Having survived more than a decade in brutal captivity in a Cleveland home, Michelle Knight shared with an audience Tuesday how a therapist once told her it was her fault she was abducted. 

Members of the crowd gasped.

She left therapy and never went back, she said. 

Ms. Knight, now known as Lily Rose Lee, was kidnapped in August, 2002, when she was 21 by Ariel Castro, her best friend’s dad. For the next 11 years she remained Castro’s captive while he kidnapped and imprisoned two other women — both teenagers at the time they were abducted. She shared parts of her story during the Trauma Informed Care and Vulnerable Populations conference at The Premier Banquet Complex in South Toledo.

Speaking to a crowd of about 150 health-care professionals, mental health professionals, social workers, law enforcement officers, and others, her story provided a first-hand perspective of traumatic events and abuse, and the aftermath victims deal with in the wake of their traumatic experiences.

After Ms. Knight and the other captives escaped in 2013, a police officer asked Ms. Knight if she smiled at Castro, and what clothes she was wearing the night she was kidnapped, she recalled Tuesday. 

“What does it matter? It doesn’t matter if I was walking down the street naked,” Ms. Knight said. “It doesn’t give not one person one right to touch me (or) a right to beat me in the way that I was abused.” 

Ms. Knight encouraged care providers not to force victims to speak of a traumatic event until they’re ready. 

“Listen without judgment, and don’t push them to talk about it. Wait until they’re ready. When I first came out, I was pushed into talking about everything, and I wasn’t ready,” she said. 

Traumatic events like abuse, neglect, domestic violence, separation, and even poverty, can change the shape of the brain, said Carol Hudgins-Mitchell, a certified trauma specialist at Finding Hope Consulting in Cincinnati. Ms. Hudgins-Mitchell, along with Mary Vicario, a counselor and Finding Hope’s founder, presented at Tuesday’s conference.

“Trauma gets stored, and it’s a bodily experience,” Ms. Hudgins-Mitchell said. “So it keeps getting relived. It’s in the sensory areas of the brain. When someone gets triggered by a scent, or whatever, you’re right back there.”

The counselors said Ms. Knight’s speech was spot on, and added health-care providers must learn to understand how traumatic experiences impact a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 

Most days are good for Ms. Knight, and then there are things — such as a person raising their hand to another, or certain phrases — that bring all the memories back.

“I try not to let those fears bother me in my everyday life, but you have to take it one day at a time,” she said. 

Ms. Knight answered questions during an interview-style question and answer session with Kristian Brown, a WTVG-TV anchor. Ms. Knight was not available to The Blade for one-on-one questions due to contract restrictions, Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities spokesman Lon Mitchell said. 

She encouraged anyone in a domestic violence situation, or struggling through a difficult time, to seek help before it’s too late.

Ms. Knight said she is working on her second book. The work is scheduled for release in May, 2018, the fifth anniversary of her rescue. She said it will be a story of “life filled with hope after suffering deep tragedy.” 

Her best-selling book Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, A Life Reclaimed came out in 2014.

The Associated Press contributed. 

Contact Allison Reamer at areamer@theblade.com, 419-724-6506 or on Twitter @AllisonRBlade.

First Published October 17, 2017, 7:26 p.m.