This Happened to Me – A reckoning

By Kate Price

For readers of Educated, The Glass Castle and Know My Name comes a powerful new memoir that stands as a remarkable testament to survival and resilience. The story is both harrowing and exquisite, haunting and inspiring.

Kate Price’s journey in This Happened to Me leaves readers with a profound assurance in the power to heal and to reclaim life after trauma.

Kate Price grew up in a small mill town in central Pennsylvania with her sister and parents in northern Appalachia. Her mother insisted that she pursue education as a way to escape.

Emotions and memories

Through academic success, Price broke free from the unbroken cycles of poverty, violence, addiction, mental illness and abuse that had plagued her family for generations. She began a new life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while pursuing her master’s and PhD. Yet, despite leaving that dark world behind, it still kept a firm hold on her emotions and memories.

Over time, Price became overwhelmed by unexplainable grief and deep sadness. She also experienced a series of hazy flashbacks accompanied by a chilling sensation in her blood and an uncomfortable feeling in her bones. Seeking answers, she turned to Dr Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma specialist, to help her heal through EMDR therapy. Their work together formed a significant part of his bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score, where This Happened to Me is referenced as part of her powerful healing journey.

Under Dr. van der Kolk’s guidance, Price confronted the memories her mind had long suppressed. As her sense of safety grew, she began uncovering the darkness hidden in her past. The devastating truth emerged: her father had abused and trafficked her as a child.

From fearful child to empowered adult

Price struggled to process what she had discovered. She asked herself painful questions. Did this really happen to her? How could a parent commit such acts against their own child? As a disciplined researcher and academic, she knew she needed evidence to confirm her recovered memories. This inner drive led to a decade-long investigation alongside a journalist. Together, they sought proof of what Price knew to be her truth.

During many emotional trips back to her hometown, the place she thought she had left forever, they finally uncovered the hard-earned evidence she needed. This moment of discovery validated her experience and strengthened her resolve to share her story through This Happened to Me.

In this exquisitely written and deeply transformative memoir, Price describes how she broke free from the trauma that defined her childhood. She also shows how she built a purpose-driven life and family on her own terms. Eventually, she returned to the same Appalachian community to use her education and advocacy to protect children. Her mission now ensures that others receive the attention, protection and services she was once denied.

From victim to advocate, from fearful child to empowered adult, and from despair to triumph, This Happened to Me is a story of extraordinary resilience and breathtaking determination. It serves as both a personal testimony and a public call for awareness about the lasting effects of trauma and the redemptive power of truth.

About the author

Kate Price is an associate research scientist at the Wellesley Centres for Women, a gender-based research institute at Wellesley College. She is also a senior research scholar at the Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars. In addition, she serves as an advisor for the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s Child Sex Trafficking Expert Working Group and the Global Platform for Child Exploitation Policy. She is an alumna scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Centre.

An internationally recognised expert and lecturer on child sex trafficking, Price’s research has influenced the passage of state-level children’s human rights legislation. Her achievements have earned her several awards, including the My Life, My Choice Beacon of Light Award, the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the Mariam K. Chamberlain Dissertation Award from the International Centres for Research on Women, and an American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship.