Q&A: Elizabeth Smart on survival, advocacy and the power of sharing her story

(CNN) — Elizabeth Smart became a household name when she was abducted at age 14, held captive for nine months and then found safe. Now 38, she is married with children and devotes her time to advocating for survivors of abduction, abuse and sexual violence.

With the release of the new Netflix documentary “Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart” on Wednesday, CNN sat down with Smart to talk about how her experience shaped her and what her life is like now. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

CNN: Are you happy with the new documentary? What motivated you to revisit your story now? Do you hope the audience learns anything specific from it?

Elizabeth Smart: I am very happy with it. Absolutely — when I first got home, I didn’t hear of anyone else who’d been kidnapped, didn’t know of anyone else who’d been held captive. I didn’t feel like rape, sexual violence and abuse were common conversation. So, I ended up feeling very isolated, very alone.

I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. I felt a great sense of shame over what happened, even though in my mind I knew it wasn’t my fault. But I just couldn’t separate myself, or I couldn’t change my emotions. My emotions still made me feel embarrassed and shameful. And as years went by, I had more and more survivors share their stories with me. And finally, after the trial came out, I felt like, if all of this information about what happened to me was gonna be out there, then I wanted it to serve a purpose, which is when I really got into advocacy.

And I just feel that sharing stories is so important. I feel like it’s one of the best ways we learn, because we can share statistics and they can be awful and terrible and just shocking, but until you start connecting faces with them, it doesn’t quite have the same emotional impact otherwise. And so, when this opportunity came along, I just felt like this was worth doing.

It is important to share my story — important so that if anyone watching is going through something similar, they don’t feel alone and hopefully they don’t feel the same shame and embarrassment that I feel.

CNN: Do you feel like there were any new revelations or anything that you shared during this documentary that you haven’t really touched on before?

Smart: I feel like two stories were being told in parallel to each other. My dad, my uncles, my sister are all going through sort of their side of the story and what was going on. And then at the same time, I was able to go through my story and what was going on because both sides had a story to tell.

When I got home, I remember feeling like, ‘Well, it wasn’t that bad for you guys. You were all together. You had each other. I was alone.’ But now, as a parent myself, I’m like, ‘My goodness, I would do anything. I would gladly go through another kidnapping to protect my children from ever experiencing that.’ So, I think now I have a newer, fresher perspective than I certainly did back then.

CNN: Have you ever talked with your kids about what happened?

Smart: Yes, my kids all are aware of what happened, and they couldn’t tell you details about what happened, but they know that I was kidnapped, and they know that I was held captive for nine months and they know that I was rescued. And they also know that when I say no to them about, like, sleepovers or anything else that I feel like is a risk, they understand why I say no. Well, I don’t know if I would say they understand, but they usually sigh and say, ‘I know it’s because you want to protect us.’

CNN: How has your experience shaped you as a parent?

Smart: I think it just makes me so much more aware of what really is out there, the dangers that social media, YouTube, a lot of these online games pose. And again, my kids aren’t thrilled about it that I’m like, ‘Absolutely not. This is not happening,’ but then they again roll their eyes and they’re like, ‘Fine, I know it’s because you’re trying to keep us safe.’

CNN: Has the family of the kidnappers ever been in touch with you?

Smart: The family of Brian Mitchell — I wouldn’t say we have a close relationship or anything, but there’s been a few times where they sent me a birthday card or just like a card, like on the anniversary of my rescue. But I’d say it’s pretty minimal and that’s OK.

CNN: Would you say you think of your experience differently now? Can you talk about how your experience informs the kind of work you do these days?

Smart: Had I not been kidnapped, had I not gone through everything that I went through, I just wouldn’t understand the world of sexual violence. I wouldn’t understand the world of domestic violence, abuse. I just wouldn’t understand any of that … So, I feel like going through what I’ve been through has made me a much more compassionate person, a much more empathetic person. It’s given me so much more depth of perspective, and it has helped me realize, actually, just how common these problems are and that we need to change our culture around them and we need to provide more education and more support.

I think it’s such a tragedy that when one of these crimes is committed, I feel like we often spend more time focused on the perpetrator than on the victim … I feel like the victim goes through the court of public opinion: ‘Are they worthy to believe? What’s their background? What did they look like? What were they wearing? Were they drinking?’

I do feel like it’s just created a passion in me to speak out, to try to help people understand what it’s like to be a victim, to help victims know they’re not alone, they have nothing to feel ashamed of, that this is not their fault, because ultimately the only way that rape and sexual violence is ever gonna stop is for rapists and predators to stop committing it.

CNN: Do you think that the way society treats survivors and victims has changed for the better since you were rescued?

Smart: I do think it is changing and I think for the most part, it is changing for the better. So, I’m hopeful for the future. I feel like schools are taking it more seriously. We are taught a lot of safety education — which I’m a fan of all safety education — but for example, everybody knows what to do if you catch on fire, right? Stop, drop and roll. That is so basic, so common. But when I go and speak, and I ask that question to the room — how many people have actually used stop, drop and roll? — maybe in an audience of two or three hundred, there’s one or two hands that are raised. And I don’t ask people to raise their hands if they’ve been abused or sexually violated. But just going off the national statistics, it’s about one in five women. It’s probably higher than that. So, I just think, you know, we still have quite a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of change that needs to happen, but I won’t ever give up. I still have a lot of hope for the future. I think that there’s more good people in this world than there are bad people.

CNN: What advice then do you have for victims and survivors?

Smart: First of all, it’s OK to be sad. It’s OK to be angry. Those aren’t bad emotions. It’s OK to basically grieve the life you imagined for yourself, because it does change your life. I would say don’t fall into the trap of comparison … We’ve all only experienced our own worst day. Don’t do that to yourself. We’re all different. Healing looks different for all of us. I’d say pursue connection fearlessly because I look at my own healing journey again and I don’t know if I’d be where I am today if I didn’t have the family that I have, if I didn’t have the support from my community that I have. Find your support group. If the biological family you were born into is the one hurting you, well, they’re actually not your family. You find your friends, you find a counselor, you find people you can rely on no matter what. And then I would say, don’t ever give up on finding your happiness. I mean, it can be really dark, it can be really difficult. Know your healing can look like a roller coaster. Some days are good, some days are bad. Sometimes it feels like you’ve gone backwards a mile, but don’t give up. Happiness is real. You deserve it.

CNN: Your sister was a big part of you being found and featured heavily in the documentary. Are you two still very close? Are you close with your dad? Do you all get to see each other often?

Smart: Yeah, she actually just called me while we were chatting. Yep, I chat to him regularly. He’s a snowbird, so when it gets cold, he goes to warmer climates, which I don’t blame him for.

CNN: Of all the work that you’ve done, is there anything that you’re most proud of or recent projects that you’ve been most excited about?

Smart: One of our programs is called Smart Defense, and it is sort of a holistic approach to self-defense. My director — she is amazing. I mean, she’s won all, like, these world championships in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for her weight class. And she’s like a head shorter than me, but I mean, she could take me down in half a second. But she’s also a survivor herself. And our program is based around jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, Krav Maga — whatever it takes to get away. And it’s not about beating this person into a pulp, although I’m not opposed to that if that happens. It’s about being able to give yourself the opportunity to get away. And I mean, there’s like a lot of breath work involved, because people are getting into your space, and they are placing their hands around your neck. I mean, it is all very heavily consent-based, and we really dive into what consent means.

We talk about what abuse can look like, where it can come from. We talk a lot about situational awareness. For instance, if you are a female student on a university campus, you are two times more likely to be raped than you are to be robbed. So, one of the things that I’m very proud of currently is that we are in almost every public university in Utah. And I’m very excited and hopeful to see it expand much farther than Utah.

CNN: The AMBER Alert system turned 30 years old recently. Utah adopted it soon after your case. Do you think that the AMBER Alert system and similar laws like it do enough to help those who have been abducted?

Smart: Time absolutely is of the essence. If a child disappears, the police will tell you the first 24 to 48 hours are the most crucial, and if a child has gone past that, it’s not uncommon for them to be dead. So, timing absolutely is of the essence, and I am a fan, and I support all legislation that goes to protecting kids, trying to make a difference. So, do I like the AMBER Alert? Of course, absolutely. I helped advocate for the AMBER Alert to be nationwide. But also, could it be improved? One hundred percent.

CNN: Is there anything you see as current priorities in that line of advocacy for victims and survivors?

Smart: I mean, one of the things that I hope to see change is just how communities respond to survivors. I think a lot of times, the first thing we respond with is questions like, ‘Well, are you sure? Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you scream?’ I feel like we see this all the time in domestic violence, specifically: ‘You had a car, you had a debit card, you had a credit card, you had a phone. Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why didn’t you just drive away? Why didn’t you just pack up your kids and go?’ And it’s never that simple on a number of levels.

First of all, I don’t feel like, as a community, we should immediately start off by asking questions — specifically, questions that start with ‘Why didn’t you?’ Because I feel like that implies blame. And then the victim’s like, ‘You don’t think I did enough? I survived. It might not have been the way you thought I should, but I survived and I’m alive and I’m here’ and I would want to see communities just support that and embrace that.

CNN: Is there anything new for you or the foundation on the horizon we should be looking out for?

Smart: My foundation is a small team and we only have so much capacity, but there is a lot I hope we can do. Most recently, we have a campaign — it’s called ‘We Believe You’ — and it’s about believing victims and supporting victims and educating communities on how to respond.

We also were recently able to partner with the company Bitch Sticks, which — I love their whole platform — and for those survivors who want to and feel ready to, give them a safe place to share their stories on a larger platform and receive some acknowledgement for what they went through. So that’s been really exciting for us to start moving forward.

And I just have to say, people are so courageous. People are so inspiring, and I think we’re all a lot more resilient and we’re all a lot stronger than we imagine ourselves to be. For instance, if you told me that I was gonna be kidnapped, was gonna be held captive, all these things were gonna happen to me before it happened to me, I would have definitely been like, ‘My gosh, I will never survive that. That is so much that is too far beyond my capacity to survive.’ But when you don’t have a choice and you just have to keep going, you keep going. I mean, there’s no other option. And I think we would all — I just think we’re all a lot stronger than we imagine ourselves to be.

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