SALT LAKE CITY — Elizabeth Smart is a survivor, in every sense of the word.

But it was the survivors who've reached out to her with their own stories who inspired her to share her ordeal, with the hope her happy ending would prove it's possible to overcome even the most horrific tragedy.

"I don't think I've ever spoken and not had someone come up to me and say, ‘I was raped and I've never been able to tell my story' or ‘I've been through some kind of abuse,'" Smart told KSL's Debbie Dujanovic Tuesday during an interview in Liberty Park — the site of many candlelight vigils in her honor held while she was separated from her family. "Every time I speak that happens to me, and that really helped me decide to write my book and to include everything that I included in it."

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Elizabeth Smart gets candid during interview, book

Elizabeth Smart's memoir, "My Story," comes out Monday. The book will focus on her experience of being kidnapped and held for nine months by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee.

A decade after she was kidnapped, raped and held captive for nearly a year, she is sharing her story with the world, along with a message of hope, in her new book, "My Story." Smart's gripping account as a kidnapping victim is horrifying, and the missed chances of her rescue are heartbreaking.

But she wants people to know, she's happy in her life now.

"It doesn't follow me around like a shadow right now in my life. I don't think about it every day, it doesn't bother me," she said. "I think about it when I want to think about it. But for everyone it's different.

The motivation behind the book was always hope, Smart said. Having met so many victims of abuse, she felt she could help inspire survivors to "never, ever surrender."

"I really felt like I could contribute something by writing it," Smart said. "I'd be able to reach out to other people who have struggled in their lives and hopefully give them the hope to continue forward, to not allow their situation or their problems to hold onto them any longer than they have to."

Smart didn't hold back — "My Story" is truly that: a detailed depiction of her experience in captivity. Those difficult details, she said, were necessary and couldn't be left out.

"I didn't want to sell myself short," she said. "I didn't want to sugar coat or gloss over things that, even though they were difficult things to include and publicly talk about or write about, I wanted to include them because I wanted all of the other survivors out there to know that you can overcome it and it's not something that should be played down because it's important. Every bit of it's important."

So how does one get past something as unthinkable as this? The answer, Smart said, is hope. Find something to hope for, and don't let go.

"If I really look at my life right now, I've had almost 26 years of a pretty great life. Only really nine months out of that… have been really, really terrible, so I think I'm going to be OK," she said.

Contributing: Debbie Dujanovic

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