Kate Price, now an academic at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, has written a memoir detailing the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, who also sold her to other men. The book, This Happened To Me, reads like a detective story as Price pieces together clues about her childhood trauma.
Price was abused by her father from a young age until she was about 12, when he left the family. As an adult, she discovered he had been drugging her and selling her to men in the middle of the night. Her research into child sex trafficking helped her uncover the truth about her own past.
Price has undergone decades of therapy, including pioneering trauma treatment with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk in the early 1990s. He included her as a case study in his book The Body Keeps the Score. Price says she manages her PTSD through therapy, exercise, sleep, nutrition, and a loving marriage.
The memoir is based on a decade-long investigation with journalist Janelle Nanos, published in the Boston Globe in 2022. Price found the process healing, particularly conversations with her sister, who she discovered had also been trafficked by their father.
Price grew up in rural Pennsylvania, enduring physical violence from her father, who once carved an X on her arm with a penknife and threw her down the stairs. She found solace in education, vowing to create a happy family for herself after witnessing a friend's loving home.
