A rape survivor and the man who attacked her have reunited two decades on to discuss how the rape has impacted their lives. The pair shared a stage to tell their story.
When Thordis Elva was 16 years old, she was raped by 18-year-old Tom Stranger.
Stranger was an exchange student in Elva’s native Iceland and the pair were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time.
Elva recounted the night Stranger forced himself on her after a Christmas ball, when she was drunk and unable to fight back.
“In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock, and ever since that night I have known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours,” she says.
“Despite limping for days and crying for weeks, this incident didn’t fit my ideas about rape like I’d seen on TV. Tom wasn’t an armed lunatic, he was my boyfriend, and it didn’t happen in a seedy alleyway, it happened in my own room.”
Stranger moved back to Australia soon after the attack, and recounts that, for years, he didn’t view what happened as rape.
“To be honest, I repudiated the entire act in the days afterwards and when I was committing it. I disavowed the truth by convincing myself it was sex and not rape. And this is a lie I’ve felt spine-bending guilt for.”
For years Elva struggled and says she was “headed straight for a nervous breakdown. I was consumed with misplaced hatred and anger that I took out on myself”.
She then sent Stranger a lengthy letter, telling him how she was feeling.
It sparked an eight-year-long email correspondence that culminated in the two meeting for the first time in 16 years.
Now Elva and Stranger are co-authors of the forthcoming book South of Forgiveness, an exploration of the attack they both call “the darkest moment of their lives” and its impact on both of their lives over the two decades since.
You can watch the TED talk in its entirety here.
If you or someone you know needs to talk to a professional about sexual assault, contact Rape Prevention Education.
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