I am pleased to bring you the thinking of today’s guest, Thordis Elva. Thordis is an Icelandic author, speaker, playwright, and activist for gender equality. Thordis collaborated on and published a book with her perpetrator, Tom Stranger, making her the first rape survivor in the world to publicly do this.

We will be discussing a range of topics, such as the meaning of forgiveness and atonement, the importance of anger and vengeance as steppingstones toward forgiveness, and the need to change misconceptions and myths about sexual abuse.

My Path to Healing May Not be Yours

You can listen to the full conversation by clicking ‘play’ above, or on the following podcast platforms:

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• Spotify
• Google Play
• Stitcher

 

 

The following is a taste of my conversation with Thordis.

Q: How do you define forgiveness?
Thordis: it’s one of those incredibly personal concepts that I know looks different for each individual, but I would say that I feel it’s an emotional process that you only have so much control of. At the core of it, I see it as an act of self-healing.

Q: What’s the role of anger in the forgiveness process?
Thordis: For some people the anger itself and the distance is a form of healing. But letting go of the past and cutting ties with your perpetrator, I think, is also very relevant. I think it was Desmond Tutu the former Archbishop of South Africa, who said that if you are in a state of anger toward your perpetrator, it’s a form of being chained to them.

Q: Are some acts simply unforgiveable?
Thordis: I actually entirely reject that notion because that would imply that other people could decide for you what’s forgivable or not forgivable. And honestly, I think that’s impossible and arrogant at the same time. I can’t possibly know what another person’s heart is like or what they need to move on from something.

Q: Can you describe some of the bumps along the road to forgiving Tom?
Thordis: Forgiveness is like a lifestyle. It’s something you practice and almost at a daily basis if you’re going through a tough time and you’re going through things that keep reminding you of what happened.

When asked if there’s one last thing she’d like our listeners to hear, Thordis says, “I think it would be my core message, which is if someone has hurt you, wronged you, you have a right to your pain. You have a right to figure out a way to heal that supports you, that feels safe for you and you’re not alone.”

About Thordis:
Thordis Elva has held various different job titles throughout her career, such as news reporter, writer and public speaker, but at the core of them all is social change. After years of advocating for gender equality, she realized how new technology is being utilized to abuse women and girls not only offline, but online too. She organized an awareness-raising campaign about image-based sexual abuse (where intimate photos are shared without the photographed individual’s consent) and educated 18,000 people in a series of workshops across three countries in 2015 alone. She has spoken about the role of digital media in furthering gender equality at the UN and the Nordic Council of ministers, to name a few.

Find Thordis on Social Media:
https://www.thordiselva.com/    (Website)
https://www.facebook.com/thordiselva (Facebook)
https://twitter.com/thordiselva  (Twitter)
https://www.instagram.com/thordiselva/ (Instagram)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thordiselva/?originalSubdomain=se (LinkedIn)

Thordis’ Book:
South of Forgiveness: A True Story of Rape and Responsibility
Book Mentioned in the Interview:

Nothing Bad Between Us: A Missionary’s Daughter Finds Healing in Her Brokenness, by Marlena Fiol, which is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

About Marlena Fiol:
Marlena Fiol, PhD, is a globally recognized author, scholar and speaker. She is a spiritual seeker whose work explores the depths of who we are and what’s possible in our lives. Her significant body of publications on the topic, coupled with her own raw identity-changing experiences, makes her uniquely qualified to write about personal transformational change. She is also a certified tai chi instructor and freelance writer whose most recent work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and newsletters.

Find Marlena Fiol on Social Media:

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn

Podcast Transcript:
Below is a complete transcript of the podcast. I used a transcription service to create this, please note that there may be errors. For a 100% accurate quote of what was said, please listen to the podcast itself via the links above.

Interviewer: I’m very pleased to introduce today’s guest, Thordis Elva. Thordis is an Icelandic author, speaker, playwright, and activist for gender equality. She was voted woman of the year 2015 by the Federation of Icelandic Women’s Societies in Reykjavik. She specializes in violence prevention and has helped shape national policy on online abuse as well as gender-based violence. In 2017, Thordis became one of the front runners of the Me Too revolution in Iceland, accepting the Person of the Year award 2017 on behalf of the movement. Thordis has written a play called, “Forgiveness Incorporated.” And her most well-known book is “South of Forgiveness.” It’s a documentation of her sexual assault and journey to healing. Thordis collaborated on this book with her perpetrator, Tom Stranger, making her the first rape survivor in the world to publicly do this. For me, the story’s power lies in the fact that it’s told from both of their perspectives.

So the title of this podcast is becoming who you truly are. And this season, we’re talking about forgiveness and reconciliation as paths to healing and finding our true selves. Over and over and in different ways, my guests are addressing the question, “What does it really mean to forgive?” I’m sure you will already agree just from my introduction that Thordis is uniquely qualified to explore this question along with other issues related to forgiveness and reconciliation. Thordis, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for being here.

Thordis: Well, thank you so much for having me.

Interviewer: Let’s begin with what happened the night of the Christmas dance in 1996. And out of respect for listeners who may have suffered a similar trauma, I’m going to ask that you limit your description to just letting us know what happened that night that changed the course of your life and then also, about the dark years that followed before you met up with Tom again.

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah. Thank you. A trigger warning is in place. So I was 16 years old. I felt very grown up having my life’s first boyfriend, Tom Stranger who is this Australian exchange student, which to me was very exotic. It’s as far away from Iceland on the planet as is possible. And so, yeah, it all felt very, very grown up and as a result, I, you know, being headed to my first school dance with my first boyfriend felt that it was also in order to have my first go at alcohol. And so, not really knowing how to drink responsibly, I got very intoxicated that night to the point where I was incapacitated. So instead of having this first sort of adult experience of enjoying a school dance out of, like, sights of my parents or guardians, it ended up being quite a nightmarish scenario where I was sick in the toilets basically all night.

But my boyfriend, Tom, came to my rescue and I remember feeling frustrated with myself not being able to utter the words, “Thank you” as he carried me to a taxi and took me home. But that gratitude that I felt, being rescued sort of by this, you know, knight in shining armor took a very sharp turn when we came home and he instead used or abused this situation and instead, sexually assaulted me in this helpless situation I was in.

And being 16 and having very stereotypical notions about sexual assault that I had borrowed from movies and television shows, I couldn’t really piece it together that, “Hey, I’m having his way with me” when I was not in a situation to consent that, that was sexual assault. So it took me a long time to come to terms with that and by the time that I’d reached that conclusion, he had completed his exchange program and was already on the other side of the planet. So it didn’t really feel like I could do much about this part from simply trying to move on from it and heal from it. But I was stuck with a lot of self-blame and shame.

Sexual assault was not much talked about at the time and certainly not that it happened within relationships in the way that it did in my case. We were barely scratching the surface of stranger danger, you know, where it’s like someone that’s lurking in a parking lot or in the bushes or something. That sort of scenario was what we commonly saw in popular culture in terms of sexual assaults. So I guess I carried the blame and shame for Tom that rightfully belonged to him and that’s why I call it my dark period or my dark years because it certainly tainted my self-image and the way I carried myself in the world and also led to some destructive coping mechanisms. So yeah, it was a challenging time and a very lonely time to be carrying this burden.

Interviewer: Yeah. You were 16 when the rape occurred, 9 years later, at the age of 25, you contacted Tom by email. Why did you contact him?

Thordis: Right. So as you say, nine years later, after struggling with issues that were related to not having confronted my past and not having laid the responsibility for what happened to me with the perpetrator. One day, I was having one of a thousand fights because my relationships were frayed with tension as I was carrying a secret. And so, I was having one of very many frequent fights with my then-boyfriend and I stormed out the door. I was blinded by tears and I got in my car and I just wanted to drive somewhere and sit by myself. And I ended up at a cafe that I never frequented. So I felt pretty safe about not bumping into someone. And I sat down by a table and I took out my notebook and I was just gonna doodle in it to try and call my nerves but to my surprise, this letter of confrontation just streamed out of my pen addressed to Tom, this first boyfriend of mine who had wronged me so deeply and marked my life in such a fateful way.

And the thing about the letter was that it was so fully-shaped, there was not a single word misplaced in it. So it was almost like my subconscious had been working on it even though I hadn’t consciously been thinking about it. And I was really surprised by this because I had not been thinking about Tom at all and I wasn’t having my fights with him, obviously, my fight was with someone else. So all of it was very confusing to me, but something fell into place that day. And I decided this is a newfound voice that I didn’t know I had and I wanna give the wings to it. I don’t wanna silence this, this part of me that’s just broken through the surface. So I need to do something about this and send this to the rightful owner, you know?

So that’s when it got really complicated because I didn’t really have any contact information. This is before social media, but I had a nine-year-old Hotmail address and I decided to send the letter. I didn’t think I would get a response. Honestly, I thought that maybe I would be met with silence, maybe he didn’t even use the address anymore and in like best scenario would be him responding, but I wasn’t very hopeful that it would be a positive response. I thought that.

Interviewer: What did you say in that email?

Thordis: Yeah. Just to conclude, I thought that he would, you know, try to deny it if he would at all respond. But in the email, I basically walked him through the events of that fateful night after the Christmas dance where he sexually assaulted me and how that had impacted my life and how heavy the consequences had been for me and that I needed to place that burden with him because I was tired of carrying it. It was never mine to carry in the first place. And I concluded with this wish that I wanted to find peace. I wasn’t contacting him because I wanted to feed into hate or, you know, some way, prolong my suffering or… That was not my aim. Of course, I was angry and I expressed that in this email, but first and foremost, it was a confrontation and a way for me to give voice to the fact that what happened that night was his responsibility alone. And despite me having…had short skirts and been drunk and done things that are commonly held against women and girls that are taken advantage of or sexually assaulted, that did not make me in any way deserving of his actions.

So that was basically the gist of this email. And he responded in the only way that I had not predicted to my surprise, but as opposed to either ignoring my mailer or responding in some negative way, calling me a liar or trying to deny his actions, he actually responded with a confession that yes, he had very much done this and he was aware of it and he too had carried it for all these years and been marked by it and that we had, in certain ways, actually lived quite parallel lives that were marked by self and shame. So in his case, it was a deserved self-blame because he was the person responsible for the events of that night. In my case, it was self-blame that I shouldered largely due to societal misconceptions and myths about, you know, victim-blaming. But it was quite profound to discover that we’d, in many ways, actually gone through a similar process on, you know, opposite sides of the planet.

Interviewer: Yeah. So after eight years of communicating via email, you arranged to meet in Cape Town, South Africa for a week to discuss the impact of his violent actions on both of your lives. Whose idea was this?

Thordis: Well, originally, I wasn’t even going to enter into a correspondence, that was never my aim. It was supposed to be that single email, you know, where I laid the responsibility with him. But when he responded and was so willing to own up to his actions, I realized that I had this golden opportunity that I think every survivor longs for and it’s the chance to ask the million-dollar question, “Why?” You know, “Why did you do this to me?” And that question became a very lengthy analysis, not only I’ve like, you know, the influences that had shaped Tom’s ideas and his actions before he committed this crime toward me but also, you know, the impact and consequences on both of us afterward. Because violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens very much as a, you know, a piece in a larger puzzle and if we want to understand an uproot violence, we have to look at the whole picture.

But after eight years of diving into this and analyzing it and with Tom being incredibly sorry for what he’d done, I felt that I’d come as far as I could on paper. And there’s this certain empowering feeling that comes with speaking your truth to actually use your voice and say things out loud. It has tremendous power. And in some way, it’s also a release. And writing, after all, is a silent format. So I felt that for me to have true closure, I literally had to face my past. So I suggested we’d meet in the middle. Again, Australia and Iceland are as far apart as possible on the planet and it turned out that South Africa was right in the middle. So that’s where we met to try and liberate ourselves once and for all from that fateful night, which had had such immense meaning and impact on our lives.

Interviewer: Naturally, you both had fears and trepidations about this meeting. What was your biggest fear?

Thordis: I suppose reopening old wounds is my biggest fear. I was not afraid of Tom at all. He had spent eight years being very repentant and repeatedly stating a wish to make it up to me. So I had no fear of him, but I, of course, did not know how I would feel revisiting that night with him and talking through the consequences that it had had. So I think it was a healthy fear to have because, obviously, this was no easy task.

Interviewer: Yeah. And what was Tom’s biggest fear going into this meeting?

Thordis: Well, I’m always hesitant to answer on his behalf, but if I were to guess, I would say it was similar, that he was afraid to reopen old wounds and that I was afraid to retraumatize me. I think that’s one of the things he said and stated as one of his fears, that he did not want to cause me any further harm. On the contrary, he wanted to try and help me heal as much as he possibly could.

Interviewer: Yeah. What were some of the most significant moments of that week for you?

Thordis: I suppose walking into the eye of the storm, so to speak, to discuss the core of my pain that had been so costly for me. That was really challenging, more challenging than I actually envisioned it being but also at the same time, very liberating to come through to the other side, having visited your most wounded places and really took your fear by the horns. There is something incredibly empowering in doing so. But I also feel the need to say that although it worked for me, it’s not something I preach as a solution for other people or like some sort of cookie-cutter methodology at all because, of course, my story is unique in a sense and the fact that I had someone abused me who was then, later on, willing to accept his responsibility and was no longer an abusive person. That is, of course, why I chose to even meet up with him. I would never have risked my personal safety and that’s what I have to recommend to everyone else who may have something similar in their past to always prioritize their own safety.

Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Were there any surprises as the chapters came together of your book? Anything new that you learned about yourself as a result of writing this book with Tom?

Thordis: Yes. The whole decision to write the book, it did not come easy and it was certainly not something I had in mind when I set out on this journey at all. This was supposed to be just a personal journey that was going to help me set a full stop, like put a full stop to this chapter of my life. And ironically, here I am, years later still talking about it. So it did not have that effect in the end but what happened after this week is that we decided…it was actually Tom that first, put it into words that some of the lessons we had learned during what was then, you know, almost half of our lives, 16 years since the night of the school dance, that they were simply too valuable not to try and share them in the hope that hearing a story like ours might help someone else and possibly even prevent people from doing something like Tom did, something of a similar nature to think that they were entitled to another human being’s body, for example, and to be a contribution to this global dialogue about consent and about what sexual violence looks like. So that’s when that decision was born. I’m sorry, your question about the chapters, can you repeat that?

Interviewer: Just wondering if there was anything new that you learned about yourself in the process of writing the book. Was there something that came up for you that you didn’t expect just through the process of writing the book with Tom?

Thordis: Well, I’m not sure if the writing process did that for me. The writing process was very much about documenting this incredibly influential time cause it was such a deeply… Wow, I don’t even have the words for this. It just shaped me to my core, I feel. So I guess the biggest challenge was finding a way to describe that and at the same time, doing justice to the mundanity of it all because being…you know, spending a week on dissecting and analyzing something so taxing as this trauma that we were discussing is impossible. You can’t do that 24/7 for a week. So you have to take lunch breaks and you have to have coffees and you have to figure out where the nearest bathroom is and that sort of thing. So I think balancing that was quite a challenge both living it and also then documenting it because it’s such extremes to, on the one hand, to talk about something that shattered you and in the next moment, you know, figure out where to take a tourist bus. It’s all very strange.

Interviewer: Yes. It’s almost surreal.

Thordis: Absolutely surreal. I think the word surreal was the most used word that we repeat, honestly.

Interviewer: So Thordis, you have your own incredible personal forgiveness journey. You’ve written a play about forgiveness. You’ve written this book about forgiveness. I have to ask you, how do you define forgiveness today?

Thordis: Well, it’s one of those incredibly personal concepts that I know looks different for each individual, but I would say that I feel it’s an emotional process that you only have so much control of. It’s not unlike heartache, actually. You can’t simply decide to stop loving someone at the drop of the hat because if it were that easy, the concept of heartache wouldn’t exist because healing a broken heart takes time and I think the same goes for forgiveness. You can’t simply decide to stop feeling hurt after someone has done you wrong. That’s also a process and you have less control over it than you may think. But if we go back to the heartache comparison, there are certain things that you can do to either ease the process or make it harder on yourself, like lying around your apartment and sniffing your excess t-shirts. It may be a stage that you need to go through and like the immediate aftermath of a breakup, but it’s not going to help you let go of that person like in the long run. Like on the contrary, that would feed into your heartache.

And similarly, being angry is certainly a state that you need to go through after being hurt or wronged, but feeding that anger, is it going to help you let go of the hurt if that is your wish, if that’s even your aim, because it’s also perfectly acceptable to decide that you don’t wish for that aim, to forgive and that you don’t need to. And some people can find that decision liberating and empowering in itself as soon as they stop wrestling with the concept of forgiveness, that’s when they find inner peace and that’s also a form of healing, I think.

Interviewer: Interesting. Has your definition of forgiveness changed over time?

Thordis: Yeah, it has. But I think at the core of it, I see it as an act of self-healing and I think that core has remained sort of intact over the years. But certainly, I’ve seen new angles and perspectives. And when I wrote my play, I interviewed close to 100 people about the subject and I studied it for four years, which is why I sometimes joke about having a PhD in forgiveness as a result. But having heard so many people describe this incredibly personal phenomenon to me, I feel like it’s one of those subjects that you can never fully know everything about. Like there’s no end destination, really.

But letting go of the past and cutting ties with your perpetrator, I think, is also very relevant. Because I think it was Desmond Tutu the former Archbishop of South Africa, I think it was him who said that if you are in a state of anger toward your perpetrator, it’s a form of being chained to them, almost. So for some people, finding a way to let go of the anger is like freeing yourself from that shackle or from those chains.

But as I said before, I’ve also learned through listening to people and studying this from hundreds of different angles that for some people the anger itself and the distance is a form of healing. And they find that an empowering place to be and a gift to themselves to say, “I’m gonna set myself free from any expectation to forgive.” So it’s fascinating. And I don’t think there’s any other concept that has interested me more or like been more compelling of a study subject that I’ve come across.

Interviewer: Yeah. You say that…in a number of different ways, actually, you’ve said that deciding not to forgive can be freeing. And I think I suspect a number of our listeners would agree. And some people have spoken on this podcast and said that some acts are simply unforgivable. Period. Do you believe that’s true?

Thordis: No. I don’t. I actually entirely reject that notion because that would imply that other people could decide for you what’s forgivable or out of forgivable. And honestly, I think that’s impossible and arrogant at the same time. I can’t possibly know what another person’s heart is like or what they need to move on from something. And I came across the forgiveness project, which is this fantastic initiative by journalists, Marina Cantacuzino and she has collected stories from all over the world from people who have forgiven the most atrocious things like the murder of their child, genocide, horrendous acts of war and terrorism. And I feel that I have no rights to say to those people, “I’m sorry, you’re wrong. You have no right to forgive your child’s murder. That’s an unforgivable act.” Because if that’s what they need to do in order to carry on with their lives, then the least I can do is allow that, is to give them and hold that space for them, hold the space for them to heal.

So I think it’s incredibly important that we grant that permission and that right to everyone who’s ever been wronged or traumatized that they have a right to heal and nobody else can tell you or dictate for you what your healing journey supposed to look like. That is a path that you are entitled to find and you should be supported on that way. You should not be told that you’re wrong on that way.

Interviewer: I love the distinction you make between an act being unforgivable. What you’re saying is absolutely not the case, but allowing people to decide for themselves what the path will be to healing, whether that is forgiving or distancing. I love that.

Thordis: Yeah. Exactly. I feel that you’re wronging a person twice. You’re wounding them twice if at first, you know, they undergo a trauma and then secondly, they’re robbed of their opportunity to heal from it in the way that serves them best by other people saying that, “No, you can’t do that. That’s a choice you can’t make because I’ve decided that’s unforgivable.” I think that’s when you’re actually deepening the hurts, if anything.

Interviewer: Yeah. In your book, you quote an 84-year-old woman who claimed that people only forgive when they have to. What did she mean by that?

Thordis: Yeah, that was such an eye-opening thing to hear and an example of what I mean with forgiveness being this, you know, ever-elusive concept. But she wanted to maintain this theory that forgiveness does not come naturally to people. What we tend to do is we tend to avoid rather than actually process. So she set up an example. It was something like, you know, what do you do if you go to a gas station and you get like met by this really rude clerk. Like what would your reaction be? And, you know, thoughtlessly, I was like, “I guess I would never go to that gas station again.” And she’s like, “Yeah, exactly. Because you don’t have to, you don’t have to forgive him. You just like choose a different one next time.” But if you were living in a small town and it was the only gas station and there was no other way to tank your car, then you would have to find a way to forgive this rude clerk for being a jerk.

So she sort of, like, painted that picture that it’s only when we’re in a state of necessity that we forgive. And I guess that also explains why we’re more likely to forgive our family or our loved ones because we can’t just choose away our family, we can’t just like go to a different gas station and get a new family. Like we have to make it work.

Interviewer: Some would argue that you do just that. Some guests on this podcast, actually, are people who talk about family estrangement and what forgiveness means in that context. And so, it’s interesting.

Thordis: Exactly. No. I mean, absolutely. And there are certainly countless examples of people that have not forgiven their family and that was the right decision for them. But I’m saying, you know, and the minor things in life, I suppose we are more forgiving towards the people that we don’t wish to choose away and that is harder to cut out of our lives. So she basically stated that we need motivation to forgive because it’s hard work, oftentimes, to let go of this feeling of having been wronged or hurt. So yeah, I thought that was a refreshing way to look at it. And it explains certainly some things for me about the willingness or the lack thereof in terms of forgiveness.

Interviewer: Yeah. And how often it does not happen.

Thordis: Exactly. Yeah.

Interviewer: So one of the other guests on this podcast, Phil Cousineau, he’s edited a book called, “Beyond Forgiveness” and one of his contributors argues that all forgiveness is really self-forgiveness. What does that mean to you?

Thordis: All forgiveness is really self-forgiveness?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Thordis: Well, I would certainly recognize myself in that because for me, I guess the hardest obstacle to overcome was forgiving myself for all the self-blame that I had carried for so long. So that was definitely one of the bigger challenges for me and the most release came from that, to declaring myself innocent and free from these burdens that I’d wrongfully held for so long. But yeah, I think forgiveness is a very deeply misunderstood concept because many people seem to think that it’s something you give the perpetrator, it’s something you hand over to them, almost like a blessing, that what they did was okay. I don’t see it like that at all. I see that forgiveness to me is actually underlining the hurt. It’s not laying your blessing over the hurt. It’s acknowledging that the hurt was painful and costly, but that you don’t want it to dictate your life anymore.

Interviewer: I’m so glad you raised that issue because so often I hear how can we forgive and let go of our desire for revenge and at the same time hold accountable the perpetrators of violent actions? And you’re saying that, in fact, forgiveness does hold the perpetrators accountable.

Thordis: Exactly. Because if there weren’t accountability and blame embedded in forgiveness then there’d be nothing to forgive. So I feel that it’s there, it’s embedded, it’s interlaced in the whole concept of forgiveness that there was a hurt, there was a wrong and that it’s being underlined and held up but that you wish for it to not control your existence and not be a deciding factor in the way that you move on from this.

Interviewer: Yeah. I loved the way you spoke earlier about giving voice. I mean, the emails and the written word is one thing, but there’s something about the voice actually coming forth and being heard. This podcast season on forgiveness and reconciliation was motivated in part by my new book, “Love is Complicated” and it traces my own journey toward reconciliation with my father and with his Mennonite church. We forgave and reconciled, but we never sat down to talk about the abuse and the hurt. So here’s my question for you, Thordis. Under what conditions can a reconciliation process occur organically, occur more gradually without ever articulating the acts that need to be forgiven?

Thordis: I’m not entirely sure that I understand the question.

Interviewer: Are there conditions under which reconciliation and forgiveness can occur without ever speaking about the wrong, about the abuse?

Thordis: Oh, I see. Well, my first instinct is to say that you have to be able to put that into words. You have to have a common ground on which you stand to do this incredibly important work. And there are certainly things that I would avoid and I would say were harmful to such a process. For example, going into such a process with the wrong mindset. For example, if a perpetrator would go into such a process demanding that at the end of it he would be released and forgiven, then that would not be the right premise, I feel, to do the work. The work has to come from a place of humility and a place of owning up to your actions and understanding that you can’t manipulate or dictate the outcome, it has to be at the person’s who’s at the other end of this…who’s on the receiving end, let’s say. It has to be at their pace and that, you know, and at their avail, like it has to be their heart that’s healing from this. And if that is not your goal, if your goal is a selfish one that you’re entering into this process hoping that it will serve you and put to rest your guilty conscious, for example, then I would say that’s the wrong way to go about it.

And sometimes I am contacted by people who have a guilty conscience, who’ve read my book and feel that they should now contact someone they have hurt and try to start a process of reconciliation. And that’s when I say, “Well, you have to realize that maybe the person that you hurt has no interest in such a process and finds it a secondary wounding to be going down such a road with you. And if they choose not to do so, then you have to respect that choice, and that could be the most healing thing that you could do for them, is to let them be. So there are certainly things that I feel should be considered carefully before our reconciliation processes is brought into being.

Interviewer: Yeah. In the book I mentioned earlier, “Beyond Forgiveness,” Phil Cousineau argues that forgiveness and atonement are both required for true reconciliation. And your comment earlier that Tom’s desire was to make it up to you, which is a form of atonement, according to Cousineau, atonement proves the depth of our desire to be forgiven. What’s your take on that?

Thordis: I am personally very hesitant to use words like true reconciliation and true healing because it implies that there’s a wrong way to go about healing and then we’re back in that judgment seat where we say, “Oh, no, you can’t do that to heal yourself,” or, “This is unforgivable. How dare you forgive that?” for example. So I’m hesitant to take such words into the discussion, but I certainly benefited from Tom’s regrets. It certainly helped me reach a place where I could let go of my anger sooner, I’m sure.

So saying that it was beneficial and it was necessary in my process. But I’ve also talked to people and read accounts from people who have not been in a situation to hear their perpetrator utter regrets because, A, they don’t regret what they did, or, B, they don’t acknowledge what they did or, C, they’re deceased and we’ll never be able to acknowledge what they did. And those people claim they have found a way to forgive even despite not having had regret expressed. So, you know, it’s not my place to say that those people haven’t truly forgiven just because they weren’t a recipient of the perpetrator’s of regret. So I think that there are definitely ways to forgive without having regret enter the equation, but for me, it certainly did help.

Interviewer: Yeah. Most of us experience forgiveness and reconciliation as a bumpy process. One day we feel we’ve forgiven the person who’s hurt us and another day the resentment and the anger flare and we realize that we’re not even close. Can you describe some of the bumps along the road to forgiving Tom?

Thordis: Yeah, sure. It’s definitely not a linear process at all. It’s, as you say, ups and downs and two steps forward and one step back. For me, I had days where I felt that I was healed. This was before we met, this was when we were still writing. And I had days where I felt, “Wow. I’m liberated from my past. I feel so hailed.” And then something would come up, for example, I have children and I have step-daughters and the oldest will be 21 this year. And when she was in her teens, I could see her innocence and I could see, you know, how she started to think of adult matters and ask questions related to that. And I could see how trusting she was and how…yeah, basically innocence that… Yeah. It was… Yeah. It just…

Interviewer: And it took you back to you being 16 and innocent.

Thordis: Yeah. And sort of pure innocence, like, you know, not having any experiences to compare with. And it put me right back in my anger where I was like, you know, “That was taken from me and it was taken from me so forcefully.” Yeah. And that’s when I could like really feel this rage bubble up again. And I realized that, you know, there will be more occasions in my life where I will see what happened to me and my place in life at the time from some new angle. And it might be painful again, or it might cause me to be angry again. But that’s what this is. It’s like a lifestyle, almost, forgiveness that is. It’s something you practice and almost at a daily basis if you’re going through a tough time and you’re going through things that keep reminding you of what happened. But, again, I don’t wanna put it forth as something that I preach because I don’t, and the whole notion of me forgiving Tom, I can understand how some people would find that really hard to cope with. And I myself have been divided over the subject, but at the end, what I needed to do for me to heal was right. And it’s something I will never regret. It’s a radical form of self-healing for people like me who would benefit from a process like this.

Interviewer: Yes. And you’ve been very clear about the fact that everyone chooses for themselves the path to healing. So.

Thordis: Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. But there’s been, unfortunately, black and white thinking, which I think forgiveness never be talked about in these polarized terms because it is one of the most highly nuanced and complex concepts known to man, I think. But me simply talking about reconciliation in the same context as sexual assault has in some cases been misinterpreted in the sense that that is something I preach or that I recommend forgiveness, but I actually don’t at all. I don’t recommend that people undergo a process that they don’t feel serves them.

I think that there are multiple ways to empower yourself and heal from a traumatic event and all of them should be open and we should have that right to choose what feels safe and good for us. And I needed to be angry, and I needed to be vengeful, and I needed to have these feelings of wanting to hurt Tom back as deeply as he hurt me which I carried for years. And those were necessary components of my story. And without them, I probably would never have found peace. They were stepping stones on the way. So I entirely respect people that never actually feel they have to go any further than that and that that is their final destination and that’s where they feel safe and good and that I think is right for them in such cases.

Interviewer: Yeah. So what have been some of the reactions to your book that surprised you the most?

Thordis: There have been amazing reactions, humbling reactions. I got a life-altering email from a 16-year-old boy in India and it was, I think two or three days after our TED talk that Tom and I did was aired and this 16-year-old boy in India who has a massive problem when it comes to sexual assaults. He said that until he heard our story, he used to blame women that they must have done something wrong. They must have asked for it in one way or another. But then he saw and heard our story and he said that he cried and then he’d watched it again, and then he’d cried some more and then he’d realize that, you know, he himself had been a part of the problem by thinking this way and that he had now come around and realized that, you know, it’s never the victim’s fault.

And that was a really powerful moment for me. And I’ve received many, many similar messages and emails from people all over the world which have been incredibly humbling and given me this notion, this certainty that it was the right decision to share our story. But I was also disappointed, especially with the media sort of deliberately, I think, putting forth nuanced stories in black and white terms and wanting there to be a villain and a victim in every story. So that was disappointing and that caused…that was actually very costly in the sense that I ended up having to correct misconceptions oftentimes and wasting precious air time on explaining something that was wrong and setting it right and trying to nuance this after having been, you know, put forth in a very simplistic, harmful way, sort of. So that was disappointing. But I’ve also worked within the media and I realized that there’s incredible pressure on people, media professionals to create clickable material and that is actually a huge part of the problem with the media today. The discourse becomes sensationalized and it gets harder and harder to talk about complex and nuanced things.

Interviewer: Yes. Yes. So you are now a mother of almost-grown children. You’re a mature adult. As you look back, how are you a different person today as a result of what you went through?

Thordis: That is sort of difficult for me to answer because I was so young when I was set off on this path, so I can hardly recall what I was like before the age of 16. But I think that this turned me into a warrior, in a sense. It’s certainly fueled my sense of justice and gave me reason to fight for this cause, which I have done ever since and it’s been the core of my career. Everything I’ve done, whether it’s been journalism, or writing, or public speaking, or it…it’s all been about social change for the better and for violence-prevention and for a world where less people suffer. But you know, I want to believe that I was always a warrior and I don’t want to think that I was gifted that quality through violence, but I was certainly given motivation and an understanding of other people that have been through something similar.

Interviewer: Yes. You probably have always been a warrior, but you are one who now can feel compassion in a way maybe you couldn’t have, had you not gone through what you went through.

Thordis: Exactly. Exactly. And that inspired the book in the end for me and the telling of the story because I had this longing that I think is very human. I think most of us have this longing that if we go through something that’s deeply hurtful and traumatic, then we wish to find a way to turn that destructive thing into something constructive so that it wasn’t in vain, so that this pain was something that can actually be useful in the end and be used for the greater good because that means it had a purpose and it wasn’t just meaningless suffering.

Interviewer: Yes. You have been a warrior and you’ve actively been part of shaping national policy on gender-based violence. Based on your experience, what are the biggest challenges we face as a society in countering such violence?

Thordis: Attitudes. Attitudes are absolutely the biggest obstacles. We’re still battling misconceptions and myths that place responsibility with victims and with women, that women should watch out and women should be careful and women should limit themselves as opposed to shifting that focus and talking about male responsibility, that men should step up and be active in this fight. Until Tom spoke up about his responsibility for being sexually abusive, that was almost unheard of in the world. Unfortunately, we live in a world where people in positions of power would rather, you know, minimize and normalize violence and talk about it as locker room talk as if it’s a normal part of male culture when it’s anything but.

And men have to be at the center of that discussion. Women can’t go into male locker rooms and change the discourse. Men have to do that themselves. So there’s tremendous responsibility with men that I’m still waiting for them to effectively take on. But the contribution that Tom and I had in this discussion with him adding a male voice to it and saying that it’s not acceptable, it’s not locker room talk. It’s deeply hurtful. It’s very harmful and we need to stop it. That was certainly something that I’ll always be pleased to have been a part of.

Interviewer: Yes. Thordis, if there were one last thing you’d like our listeners to know, to hear from you, what would it be?

Thordis: I think it would be my core message, which is if someone has hurt you, wronged you, you have a right to your pain. You have a right to figure out a way to heal that supports you, that feels safe for you and you’re not alone. There are many ways in which to receive support and if you’re like me, someone who’s been abused or violated, then there are certainly services at your avail. And it’s just one click away, usually. So I would encourage anyone who is dealing with the aftermath of such acts to seek out the help that they deserve because you don’t have to deal with this alone.

Interviewer: This has been a very meaningful conversation and, unfortunately, we’re out of time. Thordis, thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

Interviewer: It’s been a pleasure. That was mostly, if not entirely mine.

Interviewer: I’ve been speaking with Thordis Elva whose latest book co-authored with Tom Stranger is, “South of Forgiveness.” You’ll find details on the show notes about how to purchase her book as well as my new book, “Love is Complicated.” And thank you, our listeners, for joining us today. If you know anyone who’d be interested in this podcast, please do share it with them and if you liked it, take a moment to rate and review us on iTunes or your favorite podcasting network. Instructions on the show notes make rating and reviewing easy.

And remember, we are together on this journey.