‘Westworld’ Star Evan Rachel Wood Gives Emotional Testimony On Being Sexual Assault Survivor [VIDEO]

Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood gave her testimony at a hearing on the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights before Congress on Tuesday.

Wood and three other women – Amanda Nguyen and Lauren Libby of the group RISE and Rebecca O’Connor of the Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) – testified before Congress. The bill grants rights to assault survivors at the federal level.

Wood said in her statement that she is a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor. She wants to use her position of power to give a voice to survivors who “experience inequality under the law.” “If you can’t hear the whole truth, you will never know true empathy,” she said. “And I believe in the saying, ‘If we have to live through it, you should have to hear it.’”

“To see the flood of stories so similar to my own was both freeing and soul-crushing,” Wood said, referring to the #MeToo movement.

Wood graphically recounted her experiences. “It started slow but escalated over time, including threats against my life, severe gas-lighting and brainwashing, and waking up to the man that claimed to love me raping what he believed to be my unconscious body. And the worst part: Sick rituals of binding me up by my hands and feet to be mentally and physically tortured until my abuser felt I had proven my love for them. While I was tied up and being beaten and told unspeakable things, I truly felt like I could die. Not just because my abuser said to me, ‘I could kill you right now,’ but because in that moment I felt like I left my body and I was too afraid to run.”

“Seven years after my rapes – plural – I was diagnosed with long term PTSD. Which I had been living with all that time without knowledge about my condition. I simply thought I was going crazy,” Wood said, adding that she struggled with ”depression, addiction, agoraphobia and night terrors.”

Her turning point came only after a time in a psychiatric hospital due to self-harm and two suicide attempts. “I started to seeking professional help to deal with my trauma and mental stress,” she said.