(UPI) -- Just two months after her kidnapper hanged himself in his Ohio jail cell, Michelle Knight sat down for a two-part interview with TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, set to air in two parts on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"In the 12 years of doing the Dr. Phil show, no one has changed me like Michelle Knight and her story of survival," McGraw told the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week.
He said that Knight, 32, will discuss her 11 years in captivity in Ariel Castro's Cleveland home after he kidnapped her in 2002. McGraw said that Knight would only discuss her experiences out of respect for the other victims, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus.
In a few of the clips already released, Knight sits across from McGraw on a couch with her legs crossed. In one harrowing anecdote, Knight describes at time when Castro tied her up with an orange extension cord.
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"I was tied up like a fish," she said. "an ornament on the wall."
“She stays in this room for a period of time," McGraw told the Today show. "And then, when she is taken down, it was like her hands and feet wouldn't work. She had been hanging for days, you know — no circulation. She still has nerve damage in her hands and feet.”
"I found Michelle to be very bright, well-spoken and eager, after all of these horrific years, to have her own voice," McGraw told the Plain Dealer.
People have perceived her, probably based on the information in the original missing person report, as being intellectually disabled. I found her to be anything but that. My team and I spent quite a lot of time with Michelle and she showed a tremendous strength in reconstructing her 11 years of captivity. She was understandably very emotional at times.
