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She was raped when she was 16. Now, she's joined with her attacker to share their story.

“He got on top of me and I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock. Ever since that night I have known there are 7,200 seconds in two hours.”

‘That night’ was the night Thordis Elva, then 16, was raped by her boyfriend, Australian foreign exchange student, Tom Stranger, then 18, in the bedroom of her home in Iceland.

Now, more than 20 years later, Elva and Stranger have shared their remarkable story of pain, healing and recovery on the TED stage. They have co-authored a book together, South of Forgiveness, telling the “story we needed to hear when we were young.”

‘That night’ was 1996.  The pair had been to a Christmas ball together. Before this, they had a shared a “lovely teenage romance”. They would meet at lunchtimes. Walk around the town holding hands. Stranger met Elva’s family.

“I was 16 and in love for the first time… Going to the Christmas ball was a public declaration of our love. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world,” Elva said. She felt like a “girl who had become a woman”. And, because of this feeling of maturity, she decided she’d try drinking rum for the first time.

The alcohol made her ill. She was vomiting and convulsing. She needed to be taken home.

“It was like a fairy tale, his strong arms around me, laying me in the safety of my bed,” she said. “The gratitude I felt towards him soon turned to horror as he hopped on top of me.”

“My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding. I thought I’d been severed in two.”

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Moving forward after being sexually abused as a child. Post continues below.

Stranger is an Aussie who preferred cold weather. He went to Iceland to study the language. He was also involved in the school play, which is where he met Elva.

“I have vague memories of the next day,” he said. “The after effects of drinking, a certain hollowness I tried to stifle. Nothing more. But I didn’t show up at Thordis’ door”.

“It is important to now state that I didn’t see my deed for what it was,” Stranger continued. “The word ‘rape’ didn’t echo around my mind as it should have. And I wasn’t crucifying myself of memories of the night before. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but it was as if any recognition of reality was forbidden.”

Stranger broke up with Elva a few days later. He stayed in the town for the rest of the year. He saw her on occasions, passing by, with always a “stabbing feeling of heavy hardheartedness”.

Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger on the TED stage. Image via TED.
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"Despite limping for days and crying for weeks, it didn't fit the image of rape like I'd seen in the movies," Elva said. "By the time I could identify what happened as 'rape', Tom had finished his exchange and gone back to Australia."

By that time, Elva thought it "pointless" to address what happened. She also blamed herself.

"I was raised in a world where girls are taught they get raped for a reason. Their skirt is too short. Their smile is too wide. Their breath smells of alcohol," Elva said. "It took me years to realise only one thing could have stopped me from being raped that night. And it wasn't my skirt. It wasn't my smile. It wasn't my childish trust."

"The only thing that could have stopped me from being raped that night is the man who raped me, had he stopped himself."

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Nine years passed before Elva sent a "pivotal" letter to Stranger. She was headed for a breakdown and she couldn't stay still. She sent a letter hoping to find forgiveness. "Regardless if Tom deserved my forgiveness, I deserved peace," she said.

Thordis Elva. Image via TED.

Stranger also couldn't stay still.

"There was a nine year period of denial and running," he said. "When I got a chance to identify the real trauma I'd caused, I didn't stand still long enough to do so. Whether it be via distraction, substance use, thrill seeking, policing of inner speak. I refused to be static and silent."

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Elva didn't expect a response, but Stranger surprised her. Not only with the fact of his repose. But the way he admitted to, and took responsibility for, his guilt.

They talked through email for eight years. Always agreeing to be honest with each other. They explored the repercussions and reasons for 'that night'. But still, Elva didn't find closure.

She asked to meet in person.

Tom Stranger. Image via TED.
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They chose Cape Town. Because it's between Iceland and Australia but also because it's a town struggling to put itself back together after a traumatic past. The symmetry was fitting.

Their week together was hard. Elva explored the most painful part of her. Stranger "owned" his guilt. But, in the end, it was positive.

"This journey did result in a victorious feeling that light could triumph over darkness and something constructive can be built out of the ruins," Elva said.

Now, they are speaking together, and have published a book, to help progress and deepen the conversation around sexual violence: one of the biggest threats to women and girls around the world.

Changing the conversation starts with language, Elva says. The word 'victim' is too easily associated with someone 'damaged'. The word 'rapists' makes it too easy to consider someone a 'monster' or 'inhuman'.

"But this is a human problem, and we need to know the humanity of the person behind the problem," Elva told the TED audience. "The majority of sexual assault is committed by men. And men are sorely underrepresented in this discussion. It's about time that we stopped treating sexual violence as a women's issue."