‘Law & Order: SVU’ Star Mariska Hargitay Admits She Was in a ‘Frozen Place’ for Years While ‘Trying to Survive’

Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay recently opened up about her past mental and emotional health struggles, admitting that she was in a “frozen place” for years while “trying to survive.” Hargitay shared a little about her experience while speaking with Glamour for the magazine’s “Women of the Year” issue. “I clearly was in that frozen place for a lot of my childhood-of trying to survive, actually trying to survive,” the 57-year-old actress revealed. “My life has been a process of unpeeling the layers and trust and trusting again.”

Hargitay went on to share, “I think I learned about crisis very young, and I learned very young that s— happens and there’s no guarantees, and we keep going. And then we transform it.” She added, “That’s been kind of my superpower, and the gift of having trauma early in life. I’ve spent the last 50-how old am I?-57, so 54 years sort of trying to figure out what happened and why, and what am I supposed to do with it?” Sadly, Hargitay’s mother, the iconic Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield, died in a car accident when the SVU star was just 3 years old. She was raised by her father, Mickey, a former Mr. Universe who immigrated to the United States from Hungary.

When she first began working on back in 1999, Hargitay says she received countless letters from fans who would share their own personal experience of abuse and trauma with her. “I feel alone” and “I have shame” are just some of the sentiments Hargitay would read about in the heartbreaking letters. As she read through the candid messages from fans, Hargitay began to notice a pattern… most of these abuse survivors had taken on “all these things that didn’t belong with them, that belonged with the perpetrator.”

“I went, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,’ and then, in “response,” she started the Joyful Heart Foundation, a group that does outreach with survivors of abuse. “Joyful Heart was my response. That’s what the foundation has been about giving back possibility.” Hargitay went on to explain that the philosophy behind the organization is that when something is frozen, “light doesn’t get in,” so Joyful Heart works to help survivors by providing the “light” they need to find hope. Fans can catch Hargitay continuing her on-screen fight against crime and abuse when Law & Order: SVU returns Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.