Neverending nightmare — abuse survivors shackled to a life ‘stuck in survival mode’

“I am a person, not a thing, in case you didn’t realise. And I am exhausted from answering the same questions, over and over. Write what you like.”

With those words, Juliette Bryant ended our Zoom interview. Until then, the conversation had flowed – a dialogue, not an interrogation. It demanded care: not pity, not empathy, but compassion and respect. Not the same recycled questions demanding neat answers. And not the reduction of her life to voyeurism or trauma as spectacle.

For Bryant, and for hundreds of others still entangled in the late Jeffrey Epstein’s world, the past six years have been shaped by the psychological aftershocks of one of the most notorious sexual abuse networks in modern history.

Read more: ‘He fed off the terror’: South African survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse tells her story

Epstein’s wealth and influence masked decades of predation. Public records identify his first known victim in 1994 – a child of just 13. With his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, he groomed underage girls and young women with promises of education, modelling or opportunity, only to subject them to systematic sexual exploitation.

When Epstein was arrested in 2019, survivors briefly glimpsed something they had long been denied: visibility. Their suffering was finally acknowledged. Accountability, consequences and answers seemed possible. Most importantly, there was hope for agency: control over how their stories would be told and how justice would be pursued. That hope was short-lived.

Epstein’s death in custody once again stripped survivors of control. In life and in death, he maintained power through silence.

A ‘shameful secret’

Bryant’s experience reflects this. Between 2002 and 2004, she endured abuse she kept secret for 15 years, internalising the violation of both body and identity. “I was carrying this shameful secret and pretending I was okay,” she says. “For years I suffered panic attacks and eating disorders. I was punishing myself for being such an idiot. My time with Epstein killed my true self.”

Like many survivors, Bryant has lived with a volatile mix of anger, shame, guilt and fear – including the terror that she might again be drawn back into Epstein’s orbit. She says he continued making contact even in the months before his death, requesting naked images.

In 2022, Bryant confronted one of the architects of this abuse through a written victim impact statement submitted for Maxwell’s sentencing. Her statement was read to Judge Alison J Nathan of the Southern District of New York for the official court record: “Simply put, Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster. Ever since she and Jeffrey Epstein got their hands on me, I have never felt okay. Thinking about them still gives me frequent panic attacks and night terrors. All the victims, including myself, are eternally grateful for everyone that has helped expose these criminals. I appreciate Your Honor imposing the maximum sentence available.”

Those lines capture what legal verdicts rarely convey: for survivors, the damage does not end with arrests, trials or convictions. The violence continues in memory, in the nervous system, in the daily work of simply getting through life.

Brainwashing effect

“It’s common for survivors to feel anger, guilt and conflicting emotions long after the physical abuse has ended,” says Riaan van Wyk, a therapist specialising in trauma and relationships. “They’ve been so broken down by the abuse that it has an almost brainwashing effect on them. The perpetrator is particularly adept at controlling them through abuse and intermittent rewards. We call it trauma bonding.”

When I raise the concept with Bryant, her response is immediate and irate. “There were no rewards from Epstein,” she says. “Only pain and fear.”

Today, fear still dominates her life. She has become reclusive and deeply distrustful. “Many people associated with Epstein have died under suspicious circumstances,” she says.

Bryant recalls her optimism when US President Donald Trump was pressured into signing the Epstein Transparency Act in November 2025. “We thought we’d finally get answers. We thought we’d learn who was really pulling the strings. But with the constant delays and sealed documents, we feel betrayed again. We can’t trust anyone.”

Van Wyk says this reaction is predictable. “Understandably, their core has been so badly ruptured in terms of their protective parts that they don’t trust easily. They are still very much in survival mode.”

For Bryant, survival is no longer just about escaping Epstein. It’s about untangling his chains – reclaiming autonomy, trusting her own perception and learning how to exist without fear. “I am determined not to allow myself to be controlled by him,” she says.

Then she texts: “I have a child, I have a mother. I have work to do, in order to pay bills and support my family. I’ve said what I need to say. Now I want to live my life.”

Like Bryant, Epstein’s survivors are not just records of trauma. They are studies in endurance and the complex psychological aftermath of abuse.

Although the law may never fully repair what was broken, understanding and dismantling trauma’s invisible bonds offers something vital: the possibility of agency, and renewal on their own terms. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.