From Rubble to Royalty

If only there’d been a National Child Abuse Prevention Month when Tammy* was 4 years old. Maybe someone would have believed her cries for help and stopped her abusers.

* Her real name is used with permission.

No Voice

With a severe alcoholic as a mother and a step-father addicted to porn, Tammy had no voice at age 4 to say “NO” to the sexual abuse she incurred at the hands of her step-father Ken (not his real name). Owning a funeral home and crematory also gave him opportunities to terrorize her by exposing her to dead bodies and the heat of the furnace.

After divorcing Ken, her mother married Charlie (not his real name) when Tammy was 6 years old. Sadly, Tammy’s new step-father, due to his own childhood abuse, was a violent man who battered her mother for the next six years.

Seeing and hearing the severe beatings her mom received filled Tammy with fear and anxiety to the point of causing her to self-harm by rubbing her wrists and hands raw on the carpet. The police were regular visitors at her house to break up the violence. Tammy’s mother stayed married to Charlie until Tammy was 12 years old, which burned significant visual and auditory images of violence in Tammy’s memory.

While Her Mom “Went Away”

During the summer Tammy was 8, she and her younger sister were sent to her great-uncle’s house while her mother “went away” – either to treat a psychotic break or alcoholism. Not only did her great-uncle sexually abuse her, but he also allowed his friends to molest her, also.

Because her mother walked in during one of the rapes, Tammy always knew she was aware of the abuse. However, Tammy didn’t find out until many years later her great-uncle paid Tammy’s mother (for many years) to keep quiet so his wife wouldn’t find out what he’d done.

The following summer, when Tammy was 9, Tammy and her sisters were sent to stay with another relative when her mother “went away” again. She was sexually abused again, and her mother was paid to keep quiet.

During the summer when Tammy was 11, her step-father Charlie was around less and less. Her mother began relying on Charlie’s father for financial help with the expectation he could “spend time” with Tammy. Even at this young age, she realized her mother also “went away” emotionally and would not be available to protect her.

Help Me

When Tammy was 12, her mom’s divorce was finalized. Soon thereafter, her first step-father Ken asked permission to take Tammy to see racing dogs in another state. On the plane, he began fondling her. Tammy tried to get the flight attendant’s attention, but she was ignored.

Not only did Ken molest her on the trip, but he also allowed other men to molest her in their hotel room. In a desperate cry for help, Tammy wrote “Help me” on a napkin at a restaurant and tried to hand it to the waitress, but the waitress ignored her and responded to Ken’s flirtations instead.

Weeks after returning from this trip, Tammy learned she was pregnant. Many years later in therapy, Tammy uncovered the horrifying truth she miscarried the baby.

Hopelessness filled the empty places in her heart. It seemed no one could stop the abuse.

Ran Away From Home

Tammy’s mother began dating numerous creepy men after her divorce. Tammy remembers being drug out of bed in the middle of the night when her mother returned home from a date to “go keep company” with these men. “I was offered up as a gift when necessary to keep their attention or when she needed help with paying her bills,” she remembers.

Tammy’s self-harm and cutting were out of control during her early teen years as a result. To combat her binge eating, her mother supplied her with speed she’d bought from a drug dealer to keep Tammy’s weight down. Neighbors called the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) numerous times, but Tammy’s mom could always explain away their concerns.

At age 16, Tammy ran away from home. Bouncing around from family members to church families led to an in-home nanny job at age 17. While finishing her high school education, she began saving money for college.

Diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder

During this time, Tammy’s mom had a psychotic break and “went away” again while Tammy’s two sisters were removed by DFCS and placed in foster care. In order to keep her sisters from being placed back with their mother, Tammy began disclosing about her ongoing sexual abuse, her mother’s severe drinking problem, and dangerous behaviors, including multiple suicide attempts.

It was during these sessions with the DFCS case manager that it became apparent Tammy was suffering with Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder). To survive the extreme abuse and intense fear, she learned to dissociate or detach herself from the abuse while it was occurring and split into separate personalities.

“I needed to be able to compartmentalize all that was happening around me. ‘My game’ was very necessary for survival. It started at age 4, and as I got older, my ability to play the game improved. To cope, I continued playing my game and created playmates inside my mind and assigned memories and feelings to them. I would tell them what happened and was able to leave the memories and feelings with them. I eventually played the game so well that I literally was able to forget about the event all together,” she remembers.

At 19, Tammy began working on a degree in Psychology at Georgia State University. A husband and wife with two teen daughters invited Tammy to live with them while she attended college. The wife took an interest in Tammy and became a mother figure to her, which Tammy so desperately wanted.

Unfortunately, this blinded Tammy to their real intentions. Even the DFCS caseworker saw red flags and warned, “I think you need to live somewhere else.” Not long after, the couple began sexually molesting Tammy and attempted to get her hooked on drugs.

Full of Forgiveness

With college behind her, Tammy began working at DFCS as an eligibility caseworker. By age 26, Tammy weighed over 200 pounds as her addiction to food became her way of suppressing her pain.

She began attending services at a Christian inner healing/restoration community. It was here that she dealt with her addiction by learning the ups and downs of her addiction to food was no different than the ups and downs of her mother’s addiction to alcohol.

Through counseling and prayer, Tammy forgave her mother. Additionally, she made a list of her abusers and prayed until her heart changed and was full of forgiveness for each one of them. These people no longer had control over her.

Whack-A-Mole

By age 29, Tammy became a house parent on the weekends at a teen pregnancy center in addition to her full time work at DFCS.

Tammy compares this period in her life to the game Whack-A-Mole. The moles were her feelings and memories popping up, and she desperately tried to stuff them back in before she was forced to feel the feeling or see the memory.

All the pain and guilt from the years of abuse would be “whacked” with cutting, burning, bulimia, alcohol, pills, and working excessive hours. Pouring Comet in her bath water to wash away how dirty she felt didn’t make her feel any cleaner.

It finally caught up to her. One weekend while in her room at the teen pregnancy center, Tammy began hearing something scratching in the walls. The noise wouldn’t go away. An intense rage welled up inside her. She began hallucinating and breaking plates. The therapist on staff recognized the severity of the situation and took her to the mental hospital. That 5 week stay stabilized her. It would be the first of seven hospitalizations for mental breakdowns over the next six years.

Please Forgive Me

By age 30, Tammy finished her Master’s degree in Community Counseling. Worn out from the weight of working with families who were too similar to her own, Tammy taught special education for two years. Even though she loved the kids, she decided this type of work wasn’t for her. She returned to DFCS, but her health began to decline – constant dizziness, fuzzy thinking, migraines, and extreme exhaustion.

During this period of time, an unexpected conversation with her mom exasperated her struggles. “Please forgive me for not sharing the money,” her mom said. Tammy was confused as she honestly didn’t understand what her mother was referring to. After asking several clarifying questions, this is when Tammy learned the money her mother was referring to was the money her family members paid to her mother over the years for not telling their wives about abusing her.

Tammy thought back to what she’d recently learned at a sex trafficking seminar: if a child is induced to perform a sexual act and money is exchanged, it is considered sex trafficking. Therefore . . .

After decades of counseling, Tammy learned how to observe healthy boundaries in relationships (especially with her mother) and how to love herself and others. Therapy also helped her manage her Dissociative Identity Disorder. A close friend once asked her, “How did you integrate and become one person?”

Knowing each person who suffers with DID would answer differently, she said, “I never made a rule or plan inside myself that the child parts had to leave. During the years of my divine treatment plan, the need to escape reality and retreat inside myself lessened over time, as did the need to hurt myself. My journey seemed to take an eternity, but I’ve learned not to carry shame regarding how long it took or what mistakes I made along the way. Love is the first word that comes to mind regarding my integration, or living life without needing to exist in separate puzzle pieces to face each day.”

King’s Treasure Box

During a mission trip to Ghana when she was 44 years old, Tammy experienced insomnia in addition to her other health struggles. It was on those sleepless nights that Tammy realized how all the horror she’d been through could minister to others in similar situations. Her passion/ministry . . . King’s Treasure Box . . . was birthed.

Tammy spent countless hours building her ministry with the mission of making a difference in the lives of children and adults who have been affected by sexual abuse. Bringing awareness to the issue of sexual abuse through radio and television media has the potential to reach those that can’t attend the seminars where Tammy speaks. She has joined forces with Out of Darkness, an anti sex trafficking ministry of the Atlanta Dream Center, and shares her story regularly at their events.

From Rubble to Royalty

Tammy has an incredibly huge heart for children who are affected by child abuse, so she took a leap of faith and wrote Jingles Lost Her Jingle: A Princess Finds Truth and Joy After Sexual Abuse. This beautifully written and illustrated book can be read to young girls to help them heal from sexual abuse by searching for clues to uncover the lies Jingles believes as a result of her sexual abuse.

Knowing there were women Tammy could reach who had also experienced sexual abuse, Tammy wrote her story in her book From Rubble to Royalty. Even though I’ve tried to capture her story here, her book dives much deeper into her struggles and her healing.

I’m nearing the end of reading From Rubble to Royalty, and I’m in awe of the many, many years of perseverance and hard work Tammy put in to move from victim to survivor. I am reminded of Isaiah 61:2-3: “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”

Tammy just recently released an illustrated book for boys who have been affected by sexual abuse titled Lil-J Lost His Jam: A Journey to Find Rhyme After Sexual Abuse. It’s coming soon to Amazon and B&N. 

Choose to . . .

Despite how Tammy’s mother quoted Bible verses at her during her drunken stupors and was far from leading the life Christ calls us to, Tammy has a deep passion for God. Her advice to others who struggle is centered around her relationship with God:

• Choose to listen to and believe what God says about you instead of listening to and believing the negative thoughts in your head.
• Choose to find ways to love yourself, others, and God. Allow the love your friends and family feel toward you (and God’s love) heal the pain in your heart.
• Choose to pray for your enemies.

Leave a Reply (below): To have endured so much emotional hurt and physical pain and for so many years . . . it’s just hard to comprehend.

As an educator, I’m required by law to report any abuse I see or may suspect. Other professions have the same requirement. But shouldn’t ALL of us become more aware of the signs and do our part by reporting abuse and neglect? It could honestly save a child’s life.

The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-4-A-CHILD.