The popular actress Mariska Hargitay who we have known from the police TV series “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” revealed through People magazine that she was raped by her boyfriend when she herself was 30 years old.

The actress explained that she had a hard time processing the traumatic incident and calling it ‘rape’. However, after many years she managed to tell her own people.

Finally, Hargitay also referred to the secondary victimization that often hurts more deeply and stigmatizes the victims as they are not supported in the way they should be.

“A man raped me in my 30s. It wasn’t sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Too much control. He was a friend. Then it wasn’t. I tried every way I knew how to get out of it. I tried to make jokes, to be charming, to set a boundary, to use logic, to say “no”. He grabbed my hands and held me down. I was terrified. I didn’t want it to escalate into violence. Now I know he was already sexually violent, but I was afraid he would become physically violent. I “froze”, a common response to trauma when there is no escape option. I went out of my body,” He wrote

Then, he confessed that he tried to “bury” what happened. “I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t believe it happened. So I “blocked” it. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive. For a long time, I focused on creating a foundation to help survivors of abuse and sexual violence heal. I made Joyful Heart. I think I needed to see how one could be cured of this. I look back at my speeches where I said, “I’m not a survivor.” I wasn’t real. I didn’t see myself that way.”

The 60-year-old actress emphasized that many people believe that rape does not occur if you know the abuser, underlining that this is wrong. As he said: “Now I can clearly see what happened to me. I understand trauma and how it breaks our minds and memories. That’s why I’ve talked so much about dating rape because a lot of people still think of rape as a guy jumping through the bushes. This was a friend who made a unilateral decision.”

“I want this violence to end. Sexual violence exists because there are power structures that allow it to happen. These power structures are so pervasive that no one is immune to them. They reproduce thoughts such as “I must have done something to cause this”. And our society agrees: “Yes, you caused it.” This is wrong and needs to change.”