Lisa Maria DaVinci's alter ego very likely saved her life. Through the eyes of "Amy," DaVinci watched herself suffer through countless episodes of sexual abuse at the hands of her father.
"I learned to leave my body, and I literally watched the abuse," she explains. Even today, at thirty-seven, DaVinci relies on Amy to buffer the past and soften the pain.
There was a time, not long ago, when alcohol, heroin, and a variety of other drugs and self-destructive behaviors served that purpose. But she's been straight for four years now and is exorcising her demons through her writing. DaVinci's first book, Don't Close Your Eyes, Read My Heart, is close to publication, according to her New York literary agent.
The book is written in Amy's voice. It has to be, for whenever DaVinci finds any bad memories creeping up on her, she turns to Amy. "I'm scared that I'll die if I feel all her feelings," says DaVinci. In her book, the brutality happened to "her," not to Lisa.
There are a lot of Lisas out there. And perhaps many Amys too. Dissociative experiences--be they separate personalities or an out-of-body experience--are a common escape mechanism for victims of sexual abuse. And such abuse is indeed common.
Although estimates vary widely depending on how sexual abuse is defined, a random national survey conducted in 1985 by the Los Angeles Times found that 22 percent of the adult population, including 27 percent of all women and 16 percent of all men surveyed, reported they had been sexually abused during their childhood. In 93 percent of those cases, the abuser was male. Moreover, according to David Finkelhor, codirector of the Family Research Laboratory and the Family Violence Research Program at the University of New Hampshire and a renowned authority in the field of child sexual abuse, "We estimate that between 5 and 7 percent of women have had an abusive episode involving their fathers."
But because so much sexual abuse goes unreported, many experts say that estimates are a conservative measure of the problem. Dr. Anne Cohn, executive director of the Chicago-based National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, says that of the 370,000 to 400,000 cases of sexual abuse reported every year in the United States, half of these are "opened up for treatment by the authorities" because they are deemed to be serious situations. But, she adds, "It wouldn't surprise me if there were 500,000 cases of serious sexual abuse [such as a father raping a daughter] every year." However, despite mandatory reporting requirements in the United States ("Most countries," says Cohn, "don't require reporting of child abuse"), much remains hidden from view.
DaVinci, who suffered not merely an abusive episode but, was ravaged by sexual and physical abuse throughout her childhood, knows there are many women who have suffered in silence for years. Since she started a pen-pal service called "Writer's Secrets," or Pen Pal Adult Survivor Therapy Service (PPASTS), in the summer of 1988, several thousand letters from long-silent victims have been stuffed into her post-office box. She answers each one, providing the writer with a pen pal or two and a list of available resources. (To participate, write: Writer's Secrets, c/o Lisa Maria DaVinci, P.O. Box 605,
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