Despite the intensity of her character on Law & Order: SVU, Mariska Hargitay is nothing if not amusing and upbeat.
So, the actress began her remarks at the 18th annual Hope for Depression Research Foundation conference with a joke.
“Thank God I got an honorary doctorate from John Jay University because otherwise, I’d be really super insecure right now with all the doctors [in this room],” she said as she received the organization’s Hope Award for Depression Advocacy.
Leading scientists and psychiatrists convened at The Plaza Hotel in New York City on November 12 to discuss the latest research on trauma and depression, with a focus on “how the brain heals.”
Hargitay, who works for survivors of sexual abuse through her Joyful Heart Foundation, is all too aware of the debate over profound trauma and the essential healing that follows.
“Joyful Heart was my response to reading the letters that I received from survivors when I started on SVU 852 years ago,” she added, referring to the show’s record-breaking run on television (it is now in its 26th season).
“Joyful Heart is my reaction to discovering the statistics of sexual violence, which left me stunned. I was surprised that no one was discussing these statistics and issues, given their pervasiveness and epidemic status in our country and the world.” “And I now know that Joyful Heart was also a response to my own internal need for healing.”
When Hargitay was three years old, she and her two elder brothers were involved in a vehicle accident that killed their mother, Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield.
“On a personal level, I’ve also been on my own road of learning how to respond to the numerous tragedies that have occurred in my life. I lost my mother when I was three years old, and I grew up in a family dealing with sorrow in their own manner. And since there was so much sadness, there wasn’t time to prioritize anyone,” Hargitay stated in her address.
“We didn’t have the tools that we have now to metabolize and understand trauma, understand all the levels, and understand that it goes in on the cellular level,” she told me. “I didn’t do that for myself until much later in life.”
Hargitay wrote a first-person piece for People in January, revealing that she, too, is a survivor of sexual trauma, which she endured in her thirties.
“It wasn’t until much later that I found the language to acknowledge it for what it was,” says Hargitay. As I mentioned earlier, Joyful Heart served as a reaction to my personal experience, enabling me to establish a comprehensive foundation that addressed trauma and survivors in a manner I desired.
Hargitay was especially impressed by how the Hope For Depression Research charity aligns with her own charity, which is currently in its 20th year.
“I had the good fortune to find extraordinary therapists who introduced me to many different healing modalities, to somatic reprocessing and somatic experiencing, which is a way of treating the way trauma lives in the body,” according to her. EMDR is a systematic treatment for reprocessing trauma. People refer to internal family systems as IFS, or component work. These techniques restored my life, reorganized my neurological system, and provided me with a significant amount of space, a concept I have come to understand as synonymous with healing. It’s regaining room.
“I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to convey my appreciation to those who have accompanied me on my journey, who have mirrored my pain back to me, and who have assisted me in integrating different aspects of myself and metabolizing my trauma—the complicated trauma that so many of us bear.” “We all have a story,” she explained.