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As detective turned captain Olivia Benson on TV\u2019s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,<\/em> Mariska Hargitay<\/strong><\/a> has helped sexual assault victims find justice and closure. Now, in a personal essay published by People<\/em> on Wednesday<\/a>, Hargitay has shared her own story as a survivor of sexual assault, revealing that she was raped in her 30s by \u201ca friend.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Hargitay, 59, founded the Joyful Heart Foundation<\/a> in 2004 to educate the public and advocate for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. On the foundation\u2019s website, Hargitay\u2019s work on SVU<\/em> is cited as her motivator for creating the organization: \u201cThe content of the scripts, as well as the work she did to prepare for the role, opened her eyes to the staggering statistics about sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse in the United States,\u201d the site says<\/a> of Hargitay. \u201cShe received hundreds, then thousands of letters and emails from survivors disclosing their stories of abuse, many for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n Hargitay now sees Joyful Heart\u2019s establishment as an essential step in her own journey of healing and coming to terms with that assault.<\/p>\n \u201cI was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside,\u201d she wrote in the new essay. \u201cI think I also needed to see what healing could look like. I look back on speeches where I said, \u2018I\u2019m not a survivor.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t being untruthful; it wasn\u2019t how I thought of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n For the longest time, she wrote, she edited the experience out of her personal backstory, even denying it to herself. \u201cI couldn\u2019t process it. I couldn\u2019t believe that it happened\u2014that it could<\/em> happen,\u201d she wrote. \u201cSo I cut it out. I removed it from my narrative. 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.<\/em> Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n She called the fan appreciation for her SVU<\/em> character, Olivia Benson, \u201can honor beyond measure,\u201d adding that others sharing their own stories has helped her. \u201cSurvivors who\u2019ve watched the show have told me I\u2019ve helped them and given them strength. But they\u2019re the ones who\u2019ve been a source of strength for me.\u201d<\/p>\n She said that she has a \u201crenewed determination\u201d to put a stop to sexual assault: \u201cI want this violence to end,\u201d she said, adding that she also aims to banish shame for survivors. \u201cI said for a long time that my hope was for people to be able to talk about sexual assault the same way they now talk about cancer,\u201d she wrote. \u201cTell someone you\u2019ve survived cancer, and you\u2019re celebrated. I want the same response for sexual assault survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharing her personal story is just another step in her own healing. She said that she\u2019d consider getting an acknowledgment and an apology from her rapist to be the first step in achieving justice.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a painful part of my story,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe experience was horrible. But it doesn\u2019t come close to defining me, in the same way that no other single part of my story defines me. No single part of anyone\u2019s story defines them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n