This Happened to Me

Kate Price grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania with her sister and parents. Price was destined to leave, and in doing so, to break one of many, unwritten rules when it came to unbroken cycles of poverty, violence, addiction, mental illness, and abuse. She started a new life in Boston where she discovered the truth of her dark past through a series of hazy flashbacks accompanied by a "chilling of her blood and uncomfortable feeling in her bones."

Overcome with unexplainable grief, she sought out Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma specialist, to help her understand these flashbacks. Price discovered what that darkness that lay within her was - that her father had abused and trafficked her as a child. And so began a 10-year quest with a journalist from the Boston Globe, to prove what Price knew to be her truth. With many trips back to the hometown she thought she had left forever, the two eventually found the hard-earned proof Price had been searching for.

Now, in her exquisitely rendered, transformative memoir, Price describes how she broke free of that which had defined her childhood, to create a life and family on her own terms. From victim to advocate, from fearful child to empowered adult, and from despair to triumph, This Happened to Me is a story of astonishing resilience and breathtaking determination.

This Happened to Me is a brilliant and moving account of a journey of healing from the confusion and betrayal of intrafamiliar sexual abuse. The complex and arduous labor of learning to accept knowing what you know and feeling what you feel, despite its devastating impact on your sense of belonging and community. Thank you, Kate, for sharing your courage and your hard-earned wisdom. Bessel van der Kolk Price not only rises above the hurt and hate, but she also uses her hard-won insights to shine a light for others. Jeanette Walls, no. 1 bestselling author of The Glass Castle