Friday, July 27, 2012

{Book Tour} Guest Post and Book Review: Twenty Two Faces by Judy Byington



Abuse From A Child's Point of View
Writing a Biography From Viewpoint of a Child,
and the Opinions of Her Alter Personalities

Judy Byington, MSW, LCSW, ret,
Author, Twenty-Two Faces: Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill
and Her Twenty-Two Multiple Personalities

The long years of promoting Twenty-Two Faces to literary agents and publishers was nothing compared to writing the actual biography of Jenny Hill, a woman with twenty-two multiple personalities. As a retired therapist, I decided to take on a second career as an author, though didn't realize it would be such a challenge to my aging brain. What I had expected during retirement years was to sit on a sun-lit spot by my home peacefully writing the days away while looking at lapping waves of Utah Lake with the Rocky Mountain Wasatch Front as a backdrop.

No. Didn't happen. Besides, that's not the way things have ever been in my reality. I produced this, my first book, in a most complicated manner: by beginning the writing not only from five year-old Jenny Hill's point of view, but from that of her various and different-aged alter personalities. Plus, there were other complications inherent in Jenny's life: most of her multiple personalities were formed by the "Green Method" of mind-control that came out of Nazi Germany and referred to as Satanic Ritual Abuse (words that professionals refuse to utter, calling the diagnosis Dissociate Identity Disorder or the former Multiple Personality Disorder), plus she was not alone in her victimization through brainwashing that produced repressed memories from childhood of rape, torture and murder. Ritual abuse across the nation that no one, not even my family or closest friends and neighbors, seemed to believe happened.

As a single parent to five teenagers I was convinced it did. And, was rampant in our society. In my thirty-two years of working as a therapist, supervisor of Alberta Mental Health, Director of the Provo Family Counseling Center, Utah Child Welfare worker and experience in running certain information to the Utah Attorney General Office of Special Investigations, I had many a client who couldn't remember their childhood. In the safe environment of therapy, away from perpetrators, these dissociated women brought forth repressed memories of unbelievable abuse during childhood. Often the recall started in bits and pieces of nightmares, that were more and more detailed as memories came to the surface. Other times something as simple as a red flashing traffic light, or a man in black clothing, would bring up torture long buried in their past.

I first met Jenny through a FBI agent. The very day she contacted the Provo FBI office searching for parents of a girl that at age six, she was made to witness the murder, I phoned and talked with the same man. Several ritual abuse survivors had described their blood-chilling stories, plus by then I had traced a bloody trail of satanic cult cases throughout Utah.

Experts have found that a multiple personality is so because of abuse during childhood. With Jenny's encouragement I felt impressed to write her biography to expose the affects of this methodical mind-control of a the psyche. I decided the only way to explain her complicated life was to tell it from the simplistic mind of a child. That is, explain the life of a multiple through Jenny's point of view and that of her twenty-two alters, most of whom were still children living within her.

Jenny made the process somewhat easier via her journals. Throughout life when alters took over her mind and body, she skipped hours, days even months. Confused at the time loss, she made it a habit of asking for guidance through prayer. At age seven inspiration came that she should write down her experiences, "To help yourself and others."

By age thirty-five when we met her mission in life was clear. So was mine - I had experienced a few humbling challenges of my own where only God could give me answers, one of which was to write Jenny's biography. We would use Jenny's extensive journals that were interspersed with thoughts of her alter personalities.

We began by deciding on the time line and subject of each chapter, then Jenny would write it out. As she did, certain alters took over to pen their own experiences. Alters only knew of life during the time period they were active and thus, memories were very detailed, as if the events just happened. It made Jenny's long buried feelings easy to capture. Though, the challenge of twenty-two different personalities, several of which might surface to finish one thought or another, created unending challenges not only for Jenny, but for this new author.

For instance, I take you to the second chapter when she was walking home from kindergarten:

A five-year old shouldn't feel alone and decrepit. Jenny did. But so many of her emotions were compartmentalized that she was unaware of those feelings, except for fear, Wish I had someone to talk to. Feel scared all the time. Keep think'n big people are gonna hurt me, or take me away. Jenny thought, while her Head Alter J.J. thought back in disgust, Jen, quit thinking about that rubbish. Why not wrap our mind about what I'm thinking for a change?

Distress dominated the child's life, fed by concerns of her different personalities. As always, J.J. wasn't about to give in to those images. It's my body, too, and no one is going to take my Jen away.

Often this personality had suicidal tendencies, but Jenny would die if she carried them out. J. J. would never kill themselves for that was pig-tailed Suicidal Alter Janet's job. Meanwhile, Jenny wondered, Why am I thinking about dying?

The core of her personality was filled with optimism and had no death wish, while J.J. occasionally did and Suicidal Alter Janet thought about it most of the time, but not today. There was a new bean beneath the dirt in their cup and Jenny, they and their bean were going to grow up and get old together.

Writing can be very therapeutic for one who has been abused, Jenny, no exception. Transferring feelings onto paper is known to heal the soul by releasing stress of abuse long buried. At least, that's the way Jenny's alters felt, and evidently the reason why they conveniently had her change personalities when applying for a nursing job at the Utah State Psychiatric Hospital. She ended up as an inpatient. Therapy there involved daily entries into journals by Jenny and whoever else was present.

We relied heavily on those alter writings for the book. In the beginning her personalities resisted penning their stories, even forced Jenny to quit for a year or so. Over time we learned that the more confident Jenny became, the closer her story rose to fruition.

There were setbacks, however. Once J.J. took over and tried to erase the manuscript by hitting the delete button several hundred times. Luckily she had no idea how to use my computer and the writing wasn't destroyed. Sometimes one personality or another arose to talk out stress about having their lives in print. Some even waited until the biography was published before expressing their tortuous past. There were a few instances with the dark side and evil spirit takeovers, though prayer always cleared things up.

The final result was definition of both Jenny's and my own life's mission: to validate the existence of ritual abuse on children in our modern society.

Twenty-Two Faces: Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill and Her Twenty-Two Multiple Personalities (Tate Publishing: Oklahoma) can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and wherever books are sold.

Hear Jenny tell a snippet of her story, find tips on Healing from Trauma, articles on treatment written by therapists and practical healing tips by survivors, resources, plus a free read of Chapter One at: www.22faces.com

My thoughts on Twenty Two Faces:
To say that this book was a difficult read would be putting it mildly.  When I was offered a spot on the tour, after I read the synopsis, it reminded me of another multiple personality book I read years ago called Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber.  The only thing similar about the two books is that both women were abused at a young age and both developed multiple personalities to cope and protect themselves from the abuse.  Not to discount the trauma that Sybil suffered, I have to say that the abuse Jenny Hill was subjected to was far, far worse.  

I know it really shouldn't shock me that things like this occur, and have occurred, in our society for years, but I'm still in a state of disbelief that anyone, including a child's own father, could sexually abuse a child beginning at infancy.  What comes into the equation in Jenny's story is something called Satanic Ritual Abuse.  Of course, we've all heard stories and accounts of the practice in the news and such, but it always seems like a horror movie.  Not real.  Unfortunately, it is real, or was.  The level of abuse--emotional, sexual, physical--that Jenny was subjected to was horrific.  Not only the horrendous abuse, but also the witnessing of the murders of animals and another child.  It's a miracle that Jenny survived.

As I said, an extremely difficult read.  I found myself in tears many times as I was reading.  But this is an important read because we need to be aware that things like this go on in our world.  It reminds us to be aware and watchful of children who may be showing signs that something is wrong.  Don't just overlook it.  It's also a cautionary tale for parents.  Know what your children are doing and where they are going.  Of course, back in the 60s, parents weren't as careful or aware of what could happen to young children, but it's still hard to believe that Jenny's mother did not think it was strange that her six year old daughter was gone all the time or that she returned home looking ravaged.  That her mother was indifferent and mean to her daughter is just another layer of abuse that Jenny suffered, not to mention that she probably knew that her husband was sexually abusing Jenny, but instead of reacting and taking action, she only expressed jealousy.

Ultimately, Twenty Two Faces is a story of survival.  Jenny did survive and went on to live a somewhat "normal" life, if it's possible after what she went through.  She lived to tell her story and by doing so, she may just succeed in helping others and perhaps preventing abuse like this happening to others.

About the book:
Referring to journals written throughout childhood, Twenty-Two Faces: Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill and Her Twenty-Two Multiple Personalities documents how as a five year-old, Jenny overcomes ongoing abuse by turning to prayer while utilizing her alter states to compartmentalize trauma at the hands of a master mind-control programmer from Nazi Germany. After suffering deaths of a high school sweetheart, plus her only girlfriend, she somehow completes Army medic training, receives a nursing degree, prepares for a church mission and becomes a mother. Simultaneously led by sex-addict Head Alter J.J., intrepid alters assume frequent control, engaging in larceny and prostitution. With her children, her lifeline, the increasingly desperate nurse escapes a drugged-out pimping husband, blacks out in a job interview, comes to nine days later as an inpatient headed for the Utah State Psychiatric Hospital and only then learns what her life has really been.


About the author:
Judy Byington, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., ret, has dedicated her life to humanizing and raising public awareness about the little known effects of ritual abuse and mind-control programming that tragically cause formation of multiple personalities in children.

The retired CEO, therapist, author and mental health supervisor is founder and leader of Trauma Research Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing information through CEU accredited seminars and lectures on Dissociation and coordinating ritual abuse survivor group, therapeutic and legal resources.

The former mental health supervisor spent twenty years in research with Jenny Hill while interviewing hundreds of ritual abuse survivors, legal entities, therapists, families of missing children and religious, media and community leaders. She works as a consultant on Occult crime with the Utah Attorney General’s office.

With a compelling drive to educate the public on the unimaginable horrors faced by children born into families practicing ritual abuse, Byington continues to pen books about survivors like Jenny Hill who suffer repressed childhood memories of forced participation in rape, torture and murder. Her upcoming book Saints, Sinners and Satan provides a first person account of her own experiences with multiple personality survivors and Occult crime.

You can find out more about the book at http://twentytwofaces.com or at the blog http://www.22faces.com




This book tour is with Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Publicity Tours.


3 comments:

Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment. It means so much.

I apologize for word verification, but as soon as I changed the settings from only users with Google accounts, I started receiving a ton of spam comments...within one hour of changing the settings. The bots are on high alert apparently.

  1. Great commentary on this book! This sounds like a very interesting. Years ago when I read "Sybil" as well as several other books about serious mental health disorders for an abnormal psychology class. these books are disturbing due to the abusive origin of the disorder as well as the terrible effects of the conditions themselves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Brian. Yes, very disturbing. It was a difficult read, but it's a good book to bring to light these issues.

      Delete
  2. I suffered from abuse by Dad fro infancey t age four.only a loving God could have rescued me.I was not attracting caring people but exploitation due to being a child in body body of a woman.i am 75 and healed miraculously.plan to write a book " his banner over me is Love.God loves damaged children and wants to rescue them..I hope my truama, and suffering for 75 years and my therapist ( the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit can help others thru a book...

    ReplyDelete
- See more at: http://www.techtrickhome.com/2013/02/show-comment-box-above-comments-on.html#sthash.TjHz2Px9.dpuf
- See more at: http://www.techtrickhome.com/2013/02/show-comment-box-above-comments-on.html#sthash.TjHz2Px9.dpuf