kidnapped me, give
Speaker 1: me some direction of how to get away, or maybe
Speaker 1: get a message to my family, which is when I
Speaker 1: heard him say that I was now his wife, and
Speaker 1: I remember just being so shocked when he first started speaking.
Speaker 1: I really didn't know what he was going to say.
Speaker 1: I think if I expected him to say anything, it
Speaker 1: probably would have been like an explanation, or maybe like
Speaker 1: a ransom demand, or what their plan or intention was
Speaker 1: with me. It wasn't that we were now going to
Speaker 1: be husband and wife. And I remember just begging and
Speaker 1: pleading with him that this couldn't happen. This wasn't okay.
Speaker 1: I was still a kid, I wasn't eighteen, like, this
Speaker 1: wasn't legal. All these reasons why this wasn't okay, and
Speaker 1: ultimately none of it nothing that I said made a difference.
Speaker 1: He ultimately did force me on the ground and rape me.
Speaker 1: When he was finished, he stood up and smiled and
Speaker 1: turned around and walked away out of the tent. Now
Speaker 1: for me, that was devastating. I mean, I grew up
Speaker 1: in a very conservative home. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: very Christian home. I went to church every single Sunday.
Speaker 1: There'd always been a huge emphasis put on chastity, on purity,
Speaker 1: on virtue. Basically all these different words. You could use,
Speaker 1: all these different words almost interchangeably, because they all seemed
Speaker 1: to mean don't have sex before marriage, and nobody ever
Speaker 1: took the time, which I think is so so important.
Speaker 1: If I'm not here to say, like what you should
Speaker 1: teach your child like, or when you should teach your
Speaker 1: child about sex or intimacy like, everyone should use their
Speaker 1: own discretion. But I do feel very strongly that when
Speaker 1: you do decide to teach your children, when you do
Speaker 1: decide to have these conversations with them, it is vital
Speaker 1: that you speak to them and help them understand that
Speaker 1: there is a difference between you know, enthusiastic consensual sex,
Speaker 1: consensual intimacy versus rape and sexual violence, and that it
Speaker 1: can happen. I've met I've just met so many survivors
Speaker 1: over the years that didn't know what happened to them
Speaker 1: was rape because it was from someone that they knew,
Speaker 1: a partner or a friend or a family member, and
Speaker 1: they think, well, you know, that can't happen because I
Speaker 1: know this person, or this is my uncle, they love me,
Speaker 1: my family loves him, or my family would never believe
Speaker 1: me over him. That just I think it's really important
Speaker 1: that we have these conversations because it can be anyone.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying it's necessarily always going to be
Speaker 1: a man. Statistically the chances are much greater. But if
Speaker 1: you're going to have these, when you have conversations like this,
Speaker 1: please do yourself and your child of favor and talk
Speaker 1: to them as well about sexual violence and rape, because
Speaker 1: otherwise it can lead to so much guilt and so
Speaker 1: much shame and feeling like you're not worthy, you're not
Speaker 1: good enough, you're not lovable, because that's exactly what happened
Speaker 1: to me after my kidnapper raped me. I really doubted
Speaker 1: whether or not I was good enough to be saved.
Speaker 1: I doubted whether or not I was worthy to be saved.
Speaker 1: I felt like if my parents knew what had happened
Speaker 1: to me, that they would just say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: like this, that's too bad, But we still have five
Speaker 1: other kids, and that's still a lot of kids, so
Speaker 1: we'll we'll just have to write Elizabeth. Of course that
Speaker 1: is not what they felt or thought, but having grown
Speaker 1: up with that kind of mindset, never having had the
Speaker 1: education on the differences, I didn't know that, and that's
Speaker 1: just how I felt. I remember at that point. I
Speaker 1: actually don't know if I fell asleep or if I
Speaker 1: passed out, but one of the two happened. And when
Speaker 1: I woke up, there was a piece of metal cable
Speaker 1: and it was wrapped around my ankle and there were
Speaker 1: bolts crushed into place so that I couldn't run away.
Speaker 1: It was just long enough for me to lie down
Speaker 1: inside the tent that they had set up, and then
Speaker 1: long enough for me to reach a bucket, and that
Speaker 1: was as far as I could move. I mean, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot. It was maybe twelve feet. I mean
Speaker 1: that's maybe as far as I could move. And I
Speaker 1: really did feel like I had hit rock bottom in
Speaker 1: that moment. And my captors, of course, they were they
Speaker 1: were talking and talking about how things were going to go,
Speaker 1: kind of what the rules were. They were telling me
Speaker 1: I had a new name. They were telling me I
Speaker 1: couldn't talk about my family, and they're saying all these
Speaker 1: things about the future. And I'm looking around this camp
Speaker 1: and I'm realizing, Wow, this is really hidden away, this
Speaker 1: is really difficult to get to. This is very well supplied.
Speaker 1: They're talking about a future. I mean, they don't plan
Speaker 1: on killing me yet, Like they plan on keeping me
Speaker 1: for for a while. How long is that? Like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like days, it sounds kind of more long term.
Speaker 1: What if it's months. What if it's years. What if
Speaker 1: it's so long that I actually forget who I am?
Speaker 1: And that thought really scared me. Now I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have actually forgotten who I was, but I
Speaker 1: still had that fear regardless. And so I remember just thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm going to remember everything about my life that I
Speaker 1: can prior to them kidnapping, and my parents were top
Speaker 1: priority of that list of things to remember. And I
Speaker 1: remembered my mom one day, I'd come home from school
Speaker 1: upset and she's trying to help me feel better, and
Speaker 1: then she said, she said a whole bunch of things,
Speaker 1: but one of the main things that she said was, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: you know, I may not always agree with everything that
Speaker 1: you do, and I might not always like everyone you
Speaker 1: decide to interact with, and I may not like all
Speaker 1: the places you decide to go. But I'll always love
Speaker 1: you and nothing can ever change that. And as I
Speaker 1: sat on this mountain side remembering her telling me that,
Speaker 1: I realized that she was right, that she would always
Speaker 1: love me. That she but it wouldn't matter to her.
Speaker 1: Love for me couldn't be altered because I'd been kidnapped,
Speaker 1: or because I'd been raped, or because I'd been chained up.
Speaker 1: And honestly, that was probably probably the single most important
Speaker 1: thought I had while I was kidnapped, because in that moment,
Speaker 1: I realized that I had something that my captors could
Speaker 1: not take away. I mean, they'd taken me away from
Speaker 1: my family, they'd taken my clothes away, they'd raped me,
Speaker 1: they chained me up. I mean, they'd taken away my name,
Speaker 1: they'd taken away my freedom. They'd taken away so much
Speaker 1: they could they could take away my life if they
Speaker 1: wanted to, But they could not take away the fact
Speaker 1: that my mom would always love me, and so I
Speaker 1: made up my mind that that would be worth surviving
Speaker 1: for that if it meant doing whatever I had to do,
Speaker 1: if it meant that, I would survive another day, And
Speaker 1: so that's how I survived every day after that. I
Speaker 1: would whenever my captors put me in a situation that
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be in, which, let's face it,
Speaker 1: that was every day. But if it was something that
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do, or something that maybe I'd
Speaker 1: been raised not to do that I'd grown up believing
Speaker 1: not to do, I would ask myself, what will happen
Speaker 1: to me if I don't do this? And then I'd
Speaker 1: ask myself what will happen to me if I do this?
Speaker 1: And that's how I would gauge my decisions on what
Speaker 1: to do. And eventually it did become more second nature,
Speaker 1: and from the outside looking in, it would be understandable
Speaker 1: how people wouldn't like, why people wouldn't understand why I
Speaker 1: did what they did, or why they would think I
Speaker 1: looked like like I was okay with it, or why
Speaker 1: I didn't appear to be struggling, because over you know,
Speaker 1: the last twenty years, over more than that, I have
Speaker 1: been questioned so many times like well, why didn't you
Speaker 1: run away, Why didn't you scream? Why didn't you yell?
Speaker 1: It was never because I didn't want to, and the
Speaker 1: few attempts that I made ended very badly. I was
Speaker 1: punished brutally, and so I did get to a point
Speaker 1: where it just became second nature to do what they want,
Speaker 1: because I had learned that's how to survive. And in
Speaker 1: my mind when I thought about escaping, when I thought
Speaker 1: about making my bid for freedom, I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be a sure thing. I did not want to risk
Speaker 1: my life, and not only did I feel like my
Speaker 1: life was at risk, but I also felt like my
Speaker 1: family's life was at risk because he threatened me every day,
Speaker 1: not just with my life, both my family's life as well.
Speaker 1: And for nine months I had no reason not to
Speaker 1: believe him. I mean, he followed through everything he threatened
Speaker 1: me with, so when he did make those threats, those
Speaker 1: were very real threats. All the way up to the
Speaker 1: day that I was rescued. During my captivity, my captors
Speaker 1: would take me to southern California. I had convinced them
Speaker 1: to come back to Utah. I felt like that was
Speaker 1: my best chance to escape, and I remember police officers
Speaker 1: approaching my captors and I, and they started questioning my captors,
Speaker 1: and then they started questioning me, and initially I gave
Speaker 1: them the answers I had been told to give. Was
Speaker 1: I was scared to say anything that I was told
Speaker 1: not to say. My captors were still physically standing on
Speaker 1: either side of me. I mean, they were both touching me. Like,
Speaker 1: I did not feel like I was in a safe environment.
Speaker 1: I didn't know these police officers. I really had no
Speaker 1: interaction with police officers before. I just felt I didn't
Speaker 1: feel safe. I didn't feel comfortable and the officers, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know they were doing their job, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, like they were very aggressive in their questioning
Speaker 1: and I was a shy, scared girl, and so ultimately
Speaker 1: I was not able to admit who I was until
Speaker 1: they had separated me from my captors and questioned me alone.
Speaker 1: When I did admit who I was, they did handcuff
Speaker 1: me and put me in the back of the car
Speaker 1: and take me to the police station, at which point
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, my gosh, I made the wrong choice.
Speaker 1: I should not have said anything. They think I'm guilty.
Speaker 1: They're going to send me to jail. They did eventually
Speaker 1: take the handcuffs off and I was reunited with my dad.
Speaker 1: Before he arrived, I was brought to this little, small room,
Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking, this is the holding cell.
Speaker 1: They're going to check me in, Like I thought, I
Speaker 1: was allowed a phone call. If they thought I was innocent,
Speaker 1: wouldn't they have taken me straight home? Wouldn't they have
Speaker 1: let me call my parents. They must think I'm guilty,
Speaker 1: they must think that I've done something wrong. And I
Speaker 1: remember the door just bursting open, and that's when my
Speaker 1: dad appeared, and I remember he just came running over
Speaker 1: to me and he just grabbed me in this huge
Speaker 1: hug and he started crying and he kept on saying, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: is it really you? And that was the first time
Speaker 1: in nine months that I felt safe. That was when
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to be okay, because even
Speaker 1: if I was in trouble, my dad was there, and
Speaker 1: I knew that he was never going to let another
Speaker 1: person hurt me the way that these two monsters had
Speaker 1: hurt me the last nine months. I was taken to
Speaker 1: the police station, I was saying, to the hospital. I
Speaker 1: was a actually brought home, and I remember getting home
Speaker 1: and it genuinely felt like I mean, I felt like
Speaker 1: I was royalty. I felt like everything that had been
Speaker 1: taken away from me had all of a sudden been
Speaker 1: given back. There was carpet and running water, and I mean,
Speaker 1: most importantly, my family was all there, and I just
Speaker 1: remember being so happy that night. That is such a
Speaker 1: good memory for me. That night. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: was in talking with my mom and I was like
Speaker 1: turning around to leave her room, and she called me
Speaker 1: back and she said, you know, Elizabeth, what these people
Speaker 1: have done to you is terrible. Their aunt were strong
Speaker 1: to describe how wicked and evil they are. They've stolen
Speaker 1: nine months of your life that you will never get back.
Speaker 1: But the best punishment you could ever give them is
Speaker 1: to be happy. And initially when she said that advice,
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, why are you telling me this?
Speaker 1: Like I am happy, I'm at home, Like I was
Speaker 1: just rescued, Like my story is done, my story is over.
Speaker 1: Except it wasn't. I mean, my story is still being
Speaker 1: written today, just as all of our stories are. That
Speaker 1: was a chapter, certainly, but I mean there were lots
Speaker 1: of hard things that have happened since then. I mean,
Speaker 1: going through the court experience was hard. Coming to terms
Speaker 1: with like my own feelings was hard. Coming to love
Speaker 1: myself again was hard because even though I'd been rescued
Speaker 1: in that moment and I was happy in that moment,
Speaker 1: I mean that moment did eventually fade, and you know,
Speaker 1: I would go to church again, or I would sit
Speaker 1: in class again, and comments would be made and I
Speaker 1: would feel less. Then I'd feel less than everyone else
Speaker 1: or not as good as everyone else. And so that
Speaker 1: took time to heal my relationship with myself. And even
Speaker 1: though logically I could always be like, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: choose to be kidnapped, I didn't choose to be raped,
Speaker 1: I didn't choose to be heart or broken, I still
Speaker 1: felt that way and so that did take time. And
Speaker 1: you know, there were many steps in my journey, and
Speaker 1: I am often asked, well, you know, what did you
Speaker 1: do for your healing, or like, have you tried this
Speaker 1: therapy or what do you think of that therapy? And
Speaker 1: first and foremost, I am a fan of therapy. When
Speaker 1: I was first rescued, I did not understand what it was.
Speaker 1: I had a very antiquated idea of what it was,
Speaker 1: and it was not something I feel like that was
Speaker 1: openly spoken about back then, so I didn't want to
Speaker 1: speak about what had happened. I was scared to open
Speaker 1: myself up and be vulnerable with other people because I thought,
Speaker 1: how could they possibly understand. They weren't there, they didn't
Speaker 1: experience that. I don't even know this peron, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what they have experienced. And if they have
Speaker 1: had nothing like even close to that, why would I
Speaker 1: want to share like the worst parts of my life
Speaker 1: with them? Why would I even want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: I just like, I want to leave that in the
Speaker 1: past and I want to move forward now. Of course
Speaker 1: I know much better. But I will say there is
Speaker 1: no formula. There is no one size fits all. There
Speaker 1: is no one modality of therapy that will work for everyone.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever been in therapy, if you've ever
Speaker 1: experienced it, then you know that you are the one
Speaker 1: who has to put the work in. And this is
Speaker 1: very much uh like, yes, there is a therapist there,
Speaker 1: but like, if you're not willing to do the work,
Speaker 1: then really you're just wasting your money. So you have
Speaker 1: to find what works for you. And there's so many
Speaker 1: different kinds of therapy in today's world. And there's so
Speaker 1: many different therapists, Like I can say, if you're struggling,
Speaker 1: don't give up, don't be afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1: Keep trying and different therapies. Keep trying, you know, different
Speaker 1: healing pathways, positive things in your life until you figure
Speaker 1: out what works. Don't give up on yourself because no
Speaker 1: matter what has happened to you, what someone else has
Speaker 1: done to you, or illness or loss of a job,
Speaker 1: like you, you're worthy. Nobody else can take away your
Speaker 1: value in this world. You should never give up on yourself.
Speaker 1: You should constantly be working on building that positive relationship
Speaker 1: with yourself. I mean, like the mental voice that you
Speaker 1: hear inside your head, the one that it's so easy
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, I'm just going to speak about
Speaker 1: myself for a minute. Not that I haven't been doing
Speaker 1: that already, but it's so easy for like my brain
Speaker 1: to be like Elizabeth, like you should have done better.
Speaker 1: I expect more out of you, Like why why didn't
Speaker 1: you push harder? Why didn't you dig deep? Or why
Speaker 1: weren't you smarter? Why weren't you more prepared? It's so
Speaker 1: easy to have that kind of thinking, but I think
Speaker 1: it's really important for us to try to flip it
Speaker 1: to be like, you are so strong, Elizabeth. You are
Speaker 1: so strong, You've survived every day of your life up
Speaker 1: until now. You can keep going. You are so strong.
Speaker 1: Do not give up like you know, and if today
Speaker 1: doesn't work out the way you planned, You're going to
Speaker 1: try again tomorrow, and you're going to try again the
Speaker 1: next day. You will figure this out. You will find
Speaker 1: a way through. Like I think that positive relationship, that
Speaker 1: positive self talk, trying to switch your inner voice from
Speaker 1: negative to positive, I think is so important and really
Speaker 1: really powerful for ourselves. So definitely work on your relationship
Speaker 1: with yourself, because you're worth it. I would also say
Speaker 1: that there isn't any I know. I know I've already
Speaker 1: said that there isn't anything that anyone can do to
Speaker 1: you that can lose your value. But I really do
Speaker 1: want to stress that everyone deserves to have happiness, Everyone
Speaker 1: deserves to be loved everyone, everyone deserves connection. And I
Speaker 1: have learned over the past long time that not not
Speaker 1: all stories have happy endings, unfortunately, and in many cases
Speaker 1: of abuse and violence, most of the time comes from
Speaker 1: people that you know. And so initially, when I was
Speaker 1: at home, when I first came home. As I said,
Speaker 1: I was hesitant to share my story. I was hesitant
Speaker 1: to speak out because I didn't think anyone could understand.
Speaker 1: But then as years went by, began to meet more
Speaker 1: and more survivors, and I began to hear more and
Speaker 1: more stories, and I realize actually how common it is.
Speaker 1: It's important to share our stories because we're not alone.
Speaker 1: There are so many other survivors. Whatever your story is,
Speaker 1: there is someone out there who's experiencing the same thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe the details are different, maybe the circumstances are different,
Speaker 1: but there's someone out there who is experiencing the same thing.
Speaker 1: And it's so powerful to know that you're not alone.
Speaker 1: When I came home, I did feel very alone, but
Speaker 1: now I don't because I know there are so many
Speaker 1: other survivors out there. And that's why I share my story,
Speaker 1: so that they know that they're not alone, so that
Speaker 1: they know that there's someone else out there who's experienced
Speaker 1: the same thing and they don't need to be ashamed
Speaker 1: or embarrassed. And it also helped me realize how lucky
Speaker 1: I am because I was kidnapped by a stranger. I
Speaker 1: was raped by a stranger, and as I mentioned, most people.
Speaker 1: If they're kidnapped or raped, they typically know they're perpetrators.
Speaker 1: And I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to
Speaker 1: ever trust again because that level of betrayal is so deep.
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine how difficult it would be just to
Speaker 1: climb into your own bed at night, because you might
Speaker 1: not know who's going to climb into bed next to you.
Speaker 1: So to all those survivors out there who are struggling
Speaker 1: with past abuse, like you are incredible, You are absolutely amazing,
Speaker 1: You are so strong, Do not give up on yourself.
Speaker 1: And then finally, I would want you to know that, yes,
Speaker 1: it can feel like these chapters of our life define us.
Speaker 1: It's so easy for me to go out and feel
Speaker 1: like when people come up and talk to me, they're
Speaker 1: just looking at me as Elizabeth Smart, the girl that
Speaker 1: was kidnapped. And sometimes I think, but that's not all,
Speaker 1: that's not all of me, Like I'm so much more
Speaker 1: than just that one part of my life. I mean,
Speaker 1: now I'm married, and I have kids, and I like running,
Speaker 1: and I like reading books, and I don't like doing dishes,
Speaker 1: but yet I find myself doing them every day nonetheless.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like we are all so much more
Speaker 1: than the worst moments of our life. And yes, other
Speaker 1: people might look at you that way, but ultimately, I
Speaker 1: feel like we define ourselves, and we define ourselves not
Speaker 1: so much by what happens to us, but how we
Speaker 1: respond and what we do next. We define ourselves through
Speaker 1: our actions and our choiceices. And so don't give up
Speaker 1: on yourself. I mean, keep believing in yourself, share your story,
Speaker 1: love yourself, give yourself some grace, and remember you choose
Speaker 1: who you get to be. And so with that being said,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you again for allowing
Speaker 1: me to guest host this this session, this podcast of
Speaker 1: Let's Be Clear. Thank you and God bless you. M
Speaker 1: M m m