Elizabeth Smart

I'd say it had like a pretty negative connotation attached to it.

back then too i just knew it was something that psychiatrists did and i had such a bad experience at the children's justice center with psychiatrists a few days after i was rescued because we were told if i talked to them they could stand as proxy for me during the trial that of course did not happen but i'd just been kidnapped by a middle-aged white man claiming god commanded him to

And then I was being very intensively questioned by two middle-aged white men, clearly religious.

Yeah.

I was very sheltered as a kid.

My parents didn't call a penis a penis.

It was like your privates.

I had to go down the whole pathway of being like, oh, he hurt me.

Oh, he molested me.

Oh, he raped me.

Oh, he stuck himself inside.

He forced his penis inside my vagina.

I had to get to that level of language.

That I was like, this is the worst thing ever.

I never want to talk about this again.

And if these are psychiatrists, I am not going near anyone ever again.

If I really understood what it was, it could have benefited me, but I will forever be grateful to my parents because they were understandably panicked when I was like, nope, I'm not doing this.

My parents went to therapy and their therapist was like, if she doesn't want to talk, it's okay.

It's not going to do her any good if she doesn't want to.

You need to let her make her own choices and you just need to make sure you're taking care of yourselves because whatever she's been through,