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Background to Kathryn’s Story

This story speaks for itself, told here in the first person by a woman who experienced Stockholm Syndrome, empathizing and aligning herself with her captor. After 54 days in captivity, Kathryn spent the next 15 years in fear of her life, hiding with the assistance of the US government’s victim witness program.

Excerpt from The Ascension, by Kathryn Keats

I am not who my friends thought I was. I am not the film person I created myself to be. I am not the suburban housewife or the soccer Mom. I am not the next door neighbor that lives next door to the wonderful people who love me, who is not me. I am not who my children think I am. I am not my first last or middle name. Only a select few have known my story. Now I can share it with you. Now I can be who I really am and do what I was meant to do. I am safe now. My husband and three children are safe now. My family and friends are safe now. I am struggling to understand my past now. I am in a great amount of pain after years of living in hiding and fear. I have not expressed the pain to anyone and I have not written it so blatantly. I have sung about it in original lyrics because I am free to sing in public again but I have not let anyone know what the aftermath of fifteen years of an inner and outer identity change is like.

I can tell you this. The other night I was trying to go to sleep but could not. I could not because I felt, for the first time in twenty years, the warm feeling of happiness. It came on me like a ray of sun and would not let go. I stayed awake for hours to feel it. I will never forget it. Perhaps by telling you my story you will feel it too.

I am and I am not Kathryn Keats. I do not know what it is like to be a normal person. I do know what it is like to spend each day acting normal all the while watching my back so I do not get killed. I successfully stayed alive. Someone said to me once “If all you do is recover from your experience than you have succeeded in your life.” That is not enough for me. I may never fully recover but I will use what I went through to teach and write.

When I was 16 years old I fought with my big brother John. He wanted me to drive him to school on a rainy day so he would not have to ride his motor cycle. I yelled I could not. I did not have time. At six o’clock I answered the phone and heard John had been in an accident. He died four hours later. I quit eating and never really have again. One year later I met a musical director who was warm and quiet and thought I had invincible talent as a singer and songwriter. He understood my pain and gently walked me through the ability to understand that I did not kill John. We had an amazing time for one year. We wrote shows and music and toured and drank and lived the 80′s highlife as musical artists. He was an alluring genius who could write 113 instruments from his head. He had magic. He was much older than I and reminded me of John. He took care of me like John did. He did not judge me for being a rambunctious girl but instead, as John had, tolerated my effervescent ways with quiet glee. Everything seemed like it would be alright.

I came home one day and Ken was pacing our cramped kitchen floor. “Sit down”. He said it in a robotic instructional way. I sat. “You are Tina Martian. You are from France and you are evil and need to be dispossessed.” Our love affair was over and his psychosis and torture of me had begun. I had no idea what it was. I had no idea where it came from. I never saw it coming. It seeped in. It snuck in while we were not watching. It came and never went away. It would lighten itself for awhile and then reappear with a vengeance. Mental illness almost killed me. I tried to save my lover, my mentor, my friend. His mental illness was violent and manipulative. He knew it was there and fought it but could not win. I tried to save him from it. I forgot about myself. Mental illness won. I was held captive for 54 days. I was rescued by my sister and my partner was taken away in a straight jacket and held on a 72 hour watch. We then sent him home to the east coast and he turned around and came back with the intention to kill me. He made it back to California incognito and found 5 police waiting for him. He was taken away and prosecuted by the state of California for trying to kill me. My family endured a five week jury trial that was held in Oakland, California and was a criminal proceeding with a civil outcome. The man was sent away to a mental institution for awhile after he told the jury the Zen God’s were instructing him to dismember me and hang me from the trees after committing double Hari Kari. He then was sent to a half way house before he was let out to wander the streets. I was asked to change my identity to stay safe. I did. I stayed alive. But did I really continue to live MY life.

I have known I was safe for the last year. Now I am living my life. I still have humor. I still have some joy. My feelings are stronger than before. I am sadder and angrier and happier and less tolerant of myself. I want my whole life back. I want to have never been abused. I want to stop having nightmares and moments of traumatic stress. I do not want to be seen as another abuse survivor and that is what I am. I want the man I lived with and tried to save to be seen as an artist and not just an abuser but I know we are not to qualify abuse because it gives abuse permission. I do not want to do that. I just want to figure out how to make it all right. How to make the loss of fifteen years matter. I want to matter. And that is what makes me just like you. That is what makes my story relevant. I want to mean something.

Now I want people to know that I suffered from Stockholm Syndrome. I empathized and aligned with my captor. I want you to know that mental illness is sneaky and can kill everyone around it. Now I want there to be research funded for young people when mental illness begins to rear its head. There needs to be discussion about Stockholm Syndrome to ensure the safety of those vulnerable to it.

I want to say I was lucky. I have a life. My partner does not. He never played music again. He died and it went unseen, unnoticed. All that music gone. But I am here. I made it through unspoken torture. I survived repeated physical and mental ritualistic abuse. I write music now. I sing now. I do what God put me on the planet to do. I am strong and capable and necessary.

And do you know what else… All those years I WAS loved for me. No one cared that I was not ME. My children are the same as they were. My husband and family are all the same. Perhaps I can now be the same as them. I can feel like everyone else. It may take time. I know since that night I felt happy there is hope and I am back.

I am the person who my friends thought I was. I am the film person I created myself to be. I am the suburban housewife and the soccer Mom. I am the next door neighbor that lives next door to the wonderful people who love me, who is me. I am who my children think I am. I am my first last and middle name. I am Kathryn Ellen Keats and my birth name is Ellen Christian Munger and I am alive and strong and giving and whole.

Kathryn Keats life story is being penned as a feature film. Her CD, After the Silence, will be released in 2006.

Related Sites, and Kathryn’s Current Projects

• Kathryn Keats – home page
• US Government Victim Witness Program – operating under the Victim and Witness Protection Act 1982
• Conscious Alliance – charity benefits from Kathryn’s music
• Featured Lady – magazine feature on Kathryn Keats
• San Diego Filmmakers – on her forthcoming film

Questions or Comments for Kathryn?

Kathryn Keats may be available to reply to your questions or comments about her story, so if you’d like to have a say, please leave a comment using the form below. And if you’d like a psychologist’s feedback on Stockholm Syndrome, please see our earlier posting where Dr Carver is available to answer questions: “The Mystery of Loving an Abuser”.