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Thordis Elva. Credits - Oli Hardar |
Thordis Elva is an author, a playwright, a screen-writer, an entrepreneur and a motivational speaker. Her recent book, "South of Forgiveness" is a non-fiction narrative that talks about the story of how she was raped at the age of 16 by her first boyfriend, Tom Stranger, who co-authored the book with her. Following a TED Talk with Tom in October 2016, Thordis has, since, addressed worldwide audiences through her book and a Q&A that offers up answers about her story, the crafting of their talk and why the two of them do not prescribe their actions as a path for others to follow. Here is Thordis' story in her own words.
I was sixteen, and I
was living in Iceland, which is my home country. I fell in love for the first
time. The boy that I fell in love with was this Australian exchange student who
charmed me with his worldly ways and exotic accent and I was swept off my feet
and I had this, I guess, typical teenage romance that was consensual and
lovely, and lasted a few weeks. He met my friends and my family and it all
progressed in a fairly normal and consensual manner, and romantic in every
sense of the word, until the night of the Christmas dance.
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Thordis as a 16 Year Old, when she met Tom |
I was high on this
newfound maturity of mine, feeling like a young woman for the first time in my
life, now that I had a boyfriend take me to the dance. So I felt it was only
appropriate to take yet another step into the realm of adulthood and try
drinking rum for the first time that night. But that backfired because I became
very ill. My body was not equipped to handle alcohol at that tender age. So,
instead of enjoying myself at the ball, I spent that entire evening in the bathroom,
convulsively vomiting and started drifting in and out of consciousness. To my
surprise and relief, Tom appeared to rescue me from that situation. I was
grateful that I had this 'knight in shining armour' to take me home. I also
remember feeling frustrated by my incapacitated state because I couldn’t move a
limb or utter a word. So, I wasn’t effective in assisting him in any way when
he picked me up from the floor. I couldn’t utter a word of thanks when he got
me out of this predicament. He took me in a taxi, took me home. My head was
clearing up really fast but my body didn’t follow. When we got back to my
place, these feelings I had of gratitude and relief for him, took a very sharp
twist to horror and betrayal as he proceeded to take off my clothes, and
basically have his way with me, and rape me, for what turned out to be two
hours. And the reason why I even know that is because the way I lay in bed, my
head was turned toward the alarm clock. What I could do for the duration of it
to stay sane and to focus on something outside of my body and this pain that I
was experiencing was to count seconds. I’ve spoken to many survivors who have
described similar coping mechanisms – some recounted telephone numbers to
themselves in their head, some went through an alphabetical order of various
concepts to focus on something outside of the horrific event they are
experiencing.
After that night, our
relationship came to an abrupt end. We went our separate ways without
exchanging a word about this dark deed that had preceded our breakup. I could
not put into context what had happened to me for various reasons. First of all,
I was a sixteen year old kid and hadn’t given much of a thought to sexual
violence, and secondly, the little bit that I did know about sexual violence
was basically stereotypical notions that I had borrowed from television shows
and movies. I also have to note that this was twenty years ago – when the
public discourse on sexual violence was underdeveloped compared to today. So basically
my notion of sexual violence was perpetrators were armed lunatics that lurked
in a bush and jumped at you. It didn’t occur to me that it could be your
boyfriend and that it could happen in your own bed. So, it took me a long time to
dismantle these myths in my head. By the time I had, and I could identify that
I had been raped by my first boyfriend, he had left the country because his
exchange program had come to an end. He was as far from me as he could possibly
get, on the planet, because Australia and Iceland are at literally on opposite
ends.
I think that a part of
the reason why it took me a while to face what truly happen that night was also
reluctance. It was a really painful thing to come to terms with and to face –
that the first time I gave my heart away, it would result in abuse. I wanted to
retain my faith in human relationships and my trust in other people. It was
also something I shied away from for some time, but, when it fell into place in
my head, with Tom being on the other side of the planet, with my physical
injuries having healed, with the fact that I didn’t have any witnesses, it
didn’t occur to me as a realistic option to go and press charges. I had no hope
that it would lead to anything productive for me. I did what a majority of
people do statistically – they try to move on after an event like this. I fell
into the majority, the norm in that sense. I tried for nine years to push it
away and move on and not think about it.
It turned out to be
increasingly hard because a part of me needed to confront this, a part of me
needed to heal. Suppressing it became a very demanding task. I became an over
achiever in the sense that I filled my schedule around the clock so I wouldn’t
ever have to stand still and reflect on the past because that was too dangerous
and invited too much self-reflection. I also resorted to destructive coping
mechanisms. I struggled with eating disorders, there was just a lot of negative
behavioural patterns in my life. This was causing stress and tension in my
relationships not only with other people, but also myself, ultimately. So nine
years later, I guess I had hit somewhat of a rock bottom, and I had a fight
with someone that I loved and I stormed out of the door, and drove in tears to
a café, and stormed inside. I asked the waitress for a pen, so I could doodle
in my notebook to calm myself, but then, this letter streamed out of my pen,
addressed to Tom, who had abused me all these years earlier. It was very much a
surprise because I hadn’t been consciously thinking about him.
I guess this was a
testament to how this had been brewing in my subconscious and how I needed to
get it out. So, I was faced with a decision. What was I going to do with this?
Would I send it? I had no idea if he was
still using this old email address of his that I had from almost a decade
earlier. I had no other contact information – and this was before the age of
social media. Of course, my mind went on with all kinds of possible outcomes.
If I did send it, and if he'd react negatively, if he'd accuse me of lying, or
simply ignore it and not respond to me, how would it affect me?
Having thought about
all these different outcomes, I came to the conclusion that even the worst
possible ones would still be worth a shot because I felt that I needed to reclaim
this voice of mine that had made such a daring appearance. These words that had
broken through the surface deserved to be spoken or written. I decided to fire
off the email and didn't expect a reply. The only outcome I had not prepared
myself for mentally was the one that I got – which was Tom’s typed confession.
He sent me this email where he unwaveringly owned up to his actions without
making any excuses and without minimizing them in anyway whatsoever.
This sparked a
correspondence which was definitely not part of my plan. I had never even
entertained that notion that it would lead to a correspondence. When I got the
opportunity to ask all these questions that had been haunting me for so many
years, it was too valuable not to take it. And I think that’s also a very human
characteristic – it is something that is shared by many survivors, this million
dollar question of “Why?” I think the pain that is most difficult to bear in
life is the pain you can’t really reason with, the pain you don’t understand, because
there is something that is really healing about being able to put your
suffering into context. I guess that’s what drove me to embark on this
correspondence. It became apparent to me that Tom needed it for the same
reasons, because he too had been haunted by his actions and his guilty
conscience and he too needed to voice his thoughts to me.
For eight years, we
analyzed the causes and consequences of that fateful night, but it was never
too friendly or familiar. It was not a pen-pal-ship. It was a strict analysis
of all those years and we never strayed from the subject because after all, I
never intended to become Tom’s penpal. That was not the aim of this
communication. It was more to seek answers and put in context how the event had
shaped my life, hoping that it would lead to healing. I guess I had to
communicate some of the consequences to him in order to hold him accountable
for them.
After eight years, I
had written everything I wanted to write, and had posed the thoughts I wanted
to pose. Yet, for some reason, it felt incomplete.
That’s when I realized
that after all, the written format is silent. There is something very powerful
about giving actual voice to the most fateful experiences of life that have
marked you the deepest. It is a literal way to break your silence. There was
this notion that I needed to face it in person – the past, to prove to myself
that I wasn’t a prisoner of it anymore and that it wasn’t going to dominate my
future, and it was a way to put a full stop to that because I didn’t want to
spend the rest of my life writing emails about the violence Tom subjected me to.
I suggested that we meet up and once and for all give voice to this part of our
past that had ended up shaping our lives more than anything and it would
hopefully result in something constructive that would enable a brighter future
and a deeper level of understanding. Tom was nervous and scared when I
presented the idea. I’d be lying if I say I wasn’t nervous about it too – after
all, it was quite radical.
I had no precedent, no
one’s footsteps to follow, so I decided to follow my heart and my heart was
adamant about this being the way to move forward. I suggested that we meet in
the middle, on neutral ground. A wild coincidence followed – South Africa was smack
in the middle of Sydney and Reykjavik, and it was remarkable because South
Africa is one of the countries that has done the most work when it comes to
facing the past, speaking the truth and seeking reconciliation. It was highly
symbolic in many ways.
That’s where we ended
up meeting, sixteen years after that fateful night, in 2013. It took me three
days just to get there since it was a long journey and there were no direct
flights. I decided it didn’t make sense to go there for less than a week. That's
why we spent a week there, basically talking through our lives, because
violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Violence happens because people’s actions
are shaped by all kinds of social influences – they’re shaped by things that
they witness, ideas that they take on, notions that they believe in, and they
have consequences that extend far beyond just the four walls of the room where,
for example, this violent incident took place. Of course, you carry it with you
for the remainder of your life.
I felt it was
important to talk through our lives with that in mind. What was it that shaped
the person that decided to do this to me despite being a privileged western,
educated, middle class white boy who had all the opportunities in the world and
was raised in a balanced family by loving parents that taught him about
equality, what could make him commit a crime like this? I had to hear how it
had affected him to live with this, post incident. How had it shaped his
self-image to integrate this part of himself into his being and face up to his
deeds, and to illustrate to him how he had affected my life. This was a key
element in the entire process, to communicate it to him in order to free myself
of the shame and self-blame I had wrongfully shouldered. It was a symbolic act
in transferring the responsibility and the burden that I had taken on, onto
Tom, to whom they rightfully belonged. I wanted to heal and to try enable a
brighter future for myself, but also give him a chance to apologize and make up
for his wrongdoing.
Of course I had doubts
along the way. There is no manual for how you do this, but I never thought this
journey would put me in physical danger. I wouldn’t have taken such a risk
given that I had found a partner that I was happy with and had a child. I wouldn’t
have risked any of that if I thought that Tom posed any danger to me. When I
say I was scared or doubtful, I don’t mean that I feared Tom as someone who
would be abusive again, but more in the sense that I didn’t know if this
exercise would result in healing or in further understanding, or if it would be
a mission impossible, or an overpriced farce for nothing that would perhaps
result in more emotional damage. There were emotional risks involved, but
despite it being a difficult week, there were also some fantastic discoveries
and some life changing talks that were had. Some conversations called for
vulnerability that is so raw that you are left feeling skinned. Those were
challenging talks to have, but having said that, I know that they permanently
changed my view on my past and myself. By the time we left Cape Town, there had
been a shift. A crazy hope was born in me – that by sharing what we'd learned,
this pain and suffering could be potentially transformed into something useful.
For me, and for other people who are locked in their own silence, not knowing
how to proceed, or people that had blamed themselves the way that I did, or
people that are struggling to take responsibility for hurting another person,
like Tom. There are multiple hopes attached to going public with this story.
There was also a level
of realism that it would be met with the whole spectrum of reactions. The
notion of seeing or hearing a perpetrator of sexual violence speaking is
uncomfortable for a lot of people. I have a strong belief that the invisibility
and lack of accountability on part of the perpetrator is a part of the problem.
I think that by making perpetrators visible, accountable and responsible and
looking into the toxic notions that drive their violent behavior, we can learn
a lot. That can be a step in the direction of uprooting those toxic notions
that foster abuse.
Our story is not a manual
or methodology intended for others to follow. We are two individuals with a
personal story that we’re offering up for discussion. However, I don’t think
that the shame and blame that I shouldered is unique to me. I think it is
common among survivors. Likewise, I don’t think that the notion of entitlement
that made Tom believe he was entitled to my body – because he was my boyfriend,
because we’d been out partying together – is unique to him. They are shared by
a lot of people and that has to end. We have to begin somewhere, and I’m hoping
that by sharing this story, it can spark a discussion about consent, boundaries
and the universal human right to decide when you engage in sexual activity and
with whom – because there’s still a long way to go in that area.
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Thordis and Tom at their TED talk (Credits: Marla Aufmuth) |
We wrote a book
together called South of Forgiveness. Tom and I both made that decision
unanimously, as we shared the belief that there was a potential for our story
to help other people, who had been in the same situation we were in. That was
another whole part and a new chapter in this story. Ironically, when I went to
South Africa, it was because I didn’t want to write about the past anymore. And
the first thing I do when I return from South Africa is to fly into writing
about our analysis of the past that week and what it resulted in.
I read somewhere that
you should be the person you yourself needed when you were younger, and I know
that it would have saved me years of silent suffering had I heard a story like
this, earlier in my life. That hope fuelled me. South of Forgiveness came out
this spring, and with the word 'forgiveness' being in the title, it has gotten
a lot of focus in the public discourse about our book. It has opened my eyes to
the fact that forgiveness is a highly individualized concept, and in many
people’s eyes, forgiveness is almost like a sacrificial thing - as you giving
another as a form of blessing. But my view of forgiveness is the counter
opposite of that. I see forgiveness as an act of self-interest, and I saw it as
a way for me to let go of the shame and self-blame I wrongfully shouldered.
Forgiveness is not laying your blessing over the hurt, but underlining the
hurt, while stating that you don’t want to be weighed down anymore. It was a
way for me to sever ties with this past that had weighed me down for so long.
I understand those
that don’t share my opinion, but that is my view. It was
my process towards a brighter future that was not dominated and dictated by
what had happened to me – because I am much more than what happened to me.