Finding Me Michelle Knight Analysis

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After learning about a multitude of different trauma types and responses to trauma, I do not think I have heard any story comparable to that of Michelle Knight, author of Finding Me—an incredibly inspiring narrative capturing the horrific details of her kidnapping and subsequent torture for over a decade. Despite the very deep physical and emotional scars Ariel Castro inflicted on Michelle (and the other two women who were kidnapped), she transformed her experiences into this fantastic piece of writing that offers hope to anyone in the darkest of days. Michelle already had a tough life; growing up, her family was poor and by 17 she was a single mother. Her family was also abusive—in fact, her mother’s boyfriend at the time broke her son Joey’s leg right in front of her. Social services found out about the abuse as well as the other poor living conditions and Michelle’s baby was taken into foster care. On August 23, 2002, 21-year-old Knight’s life was unexpectedly changed forever while on the way to visit her Joey in an effort to prove her fitness of being a mother. When asking a familiar face in the neighborhood where she could find the…show more content…
Some of her time was spent chained up in Castro’s basement, which she referred to as “The Dungeon”. The room was absolutely putrid; unwashed clothes sat in piles all over the place, a puddle of water sat underneath a sink, and tools and various other items were scattered (Knight & Burford, 2015, p. 88). Here she was forced to sit chained up with a motorcycle helmet firmly placed over her head, making her unable to hear or see anything. On top of complete isolation from the world, Castro would come down to the basement and brutally rape Michelle—not only force her to unwillingly have sex with him, but also make her do unspeakable things that she could not even write about due to how traumatizing it

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