Actress Mackenzie Phillips claims she had a long-term incestuous realtionship with her father, musician John Phillips of the 60's group the Mamas and the Papas. The former "One Day at a Time" star says her first recollection of her father having sex with her was the night before her wedding.
She stated that on the eve of her 1979 wedding her father showed up determined to stop the wedding. Phillips states she was a teenager who was strung out on drugs at the time, she states she had tons of pills, and her father had tons of everything also. She stated that eventually she passed out on her father's bed.
Phillips made a statement that her father was not a man of boundaries; however he was full of love, and he was sick with drugs. This of course in my opinion does not give anybody especially a father the right to violate his own flesh and blood daughter but this story gets worse and sickens me in my stomach, because I work with all victims of sexual abuse/assault on a day to day basis.
Phillips went on to say that on the eve of her wedding she woke up from a blackout to find she was having sex with her father. She questioned herself at this time if this has ever happened before to her, and she really did not know the answer. In her offense I would have to say that she really did not know the answer to this question. In most incestuous cases of sexual abuse if the perpetrator was someone the victim knows, loves, and trust, as a child victim the effects may be particularly painful. The fact that someone who is suppose to love and protect you is the one that caused this violation can be quit confussing and frightening to a child. The powerlessness and shame can sometimes be too difficult for a child to bear. Consequently, some children may successfully bury the memory of the abuse until something happens to trigger a memory.
According to Phillips after the pre-wedding incident this so called relationship eventually became consensual and continued for ten years. Most of you are probably scratching your head right now and thinking why on earth would someone do that after being assaulted. Well, it could be that in most cases of incest the children feel guilty about the abuse not understanding that it came from choices made by the adult that assaulted them not the other way around. It could also be that they know no difference since this was what they thought normal behavior growing up; they form a false or distorted idea about sexuality and often believe that there is nothing wrong with what is happening to them. In this case I think the father kept her drugged up and did as he pleased and she had no clue since she was always in a drug haze.
The reason I say this is because Phillips made a statement on a talk show that her own father shot her up for the first time with cocaine when she was only ten years old. She stated that she remembers going into her room and her father put the needle in her arm and missed the vein and her whole arm went numb. Ms. Phillips has went through life and endured severe drug addiction, which cost the role on "One Day at a Time," divorce and eventually a felony cocaine possession charge in 2008.
A sexual assault violates ones most intimate and personal boundaries and triggers a wide range of issues that victims must confront on some level, for the rest of their lives. One of the most difficult issues for victims is the realization of their vulnerability and powerlessness to protect them. The issue of powerlessness is perhaps the most profound. However; Ms. Phillips who is now 49 years old pleads with people to not hate her father. I believe Ms. Phillips still has a lot of issues to deal with to be able to recover from her childhood abuse.
If you or someone you know was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and are still dealing with the memories and flashbacks, have a difficult time setting limits and boundaries, trust issues, intimacy issues, or sexuality issues please contact your local rape crisis center and speak to a specialized sexual assault advocate for more information and resources.
