--- title: Rachael Denhollander on Recovering From Trauma description: Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Larry Nassar, writes about her experience sharing her trauma with a potential new partner in an excerpt from her new book. canonical: https://time.com/5667701/rachael-denhollander-what-is-a-girl-worth/ author: Rachael Denhollander article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-09-04T14:35:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T08:24:35.210Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How the First Woman to Publicly Accuse Larry Nassar Approached Intimacy After Abuse og:description: Rachael Denhollander on asking herself, 'How do I even start that conversation?' og:url: https://time.com/5667701/rachael-denhollander-what-is-a-girl-worth/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd084fa74ebcfebfa/698a0258db298764012641ad/rachael-denhollander-new-book.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5472 og:image:height: 3078 og:image:alt: Rachael Denhollander og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How the First Woman to Publicly Accuse Larry Nassar Approached Intimacy After Abuse twitter:description: Rachael Denhollander on asking herself, 'How do I even start that conversation?' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd084fa74ebcfebfa/698a0258db298764012641ad/rachael-denhollander-new-book.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'How Do I Even Start That Conversation?' 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=beccf02f-c3cf-418d-8b60-5ea11e04bd0b&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 'It Demands Justice.' First Woman to Accuse Larry Nassar Delivers Emotional Statement [Watch (HLS stream): 'It Demands Justice.' First Woman to Accuse Larry Nassar Delivers Emotional Statement](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MmIHZxGy.m3u8) (3:28)  _Published 2018-01-25. Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to go on the record accusing Dr. Larry Nassar of sexual misconduct, closed out an exhaustive, week-long trial against the former USA Gymnastics physician._ by [Rachael Denhollander](https://time.com/author/rachael-denhollander/) ## Rachael Denhollander Sep 4, 2019 2:35 PM UTC Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to go on the record accusing Dr. Larry Nassar of sexual misconduct, closed out an exhaustive, week-long trial against the former USA Gymnastics physician. by [Rachael Denhollander](https://time.com/author/rachael-denhollander/) ## Rachael Denhollander Sep 4, 2019 2:35 PM UTC In 2018, the world saw me speak at [Larry Nassar’s sentencing](https://time.com/5110455/aly-raisman-larry-nassar-testimony-trial/), describing the [impact of the sexual abuse](https://time.com/5371756/simone-biles-teal-leotard-larry-nassar/) he had perpetrated against me when I was 15 years old. Ten years before that, I was just trying to figure out how to move forward with my life. I had entered my 20s, and despite everything that had happened, I was open to dating. At the same time, I didn’t see the point in getting involved romantically with someone I knew I couldn’t stay with forever, and the right person had yet to come along. That changed when I met Jacob in 2008\. We’d met online through a mutual friend, who’d shown Jacob my blog. We quickly began discussing current events, beliefs, life goals and ambitions, developing a rich friendship despite never having met or even seen photos of each other. We exchanged over 900 pages of emails, yet always had more to talk about. When he made it clear that his desire was to prayerfully consider transitioning into a serious relationship, I was cautiously optimistic. He didn’t want to pressure me, but he also had no intention of leaving me wondering and unsure, and I was grateful for that. A week before we met in person for the first time, I thought eagerly about all the questions I had, everything I wanted to know about who Jacob was and how we would navigate being together, if we decided to move in that direction. There was the distance between us (he lived in Canada, I lived in Michigan) and whether one or the other of us would be willing to move if things progressed, for starters. And . . . _that_. I’d have to tell him about _that_. Even to myself, I still used euphemisms. Words that I rarely let myself think, I would now have to speak out loud. _I could wait_, I argued with myself, wanting a way out. _No, you really can’t_. _This is going to affect a lot_, I reminded myself. _He’s going to have to know._ And disclosing wouldn’t just be for his sake; it would be for me, too. If Jacob didn’t understand, he might add to the lies about it being my fault that I heard in my head every day, and that would be crushing. I could barely fight the war within myself. I had no ability, nor any desire, to start a relationship where I’d have to fight those ideas with the person I let closest to me. _You have to know if he can handle it_, I told myself firmly. _If he can’t, there’s no point in going any further._ There wasn’t a choice. _How do I even start that conversation?_ I wondered, feeling ill. --- **In the two years prior**, I’d journaled extensively at my mother’s suggestion, despite my inner protestations. I wrote mostly in pencil, which gave me the freedom to erase and hide whatever I put down. Preparing for this conversation with Jacob, I sat down in my room and flipped through my old entries. Memories flooded me as I wrestled with how and what to communicate. How could I explain to someone the confusion, the sick feeling and the unnamed shame that swirled through my mind? How could I explain to someone who has never been that vulnerable that even though I wasn’t “held down,” I was still trapped? Even though I wasn’t “physically overpowered,” I was completely powerless? I can’t forget any detail. Two years earlier, I had stumbled across a news special on childhood sexual assault. It put words to what I had never understood — why I hadn’t been able to move or speak during the abuse. There weren’t just two responses to danger — fight or flight — as everyone casually said. There were three: fight, flight or freeze. When I heard that, I recognized my own experience. I know what freezing in fear is. It’s when you’re so confused and ashamed and horrified and scared that you just shut down, because reality is incomprehensible. How could I even begin to let someone get close after that? I’d journaled through the trust paradox, too, the one that twists the truth and makes a victim feel like she’s at fault: Because I trusted, I gave the benefit of the doubt. If I hadn’t trusted [Nassar](https://time.com/5629228/larry-nassar-victim-speaks-out/) enough to let him get close, if I hadn’t trusted enough to believe he wouldn’t hurt me, it never would have happened. If he hadn’t known I trusted, he never would have done it. It’s my fault. I gave him the power to damage me when I gave him my trust. For years, I had promised myself that no one would ever know what happened to me, ignoring the reality that someday, someone might have to. How much room could I leave for Jacob if he didn’t understand but was willing to learn? I was steeling myself to be devastated by his reaction, even if he had good intentions. As I stacked the loose collection of journal entries to put them back in their folder, another old entry slipped out. I’d titled it “Silent Battle.” It was page after page of my attempt to find words that could explain the internal war that rages within a victim when her abuser’s actions don’t match the person he was supposed to be to her. It was also my attempt to answer the resounding question I heard so often: Why didn’t you tell someone? Re-reading my writing, I felt exhausted. I feared this painful line of questioning would be the conversation that was coming, because it was the one I couldn’t get out of my own head. _Why didn’t you cry out? He probably would have stopped if you had. In fact, if he thought you would, it probably wouldn’t have happened at all. Why didn’t you cry out?_ Why? Because I trusted. I was a child. He was a doctor. He knows best. He had cared for me. He knew me. There had to be a reason. I must be reading too much into it. It isn’t fair to assume he was being sexual. Think about who he is. Give the benefit of the doubt. I must be the one with the dirty mind if I can even think something like that. Terror. Shame. Confusion. Shattered trust. Humiliation. Horror. Revulsion. Dirty. Used. _How could you not cry out?_ I didn’t know. _Foolish. How could you not know?_ Because I trusted. _It’s over._ But it’s not done. _You didn’t cry out._ I did inside. _Is that enough?_ I inhaled sharply, closed the folder with a snap and quickly shut the light off. There was no point in thinking about how Jacob might answer that unspoken question. I couldn’t change it. All I could do was live with the fallout. --- **That was a decade ago.** What I didn’t know then was that the man walking into my life would become my greatest earthly source of healing, hope and comfort. Jacob stood against every dynamic that a warped understanding of masculinity has created in our world. He was sacrificing instead of demanding, respectful instead of self-serving, protective rather than destructive. He eschewed what he called a “porn mindset” — the idea that sex and women are tools of men’s gratification. He could understand the damage that had been done to me, and speak truth to the lies that flooded my soul, because he understood women’s equality and agency long before meeting me. He came into our relationship knowing that truly fulfilling intimacy is about loving each other well. So when I told Jacob what happened to me, he immediately understood why the damage was significant and real. It had to be — sexual assault is an attack on a person’s sense of self. He knew that my vulnerability needed to be protected and respected. I never had to question whether he thought my abuse was my fault; he came right out with that assurance unprompted, and he reminded me over and over again. He was able to do all the right things for me because he thought all the right things; he saw the situation for what it was. Jacob showed me how a partner could gently and patiently walk beside me through my healing without ever making demands, without placing blame on me when I struggled, without impatience. His values and priorities stood against a culture that asked, “What’s the big deal?” He took on my pain as his own, showed me that he could stand in grief with me, that we could be a team, even as I took the lead. And because of this, one of my greatest fears — telling a future partner about my abuse — became instead a source of incredible healing. _Adapted from_ [What Is a Girl Worth: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1496441338/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1496441338&linkId=bb624b20ebaf495fcda558dc26a1ab44) _by_ [_Rachael Denhollander_](https://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5217581/rachael-denhollander/)_, releasing from Tyndale House Publishers Sept. 10, 2019._ ## Transcript Larry is a hardened and determined sexual predator, I know this first hand. His ability to gain my trust and the trust of my parents, his grooming and carefully calculated brazen sexual assault was the result or deliberate, premeditated, intentional, and methodological patterns of abuse Patterns that were rehearsed long before I walked through Larry's exam room door, and which continue to be perpetrated, I believe, on a daily basis for 16 more years until I filed a police report. And while Larry is unlikely to live past his federal sentence, he is not the only predator out there, and this sentence will send a message about how seriously abuse will be taken. So I ask, how much is a little girl worth? How much priority should be placed on communicated that the fullest weight of the law will be used to protect another innocent child from the soul shattering devastation that sexual assault brings. Larry meticulously groomed me for the purpose of exploiting me for his sexual game. He penetrated me, he groped me, he fondled me, and then he whispered questions about how it felt. He engaged in degrading and humiliating sex acts without my consent or permission. And Larry enjoyed it. Larry sought out and took pleasure In little girls and women being sexually injured and violated. MSU, we have been telling our stories for more than 18 months. And you have yet to answer a single question I have asked. Every time I repeat these facts about the number of women who reported to employees at MSU and were silenced you respond the exact same way. You issued a press statement saying there was no cover up because no one who heard the reports of assault believed that Larry was committing abuse. You play word games, saying you didn't know because no one believed. I know that. And the reason everyone who heard about Larry's abuse did not believe it is because they did. Not listen. They did not listen in 1997, or 1998, or 1999 or 2000, or 2004, or 2014. No one knew, according to your definition of know, because no one handled the reports of abuse properly. Victims were silenced, intimidated, repeatedly told that it was medical treatment and even forced to go back for continued sexual assault. I was subjected to lies and attacks on my character, including very publicly by Attorney Shannon Smith when I testified under oath. I was being attacked for wanting fame and attention. For making up a story to try to get money. And Your Honor, since these attacks were made on my character, very publicly on public record, I would like to take an opportunity briefly now to correct them. You may preceed. Thank you. Out of the two women in question that day, Miss Smith and I, Who were attempting to communicate their either questions or answers. I would like to note that only one of us was taking pictures of the courtroom on her cellphone. Only one of us posed for the press and said, quote, I feel like I should say cheese. And out of the two of us Only one of us was making money off her court appearance that day. I don't feel the need to say anything else. I think I've communicated [ INAUDIBLE ]. Your Honor. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5667701/rachael-denhollander-what-is-a-girl-worth/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5667701/rachael-denhollander-what-is-a-girl-worth/"},"headline":"'How Do I Even Start That Conversation?' 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