Mariska Hargitay is opening up about a traumatic experience.

The 59-year-old Law & Order: SVU star shared her story with People in a new, powerful essay.

“A man raped me in my thirties. It wasn’t sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Overpowering control,” she began.

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“He was a friend. Then he wasn’t. I tried all the ways I knew to get out of it. I tried to make jokes, to be charming, to set a boundary, to reason, to say no. He grabbed me by the arms and held me down. I was terrified. I didn’t want it to escalate to violence. I now know it was already sexual violence, but I was afraid he would become physically violent. I went into freeze mode, a common trauma response when there is no option to escape. I checked out of my body.”

She also wrote about building her foundation for abuse survivors, Joyful Heart.

“I was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside. I think I also needed to see what healing could look like. I look back on speeches where I said, ‘I’m not a survivor.’ I wasn’t being untruthful; it wasn’t how I thought of myself,” she revealed.

“I occasionally had talked about what this person did to me, but I minimized it. My husband Peter remembers me saying, ‘I mean, it wasn’t rape.’ Then things started shifting in me, and I began talking about it more in earnest with those closest to me,” Mariska went on to say.

“Now I’m able to see clearly what was done to me. I understand the neurobiology of trauma. Trauma fractures our mind and our memory. The way a mirror fractures.”

Mariska also addressed the idea of seeking justice.

“As for justice, it’s important to know that it may look different for each survivor. For me, I want an acknowledgment and an apology. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I raped you. I am without excuse. That is a beginning. I don’t know what is on the other side of it, and it won’t undo what happened, but I know it plays a role in how I will work through this. This is a painful part of my story. The experience was horrible. But it doesn’t come close to defining me, in the same way that no other single part of my story defines me. No single part of anyone’s story defines them.”

“I’m turning 60, and I’m so deeply grateful for where I am. I’m renewed and I’m flooded with compassion for all of us who have suffered. And I’m still proudly in process,” she concluded. Read her whole essay in her own words.

Find out what Mariska Hargitay did after adopting a cute new pet.