The Amazing Way Elizabeth Smart Is Teaching Her Own Children About Safety

 The Inspiring Way Elizabeth Smart Is Teaching Her Own Children About Safety

Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart remains devoted to helping others process their trauma. The mom of three talked to News about staying positive and knowing when it's time to take a break.

If anyone's ever questioned your actions starting with, "Why didn't you...?" and you hear it as a scold, rest assured that you're not alone.

"I recognize—now that I'm older and I've have had longer to process this—most of these questions, they were not meant to be rude, they were not meant to be triggering at all," Elizabeth NEWS

EXCLUSIVE

The Inspiring Way Elizabeth Smart Is Teaching Her Own Children About Safety

Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart remains devoted to helping others process their trauma. The mom of three talked to News about staying positive and knowing when it's time to take a break.

By NATALIE FINN

If anyone's ever questioned your actions starting with, "Why didn't you...?" and you hear it as a scold, rest assured that you're not alone.

"I recognize—now that I'm older and I've have had longer to process this—most of these questions, they were not meant to be rude, they were not meant to be triggering at all," Elizabeth Smart exclusively told , recalling the wake of her March 2003 rescue, nine months after she was kidnapped from her childhood bedroom. She was frequently asked things like, "Why didn't you run?" or "You were taken out of your own house, why didn't you just wake up and scream?"

"When I would hear the words, 'Why didn't you?' my brain would translate them as, 'You should have.' That always made me feel very defensive," the now 35-year-old author and activist explained in a recent Zoom interview, "and it made me feel like, 'Well, wait a second, did you think I wanted to be kidnapped? Did you think I wanted to be raped? Like, are you crazy? Who wants that?'"

Twenty years later, Smart is well aware that people still don't always express their curiosity in the most productive of ways. As a longtime advocate for survivors of trauma, she advises anyone who's on the receiving end of a person's trust to "treat it seriously and sacredly"—and tread gently.