Hollywood stuntwoman Kimberly Shannon Murphy's biggest triumph? Surviving childhood abuse
It started when she was 2 years old, and it went on for nearly a decade.
Stuntwoman to celebrity A-listers including Cameron Diaz and Taylor Swift, Kimberly Shannon Murphy has long been brave on screen. But now she's showing a much deeper kind of bravery: sharing her story of being sexually abused as a child by her maternal grandfather.
“Glimmer: A Story of Survival, Hope, and Healing” (Harper Wave, 256 pp., out now) is “the biggest gift that I can give to survivors,” Murphy says. Writing "Glimmer" is something Murphy, 46, has "always wanted to do. But I’ve never been in the real healthy headspace to do so until now."
The memoir, divided into three parts ("Splitting," "Spinning," and "Landing"), details the painful process of excavating her darkest memories with unflinching honesty and a desperate need to pull back the curtain on toxic family dynamics that perpetuate the cycle of molestation. "Incest is something that isn't spoken about enough," she says.
"If I had my book in my hands at 15, my life would be very different," she says. Murphy's repressed memories of the abuse reached a fever pitch at that age. "I would not have felt like I wasn’t going to make it to 30. I would have had hope that somebody who had (gone) through something as horrific as I did could have a future and could have a family and could be happy."
Murphy writes that labeling herself a survivor felt "too neat and tidy, too final. I didn't just survive what he did, I thrived."
Credited on IMDb with over 120 stunt jobs, she has worked on movies including Marvel's "Eternals" as Angelina Jolie’s double, "Euphoria" for Hunter Schafer, "Bird Box" for Sandra Bullock, and several movies as Diaz's stand-in including "What Happens in Vegas." (Diaz and Murphy became longtime friends after meeting on the set of the 2008 film; the actress wrote the foreword for Murphy's memoir.)
Murphy spoke to USA TODAY about how healing it can be to tell your story, how sexual abuse changes you, navigating motherhood as a survivor and the importance of seeking help. (Her book has also been chosen as USA TODAY's May Book Club pick.)
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Sharing her story of child sexual abuse was ‘the most healing thing' for Kimberly Shannon Murphy
With over 20 years of stunt work under her belt – she got her big break doubling actress Uma Thurman in the 2006 film “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” – Murphy threw herself into dangerous situations for years to numb the trauma with the adrenaline rush that came from pushing her body to the limit.
"It turns out every stunt is symbolic, a new declaration that I’m in control of my life," she writes.
In "Glimmer," Murphy opens up about her "extreme cry for help" at the age of about 15 when she used a razor to cut herself above her eyebrow and then threw herself down a flight of stairs. "I just really needed help," she says. "I was a child and I didn't know how to ask for (help) because it wasn't being given to me and it wasn't being recognized as something that (I) needed."
Feeling unsafe in her home, in her body and around her family, specifically her grandfather, was the norm for Murphy growing up. "When your body is used as mine was at such a young age, you don’t really have a relationship with your body," she says. "You’re not able to develop a safe, healthy relationship with your own body."
As she got older and began her healing journey, Murphy worked to develop a better relationship with herself. She realized she couldn't save her family or "fix what he did" and came to terms that it also wasn't her job to do so.
All she could do is put one foot forward and advocate for survivors like herself.
Writing "Glimmer" was the "most healing thing that I have done for myself," she says. "I didn’t write this book to trigger people who have been through traumatic events. That’s why the memories are written in the way they’re written because I didn’t want somebody who really needs this book to not be able to get through it."
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For Kimberly Shannon Murphy, healing isn’t linear – but it’s possible
In 1991, when she was 14, Murphy and her mother sat down to watch a Lifetime movie together. It depicted the story of a daughter who was sexually abused by her father, and it unlocked something in her. "Mom, I think something like that happened to me!" Murphy writes.
That same night, her mother confided in Murphy that "someone hurt me too." She later found out her grandfather had abused her mother, her aunt, extended family members and other young children.
Among cases of child sexual abuse reported to law enforcement, 93% of perpetrators are known to the victim, and of that percentage, 34% are family members, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, or RAINN.
Trauma isn't just psychological. It can impact your body too.
Murphy's path to healing isn’t linear, and it doesn’t have to be. "I do not believe that anyone that's been through severe trauma ever 100% is like, ‘I’m healed! Everything is perfect,’ " she says.
Memories, feelings and triggers will always loom, near and far.
"But the point is you gather the tools to know when you’re being triggered or when things are coming up and how best to handle them from an adult space instead of from a child’s space,” she says.
Murphy has done a lot of work with internal family systems therapy, known as IFS, which is frequently used as evidence-based psychotherapy, helping people heal by accessing and healing their protective and wounded inner parts, according to the IFS Institute. She has also done psychedelic therapy work, which consists of the use of MDMA and psilocybin, a hallucinogen found in certain mushrooms, to combat trauma.
"You need to heal the wounds, and healing the wounds means you need to dive inside yourself, and you need to get to where they are so you can ultimately heal them," Murphy says.
More: The next big trend in mental health treatments? Psychedelic therapy.
Navigating motherhood as a survivor: 'I thrived'
Murphy's most difficult and important job to date has been that of mother to her 9-year-old daughter, Capri.
"To write this book at a time when my daughter is an age where I was when I was going through horrific things made it really real for me," she says. "It's just my job to make myself the best version of myself for my daughter and my family."
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Navigating motherhood after her abuse was difficult, but Murphy is putting an end to the cycle of abuse and wants to protect her daughter in ways that she was not.
"When I saw the toxicity of my family when I was still talking to all of them bleed out into my daughter, I went full mama bear and said, 'No, she’s not going to have a sliver of my (past) life and I’m removing these people from her life,' " she says. "If one day she needs to reconnect with them for her own self, that's her choice. But as her mother, I'm going to protect her."
Murphy still has a relationship with her mother, but she writes she made peace with the fact that her parents "can’t teach me to be the kind of parent I want to be."
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For Murphy, her 'Glimmer' is her inner child: 'She was the one that kept us alive'
As long as Murphy can remember, she felt her role in life was to please people – whether that be her grandfather, her parents, or other people in her life. "It's kind of ingrained in your fibers," Murphy says.
It's been a lifelong process to dismantle that way of thinking. It started with reconnecting with her inner child and forgiving her younger self.
"I always felt like in my brain I didn't blame her for the things that were done when she was a child, but I think I did in a certain way. I held this anger of, 'Why didn't you fight back? Why didn't you tell? You know, so many things," Murphy explains. "Through my psychedelic therapy, I was able to see so much more of what she went through and was able to reconnect with her and realized that throughout my life, she was the one that kept us alive."
After years of therapy, reparenting herself and relearning to love herself – Murphy now considers her inner child her "glimmer." "I found later that your glimmer is the opposite of your triggers," Murphy says, adding she didn't know that when brainstorming the title of her memoir.
'Glimmers' are the opposite of triggers. Here's how to embrace them.
Coined by Deb Dana, a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in complex trauma, in her 2018 book "The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy," "glimmers" refers to small moments when our biology is in a place of connection or regulation, which cues our nervous system to feel safe or calm.
Murphy is now committed to helping other survivors "stand in their truth" and "not be ashamed."
The "worst thing that we can do" is to sweep child sexual abuse under the rug and stigmatize it.
"It's something that people have been doing for generations and generations … Whatever happened to you as a child was not your fault and had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the adult in your life that should have done the work and clearly didn't."
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If you are a survivor of sexual assault, RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE and online.rainn.org).
If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call 988 any time day or night, or chat online. Crisis Text Line also provides free, 24/7, confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they dial 741741.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Glimmer' memoir: Hollywood stuntwoman on surviving childhood abuse
