Elizabeth Smart made headlines when she was kidnapped and held captive for nine months before she was able to escape.
Ten years after the crime, Smart decided it was time to write a book titled "My Story" detailing what happened to her after she was kidnapped by knifepoint by Brian David Mitchell and wife Wanda Barzee.
NBC's Meredith Vieira took Smart back to the scene where she was raped. Mitchell and his wife had performed what she believed to be a strange wedding ceremony. Smart recalls being frightened when she started to process the situation.
"I was begging and crying and just so scared,'' Smart told Vieira. "I remember thinking, I know what comes after a wedding. And that cannot happen to me. That cannot happen."
"I remember him forcing me onto the ground, (and) fighting the whole way,'' she said. "And then when he was finished, he stood up, and I was left alone, feeling absolutely broken, absolutely shattered. I was broken beyond repair. I was going to be thrown away."
Her captors kept her trained onto a tree until she was able to get Mitchell and Barzee to take her with them in public. She knew she would not be able to escape if she stayed in the campsite.
The Associated Press reports Smart said Mitchell and Marzee would deny her food and water. Mitchell treated her as a sex object while Marzee treated her as her own personal slave.
"My Story" was released on Monday, and with the release she wants people to know she's happy and has not let that one part of her life define her.
Both of her kidnappers are serving 15 years to life in prison.
"I want people to know that I'm happy in my life right now," Smart told The AP. "I also, even more so, want to reach out to people who might not be in a good situation. Maybe they're in a situation that was similar to the one that I was in."
