Actor reveals her gut reaction

ACTOR Madeleine West has told of the moment she was physically sick listening to an abuse survivor’s harrowing story.

West said it was not just the horror of what she was hearing but the realisation she was not alone.

“Where you described that sensation in your stomach, that black sensation, that emptiness in your stomach. I’ve never heard anyone use those words – and as soon as they came out of your mouth, I went, ‘That’s me’,” she told abuse survivor Russell Manser in episode four of News Corp’s Predatory podcast.

While Manser’s sexual abuse began in a juvenile detention centre when he was barely 17, West was interfered with between the ages of five and 10.

“I just wanted to say, from a personal perspective, listening to your various interviews and reading your story really impacted me and I’m not afraid to say I literally puked in the middle of listening to you telling a story … wept, not just because of the graphic nature of what you lived through, but you identified things,” she said.

Although West and Manser lived in different “spheres” and came from a “very different spectra”, she said his words echoed her life story – indeed, that of all abuse victims. “You describe so perfectly so many of the feelings that I have carried around with me my entire life,” she said.

West said her childhood attacks had prompted a range of adult behaviours that impacted negatively.

“And that’s what drove me to … self-harm and, and a work ethic that was unnecessary in someone so young,” she said.

Manser said having a forum where people could come together and speak openly about the issue was “really way overdue”.