Kate Price is now an academic, but her first “research project” happened at age six when she leaned into her father’s truck cab and pressed the button on his sun-warmed CB radio. Speaking the name she’d overheard – “Chicken Plucker” – she heard a man’s voice respond. This was her first confirmation that the name she secretly associated with being taken from her bed at night belonged to a real person who might have answers. When her father caught her, she was too scared to try contacting the man again.
Fifty years later, Price has written This Happened To Me, a memoir that reads partly like a detective story as she pieces together clues about the horrors she endured as a child and her journey toward healing. Speaking over Zoom from her office at Wellesley College, where she researches child sexual exploitation (CSEC), Price is worlds away from her rural Pennsylvania upbringing. From as early as she can remember until age 12, her father sexually abused her before abandoning the family. Only as an adult did she discover he had also drugged her and “sold” her to men at night.
The book, she says, “poured out of me.” While writing about such unimaginable crimes was difficult, Price notes it aligns with her life’s work: “I research child sex trafficking. I haven’t been trafficked in 40 years—not that I’m fully healed, but this is my daily subject.” She’s also spent decades in therapy, including pioneering trauma treatment with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk in the 1990s. Van der Kolk featured her case in The Body Keeps the Score, explaining her PTSD would require lifelong management—something she now handles through therapy, exercise, sleep, nutrition, and a stable marriage. “I’m lucky to have the resources,” she admits. “It’s a privilege.”
Much of the book stems from a decade-long investigation with journalist Janelle Nanos, which became a 2022 Boston Globe article. “Just as I thrived academically, I compartmentalized this as research. Yes, it’s my life, but…” She trails off. “Actually, it was healing. My sister and I had conversations we’d never had before—some painful, some surprisingly joyful.”
Growing up, Price saw her father violently abuse her older sister, who seemed to resent her. Through her research, Price learned her sister had also been trafficked by their father. Price herself endured his brutality—at four, she’d hide in cupboards, wishing they led to Narnia, before he beat her. At six, he carved an “X” into her arm with a penknife, declaring she belonged to him, then threw her down the basement stairs.
“I knew something was wrong,” she says, but without any frame of reference, she didn’t realize how abnormal it was. A turning point came at a swimming teammate’s birthday party, where she saw a home filled with books, art, and mutual respect. “Just knowing families like that existed…” she reflects. That glimpse of normalcy planted the seed of escape.She marveled at the thought that people could actually be happy. Price promised herself that one day she would create that kind of life for herself, and she understood that education would be her path forward.
The abuse continued until Price was 12, when her father left the family for a younger woman he had been having an affair with. As a teenager, she overdosed on pills—luckily, they were just antibiotics, so they didn’t harm her. She was deeply unhappy, confused about why she struggled to form close relationships or choose healthy partners (one boyfriend was emotionally and sexually abusive). When she drove past an adult theater and rest area near the interstate as a young adult, she would tense up without understanding why.
“I was completely focused on going to college, on escaping,” she said. “Even when I had these reactions, I just pushed them aside, telling myself I’d deal with it later. Our brains are wired for survival, and that’s exactly what I was doing.”
Price did escape, earning multiple degrees—including a doctorate for her research on the criminalization of child sex trafficking victims—while supporting herself with administrative jobs and bookstore work. While living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and working as an assistant to the dean at Harvard’s Radcliffe College, she began seeing a therapist. Her mother had recently died, and she was grieving, but she also felt deeply unhappy and isolated, struggling to make friends in an intellectual city that felt worlds away from her rural upbringing. She knew her trauma ran deeper.
When her therapist felt she wasn’t making progress, she referred Price to Bessel van der Kolk. During one session, Price revealed for the first time that her father had sexually abused her.
“What was it like to finally tell someone?” she reflected. “Honestly, it was a relief to have an older man in my life that I trusted. I’d never had that before.” With stability in her work and studies, and her father now living far away in Florida, she finally felt safe enough to confront her past.
“I was building my own life, and then it was like my brain said, Okay, you’re safe now—you’re ready to feel everything.”
The night she first experienced full flashbacks of being raped by men other than her father at the interstate rest area, she became suicidal and had to go to the hospital.
“I’d been trying to uncover these memories for years,” she said. “It was like watching a slideshow—about 100 perpetrators. I can still see it if I close my eyes. It was completely overwhelming and terrifying.”
She saw van der Kolk the next day and continued therapy with him for years. It marked the beginning of “learning how to be a human being.” She had been numb for so long, unable to feel emotions, and even bought cassette tapes to teach herself how to reconnect with them.
“I had been completely dehumanized by my father,” she said. “He destroyed any sense of agency or humanity in me.”
One of the hardest realizations was how calculated the abuse had been—that her father had drugged her and allowed men to rape her for money. Gathering courage, she called him. She wasn’t ready to confront him about the trafficking, but she did accuse him of sexual abuse. He exploded, telling her never to contact him again.
“I was finally seeing the full picture of what had happened to me,” she said. “For the first time, I was angrier at him than I was afraid. By then, I’d been working through this for three or four years, and I just couldn’t live the lie anymore.”
Until that point, she had still been in occasional contact with her father.Kate Price maintained occasional phone contact with her father and even stayed with him for several days at one point. Though she didn’t know the full scope of his abuse, she was aware he had repeatedly raped her as a child. How could she tolerate his presence? “That’s Appalachia—family always comes first. That mindset was ingrained in me, so I played the role of the obedient daughter.” She’d witnessed this same pattern with her mother, who endured terrible treatment from family yet remained loyal (Price would later learn her mother had also been sexually abused by her own father). Around her father, Price says she stayed in “survival mode”—constantly gauging his moods and trying to appease him. Eventually, the pretense became unbearable. “I was tired of the lies and being his puppet. I realized that by playing along, I was enabling his narrative—letting him boast about our ‘loving relationship.’ No more. I was done.”
Price never spoke to her father again, though Boston Globe journalist Jenna Nanos interviewed him in 2022 (he again angrily denied all allegations). By the time Price collaborated with Nanos on the story, she had become a respected researcher on commercial child sexual exploitation (formerly—and shockingly—termed “child prostitution”), was happily married to a prominent sports journalist, and had a son.
As the investigation unfolded, some family members and acquaintances disputed Price’s account. “I wasn’t surprised,” she says. “I didn’t pursue this article or book to mend broken relationships. I pity my family—acknowledging the truth would force them to admit they’d been deceived by him their entire lives. They’d also have to face the possibility that they or their children may have been abused by him or others.” Price knew what happened to her; she wanted to know who else knew.
The most devastating revelation? Her mother had known. Though deeply close to her mother, Price discusses this betrayal with unsettling calm. After speaking with her mother’s best friend (who confirmed the truth), Price theorizes her mother feared losing her children—either to authorities or to estrangement if she spoke up. “As a mother, I’d never make that choice—but I say that as a middle-class woman with options. My mother was uneducated and trapped in abuse. We occupied entirely different worlds.” Is she angry? “Of course. She sacrificed us. As a non-offending family member, her silence made her complicit.”
While Price has found some understanding for her mother, she feels no need to extend that to her father for her own healing. Learning of his recent death brought no grief: “I’m just relieved he can’t hurt anyone else.”
Price never sought legal justice. “In the U.S., less than 10% of reported child sexual abuse cases end in conviction. Our system doesn’t protect survivors—I knew defense attorneys would shred me in court.” She stresses the urgent need to “believe and support survivors, because victim-blaming empowers perpetrators.”
Since the article and now her book, other survivors have reached out. Price welcomes this connection—it’s not difficult for her, and she’s grateful to help.Here’s the rewritten text in fluent, natural English:
“I’m honored that people want to share their stories with me and that they feel seen and validated. As we know, so many survivors take their own lives.” She mentions Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and died by suicide in April. “She was one of the strongest, most outspoken survivors I’d ever seen. But then to lose her to suicide—it’s a story I know all too well. I’m grateful to still be here, to provide research that validates others’ experiences, especially for survivors within families who’ve been told, like I was, that they’re crazy or making it up. To be able to say, ‘Look, here’s proof. This really happens.’”
This Happened to Me by Kate Price (Bonnier Books, £22). To support The Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs About Growing Up My Father Stripped Away My Humanity Kate Prices Story
Basic Questions
1 What is Kate Prices story about
Kate Price shares her traumatic childhood experiences revealing how her father systematically destroyed her sense of selfworth and humanity through emotional and psychological abuse
2 How did Kates father strip away her humanity
He used control manipulation humiliation and isolation to break her down making her feel worthless and powerless
3 Is this a true story
Yes its a personal memoir based on Kate Prices reallife experiences
4 What kind of abuse did Kate endure
Primarily emotional and psychological abuse though she may have faced other forms as well
5 Why did Kate decide to share her story now
To raise awareness about childhood trauma help other survivors feel less alone and encourage healing
Intermediate Questions
6 What are some signs of emotional abuse in children
Withdrawal extreme anxiety low selfesteem peoplepleasing fear of authority figures and difficulty trusting others
7 How does longterm childhood trauma affect adults
It can lead to PTSD depression anxiety relationship struggles selfsabotage and difficulty regulating emotions
8 Did Kate have any support during her childhood
The book suggests she felt isolated with little to no support from family or outsiders
9 How can someone recover from this kind of trauma
Therapy support groups selfcare and rebuilding selfworth are key steps
10 Why do some parents emotionally abuse their children
Often due to their own unresolved trauma mental illness narcissism or a need for control
Advanced Questions
11 How does psychological abuse differ from physical abuse
Physical abuse leaves visible scars while psychological abuse damages the mind and emotions often going unnoticed
12 What is dehumanization in abusive relationships
Its when an abuser treats someone as less than humanignoring their feelings needs or autonomy to maintain control
