OnLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit, Capt.
Olivia Benson has been bringing justice to survivors of sexual violence for more than two decades.
Now the actress behind the iconic character is ready to tell her own story.
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“It wasn’t sexual at all.
It was dominance and control.
Overpowering control,” writes Hargitay, 59.
Mariska Hargitay on ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’.Virginia Sherwood/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
“I tried all the ways I knew to get out of it.
He grabbed me by the arms and held me down.
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.
I went into freeze mode, a common trauma response when there is no option to escape.
I checked out of my body.”
“So I cut it out.
I removed it from my narrative,” she writes.
“I think I also needed to see what healing could look like,” Hargitay writes.
“I look back on speeches where I said, ‘I’m not a survivor.’
I wasn’t being untruthful; it wasn’t how I thought of myself.
I occasionally had talked about what this person did to me, but I minimized it.”
“They were gentle and kind and careful, but their naming it was important,” Hargitay says.
Then I had my own realization.
Now I’m able to see clearly what was done to me."
This was a friend who made a unilateral decision," she writes.
“As for justice, it’s important to know that it may look different for each survivor.
For me, I want an acknowledgment and an apology.I’m sorry for what I did to you.
I am without excuse.That is a beginning.
