I don't know how

I did it. How did I survive a childhood filled with incest and years as a young pre-teen prostitute? It was a huge part of my daily life.

I'm not like anyone I know.

I have nothing in common with anyone other than other childhood, teenage sex slaves raised to serve men from birth through teen years. 

How?

How did I manage to live an apparently normal looking life while harboring these sick, criminal family secrets?

Then there's the whole, how could my dad and grandmother and uncle and aunts that knew, allow it? But, that's just our family history.

I grew up with incest and whoring being open secrets, acceptable behavior freely spoken of in certain family circles.

But me, look at me...

I have been through shit that boggles even me. That much? That amount of sexual servitude and learned and practiced behavior? As a child? Every week? Monthly prostitution? Being given away for use?

How did I manage to keep a shred of dignity? How did I grow up not full of hate?

Multiple 

Dissociation 

Saved me.

My mind saved me and probably God, too.

I remember Nebraska

There are positives to moving around from city-to-city during childhood as it puts perspective and actual dates to my fuzzy life timeline.

Being Multiple with over a hundred alters, presents me with chunks of blackout months and years, but I can say I Remember Nebraska and know that everything that happened there was from birth to 4 years old. 

My parents lived in the same upstairs apartment from the day I was born until their move back to Michigan home.

Something huge transpired about a month ago. A reintegration of being inside our own body.

See, at 5 years old, at the Michigan house on Sylvan street, my father had gotten angry and choked me into unconsciousness. My body was no longer a safe and welcoming place to be. It became a location to avoid and try and stay away from, preferably as far as possible.

In therapy, we, the alternate personalities, the Others, the parts and People of Amy's psyche System, were able to verbalize this Whoosh (the name we used to identify this particular trauma event) over many sessions and from various perspectives. 

People talked first about what it was like to observe dad grab Amy by the throat and lift her 5 year old body off the floor in the basement. Then, again, an observation but from closer, standing next to dad and her. A week passed. The observation was spoken with emotion and feeling from this personality, then that one. 

The progression continued for weeks gradually getting closer to first person, to being in the body and feeling the force, the anger, the pain of dad's hand squeezing my throat causing breathing to stop, fear to rise and ultimately my passing out unconscious and laying on the cold floor.

Funny, or odd really, both my parents took my breath away, effectively killing me, stopping breath and pulse, and when both became aware how far those actions had gone, the hugs and cries of remorse.

When my body went limp, my father's anger was superceded by the realization I had stopped breathing and getting oxygen to my brain. He hugged and rocked and cried, coaxing somehow, breath and life to return to me.

How similar to when my mother held me under the water, in the kitchen sink, when I was 8 months old. It's like a switch flipped on within her when my small body stopped  thrashing. She whisked me from the water; suddenly she cared about me a great deal! In the blink of an eye she had gone from maniacal infantcidist to loving mother pounding her babie's back in a concerted effort to dispel water and get her alive again.

Both my parents killed me once when I was little. Yeah, that shit leaves a scar.

Therapy allowed us to discuss and dispel all the pain associated with the Whoosh. Dramatically, the body became a safe place to be. It's new, this experiencing the world from within. It's warm in here and rather nice.

Somehow, I know not the mechanisms by which the human mind works, I have started remembering those Nebraska years fuller, richer, and oft in great detail.

So much to write.

Extraordinary events need to be recorded, for my sake, for other child abuse sufferers, and for those helping to heal the wounded that walk long-suffering amongst us.

Early Childhood Sexual Abuse, Incest

 A few nights ago, as I was falling asleep, I experienced a flashback, a quick moment wherein I felt something from years long past and forgotten. My left wrist felt as if it was being grabbed harshly and twisted in the wrong direction. It was my father strangling my wrist. He was angry, very angry. I could feel it in the wickedness of his grip. He sneered at me, with little bits of spit in the corners of his mouth. He was that angry. He said, "No Nails!"

I was shocked at his sudden turn from loving father to madman. I was four years old, alone with my dad as I often was. If I did things, dad was happy. I loved my father and I enjoyed making him happy. One of the things dad loved most was when he unzipped his pants and had me touch him, rub him, I guess, until he came white.

See, the flashback started at the shocking, startled, traumatic point, the sudden malicious grab and twisting of my little arm into great pain. Then, seeing and actually feeling his hand on my wrist, I could then see the events that followed, dad's face and words. The beginning of a memory typically is in the middle of an incident such as this.

Then I was able to see or sense the few minutes before the grab. I could coexist for a moment with that four year old part of myself. I could feel her deep shock. I easily felt how greatly she loved out dad and how much she enjoyed pleasing him. I could also feel...the depth of loyalty and love that she had for him, turn, change her. It was as if she was slapped in the face. She was in disbelief that her father would ever be angry at her. She felt betrayed by him. She had only known him as loving and caring, never seeing the violent and cruel side of him.

She was also very angry at herself for messing up, doing something to cause her father to turn mean like that. Of course, like most small children, she blamed herself not her dad. Four was wounded, deeply wounded not just from the physical pain of a severely twisted arm but the emotional pain of suddenly losing the parent she dearly loved and idolized, worshipped.

She withdrew, disappeared, turned around inside of herself and ran to the farthest, most distant reaches of our mind, ion our Inner Landscape. She stayed there with her pain, humiliation, betrayal and love for her now gone dad,

Fifty Five years later, in a home in which we are completely alone and safe, she suddenly surfaced and brought the memory to reality with her.

So, this is the earliest, clearest memory of the incest and sexual abuse. It was normal for Four to be taken aside, somewhere private and she would rub dad's penis to climax. This was completely normal for our four year old self. This is how sick, perverted and deranged my father was. His little daughter taught to jack him off probably as soon as she could master the physical task.

Yeah, I'm a little broken inside. My dad was a serial pedophile who used me for sex most days of the week. I wish I were exaggerating but I am not.

Incest

Early Childhood Incest and Sexual Abuse, a Survivor's Point of View

 

Early Childhood Sexual Abuse, Infancy, Toddler to 5 years of age

A Survivors Point of View

 My earliest memories are of being sexually abused by my father. This was a daily event that happened at least once, often twice ever since I could remember. An adult male using me was completely normal. Until the time I was seven or eight, having an adult male molesting me was not so much emotionally disturbing as it was physically painful. Small child body parts are not intended to being handled roughly and so often. It did not startle or worry me when these regular assaults happened. They were always just a normal occurrence that took place between my dad and me.

I don’t feel like I was traumatized in those early years. Dad and his friends he shared me with, all made it seem like a light-hearted yet odd kind of game to be played. Being used sexually on a regular basis normalized a highly abnormal and egregiously cruel event. My body hurt but my mind, not so much. Even when I would be prostituted at the Christian Men’s Thursday Bible Study and a half dozen men or more required sexual favors, it wasn’t really a problem because they were nice and kind as they were being serviced. There was no force, no yelling, no threats of violence, so I did not mind my job. I actually looked forward to it as some of the men said kind words and were nice to me.

The only times I recall feeling fear and great distress are when the sexual abuses became violent at the hands of unfamiliar perpetrators. My dad could rape me all he wanted, no big deal. But when he handed me off to a stranger and that strange, sick man was less than gentle, it definitely registered in my brain as traumatic and harmful.

Thus, when both my dad and grandmother took it upon themselves to have me work as a child prostitute and service strange men, the tides turned. My father took me to public rest areas and this is where my childhood sexual abuse became more harmful to me emotionally. These were often complete strangers that would take me into secluded, vile-smelling restrooms and use varying degrees of force or violence if they saw fit to. Each man, each criminal pedophile was an unpredictable variable. It turned “turning tricks” into a scary and much feared event with possible serious repercussions to little me. I hated the reststop sex selling. There was a great difference between blow jobs and handjobs for dirty, old Christian men in a nice and clean church basement as opposed to the filth and grime of a guy getting off from work to stop and molest a child on the way home to the wife and kids. The strangers had no reason to be nice. They didn’t have to. No one was watching them, even if dad read them the commonsense “do no physical harm” rules, there was no one to stop them when they were forcing me, grabbing me and being violent. And that restroom trauma happened almost every time I worked the rest areas. It's like a man could appear to be this normal, everyday kindof guy who works hard at his job and loves his wife and kids but once in a while, he likes to get down and dirty and make a child be submissive and overpowered and forced into unspeakable acts. I saw two sides to men. I saw the ugly side that they hide from most.

My dad had gotten me so used to everyday sexual abuse that I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t an awful, terrible thing just another day in my life. I expected it because it happened every single day.

I had to teach myself what "Good" felt like; a childhood devoid of love

 

I Had To Teach Myself What “Good” Felt Like

I am unique and extremely bizarre. The way in which I was raised could be categorized as sick, twisted, sadistic, and perverted. My dad and grandmother taught me to be both their whore and whore to many other strangers and men.

In a way, it was to my emotional wellbeing that I never experienced happiness, excitement or joy because I felt my miserable existence was perfectly normal. I did not miss out on my childhood, rather, it was just a childhood with a different scale, an emotional measurement. I think most unabused people have a wide range of emotions from a 1 which is very bad, awful to 100 which is pure happiness and bliss. My scale simply measured bad, worse, awful or agony. It was a very small, narrow scale of emotions that I had to work with. In a nutshell, things that happened to be were on a scale of badness. If it wasn’t bad, I did not know how to categorize it. The only positive thing I can remember from my childhood is birthday cake. Birthday Cake was great!!

I felt no love, only handling and use and care not to cause me enough harm that I’d end up at the hospital or require medical care. I could be used but not handled too roughly. There was no love there.

When I moved to Oregon, I started going for walks in these big, beautiful and bountiful old growth forests lush with carpets of ferns under foot and trees wearing blankets of hanging moss. As I walked, I felt not bad. But I could describe it no further. So, I tried something. I started repeating “this is good”, “this is what good feels like”, “this is what not hurt feels like”, “I like how this feels; this feels good”. And I walked and walked and repeated these new and strange thoughts. I was pretty sure that what I was feeling was a positive emotion and I guessed that the feeling was “Good”. Before that, I didn’t really have first-hand knowledge of what Good felt like. I had to teach it to me. I discovered I could feel Good. And I let that feeling grow.

My emotional growth had been stunted, stomped on and eradicated to the point that I had only experience with negative physical feelings. Growing up there was no one feeding me love, care or kindness. It was a devoid, empty and flatline way to live but it was all I knew.

I’ve been expanding and growing. I’m becoming aware of the telltale signs that what I am doing or where I am “feels good”. I’ll notice a subtle or wide smile upon my face. I’ll notice a warmth in my heart and tears of wonder and happiness falling on my face. No one taught me this. There was no one demonstrating these emotions to me. I have had to teach myself what others innately know or have most likely experienced.

God, I know I am bizarre and my upbringing, my days have been filled with agony, torture, unbelievable perversion and crimes committed against me by those called family.

I’m 59 years old and I am just finding the words to explain an existence beyond outrageous.

The Incest Survivor Timeline of Amy Maureen Murphy (seriously messed up and totally true)

                      Incest Survivor Amy Maureen Murphy Timeline as of July 11, 2022

From birth to 26 years of age- incest, sexually abused by my father at least 2-3 times a week

2 to 3 years old- dad allowed his three friends to sexually abuse me on a semi-weekly basis, usually every Friday when it was beer, cards, and child rape

3 to 4 years old- the first time I remember being given to a man for free and for money, two separate occasions. Both times it was to my dad’s Commander at the Air Force Base he worked at.

4 or 5 years old- first sexual assault by a stranger/ non-family member; the first man not sanctioned and that my family agreed could molest me. He was a store owner who ran the corner store when we lived in Saginaw.

5 or 6 years old- forced to perform oral sex on a teen who was working at the grocery store meat market section. He bribed my older brother and I with candy. I think this happened only once.

5 to 9 weekly or monthly molestations by my paternal great-grandmother who took perverse pleasure in bathing and fondling me. That stopped when she died when I was 10.

7 to 9 years old- dad hosted private parties with a host of men who paid money for myself or my sister for sex. This took place at private homes on the West Side of Grand Rapids. Probably half a dozen times at least.

7 to 9 or 12- Dad would take me to specific public restrooms every two weeks or so. Each work day was at one of four locations in lower Michigan. There were typically two shifts, 4-7 or 7-9, and most took place on Wednesdays or Saturdays. Rockford, Grayling or the Lansing are were the most frequent work places.

9 year old- drugged and raped by my soon-to-be-priest great uncle with Manna approving and great-grandmother there as well.

9 years old- my dad gave me to the scrap metal manager to make money for sexual favors. Not sure how many times that may have happened. Once for sure.

9 to 13- evil grandmother trained me to become her personal sex slave to satisfy all of her sexual needs and perversions.

10 to 14 or so – the specific years are murky as dad tried different ways to sell me and make more money. At one point, he would get a hotel room near the highway, use his CB radio to talk to and entice truckers to stop by for sexual services by me. This was high risk and high reward. Probably happened under a half dozen times, I’m guessing.

14 to 26- most of the sexual abuse was dad on a weekly basis although he did have me service his boss and coworkers on occasion. He bought me a car because I performed for a co-worker who significantly lowered the price due to my whoring. When dad wanted money, discounts or favors, he would use me, sell me. 

if it hurts us, se don't want to keep it inside anymore