All of those kidnap victims I just mentioned were sexually abused. You may or may not be familiar with the details, and yet that was a prominent part of what happened to them. Some managed to heal quite well after they were freed, and some did much less well. …

These children – and their families – were suddenly plunged into a truly nightmare world. I mean that in the literal sense, although of course they were awake and not asleep. Their real world because nightmarish. The protection and love on which children rely had disappeared, except for the slightly luckier ones who were with family or people they knew and loved. But they were all – including those adults – completely at the mercy of evil people. And as Patty Hearst herself said much later on (in a 2002 Larry King interview):

You know how when people have been held hostage, one of the first questions they get asked is, how were you treated? And the answer is almost always I was treated, you know, pretty well. And by that, they usually mean they weren’t killed.

[This is a good reminder from New Neo about why we have to wait to get the full story about hostage treatment. It’s well worth a full read in the context of current events. — Ed]