In addition to being Director of the Provo Family Counseling Center, Byington was also worked at Alberta Mental Health and as Utah Child Welfare worker.
Rather than "consulting for" the Utah Attorney General's Office--which the office has since denied--Byington now says her experience was "in running certain information to the Utah Attorney General Office of Special Investigations," as any concerned citizen might do.
She also provides some insight into the formation of her clients "memories." Buyington says she had "many a client who couldn't remember" any abuses in their childhood. But after working with Byington, they came away changed indeed:
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.As we've discussed elsewhere, Byington maintains that her book was divinely ordained, heralded when Jenny was a child. In Twenty-Two Faces we read
Once again a soft, yet thundering voice plumbed to the depths of her heart, "Continue to write down your life experiences, for some day a book will be written."But in the She Writes article, Byington also makes clear that God directed the psychologist as well. "Only God could give me answers," writes Byington, "one of which was to write Jenny's biography."
Even with God's direction, however, there were difficulties--not the least of which was demonic possession. "There were a few instances with the dark side and evil spirit takeovers," writes Byington, "though prayer always cleared things up."
Abuse From A Child's Point of View: Writing a Biography From Viewpoint of a Child and the Opinions of Her Alter Personalities
By Judy Byington
June 27, 2012
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.
About 22 Faces
Referring to journals written throughout childhood,Twenty-Two Faces: Inside the Extraordinary Life of Jenny Hill and Her Twenty-Two Multiple Personalitiesdocuments 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.
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." She Writes. June 27, 2012. http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/guest-post-from-judy-byington-author-of-22-faces
