How hard could it be to forgive your tormentor for trapping you in a horror house for more than a decade? For Michelle Knight, it took about a year and a half after she was rescued to reach the breakthrough and find peace in her life.
Knight, who was held captive as a sex slave in a Cleveland home with two other women before she escaped, told a suburban Cleveland audience Sunday that she forgave Ariel Castro, the kidnapper who subjected the three women to violent beat downs and daily torture during an 11-year ordeal, The Plain Dealer reported.
Kidnapped at the age of 21 in August 2002, Knight escaped from the basement of the Cleveland house in May 2013 after years of horrific abuse left her with five miscarriages. Along with her, 27-year-old Amanda Berry and 24-year-old Gina DeJesus also broke out of the house.
Citing therapy as a significant eye-opener, Knight claimed to have come to the realization that Castro was suffering from a disease and that his actions towards the three girls were eventually not his fault, the Associated Press reported.
"At first I hated him," Knight told the crowd at a fundraiser for WomenSafe, a domestic violence shelter organization. "But I went through therapy and realized it hadn't been his fault. He had a disease."
"I was able to say his name, Ariel Castro," the 33-year-old Knight said during an interview conducted by a radio host at Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin High School in Chardon, Ohio. "I was able to forgive him."
"For me it's holding on to hatred that will control your life. And if you hold on to it, you're going to condemn your life to hell," Knight told the audience, according to WKYC.
"And I choose to forgive that person for all the wrongdoing that they have done to me. And for the people who didn't look for me, I forgive them too. It wasn't their fault."
Castro, who had confessed to Knight that he was a sex addict, pleaded guilty to a long list of charges in August 2013. "You will face hell in eternity," she had told the 53-year-old at his sentencing.
However, he committed suicide by hanging himself in prison one month later. "I felt very appalled by it, but I understood," Knight said of Castro's prison suicide. "I don't condone what he did."
Meanwhile, Knight's admission that she forgave Castro's family and hoped for their best was greeted with a round of applause from the audience, according to New York Daily News.
"A lot of people who have contacted me through Facebook see me as an inspiration," said Knight, who has written a book about her ordeal called "Finding Me." ''It means the world to me and it is an honor to help everybody I can."
"The situation (Castro) put me in didn't define me," she said. "I choose to live a meaningful life."
