Internal Understanding vs. External Belief

I am the first to admit the answers uncovered from my decades of amnesia have been unbelievable from the very beginning. It is most difficult to explain how answers come together from a massive cloud of amnesia that was a person's life and it is individual for each survivor. We don't make this stuff up. I believe I'm certainly not the first looking to prove what I'm remembering can't possibly be true. However, there comes a time when the level of unbelievability has a rhyme and reason to it. No one ever wanted anyone to believe what happened to us.

My most recent post still has me whirling and riddled with enormous emotions. I'm sure explaining this process of healing sounds possibly lacking in emotion to make sense of it as a cohesive narrative, but it is definitely not the case.

I know not all who read my blog believe my truth. Since much can't be validated in a court of law, it is my truth alone. However the enormity of survivors around the world with similar memories leads us to believe the same traumas seem to occur, just in different locations and by different people. Most of us do believe there is a manual, for lack of a better term, because what they do to create a dissociative child to become a skilled multitasked "slave" well into adulthood has been proven to work.

I don't ask for belief of my story per se to those who are not survivors. I know other survivors of this nightmare find solace and possibly some validation from the similar types of things they see in my history. But for those seeing this blog and writing it off as absurd, you are the people who allow such horrors to continue so widely and in plain sight. My purpose for this blog has always been to ask for an open mind so the next time you see or hear of something similar, your awareness grows.

It has taken me since 1997 to recover what I have and still there are tons of gaps in my life. I think only certain memories surface to give us some kind of timeline and meaning. Some memories have come up and processed on their own or in a single therapy session while others, like that in the last post, have been trying to come up for 15 years now. I'm sure it's not the last but possibly I'm getting close. The last post was not about memory as much as my history which can only come from an internal source of knowing. I suggest a resource in the post. None of it is easy to comprehend.

I thank my followers and especially those who support me. I'd like to share the huge anger that came from me as an aftermath to knowing of my possible origins. The Polyvore art was done after the writing.

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I hate that I had this life

I hate that what was done to me interferes with having a good present day life

I hate that amnesia affects me nearly every day in some regard

I hate the struggle of being me

I hate the strain that being me places on every other relationship in my life

I hate wrestling everyday between dreams for the future or dying so I can just stop this constant battle

I hate that I am back at square one with who I am

I am wrought with grief that I was likely a hidden child made through an agreement with the government and the man who called himself my father

I hate that I live every day in fear of my life 

I belong to no one. I relate to no one as family. I am alone. Aside from my current loving relationship, I feel I have no worth except to those I help online.

I hate this strong anger I am feeling while releasing these thoughts.

I hate that I hate my life and more than anything wish for a glimmer of who I truly am

New blog features art healing journey

Today another spoke was added to my wheel of blogs: The Art Journey of Grace. In going through one of my many boxes of images and collections of images and completed collages, I decided I'd like to share some of my images and collages with readers to explain how my system communicated much information to me.

Unless I'm specifically asked, I plan to stay away from anything that is too graphical. Of course any survivor art is conveying trauma, although there is also a poignancy to the healing of dissociated selves, the internal nurturing and cooperation, and the resolution of those final missing pieces to a memory.

I've also added my turtle blog to my list of related blogs, now called Blogs by Grace. Hopefully it will be a fun place to visit for a change in mood after the intensity of healing from DID. And also a happy place for the littles to visit with links to fun turtle and Pleo videos.

My first blog entry to Art Journey is the first image of a little, Lucy. Coincidentally, my most recent post in the turtle blog features my tortoise Lucy. There is no connection of which I'm aware. In fact, my SO named her to go with our Pleos Linus and Schroeder. Guess it was time for me to crossover to my first blogging love, Nemo the Unturtle.

It's my fault

All survivors with memories of the grade school and younger abuse who have gotten to meanings and messages behind the yuck, will likely get to the message "It was my fault" many times. It doesn't matter what happened in the world, apparently it was our fault. I was told this feeling I was to blame regardless of ability to have been at fault was a narcissistic wound. I don't like the word narcissistic, but it is a kind of self focus to an extreme. It's certainly not about liking oneself or wanting to draw attention to oneself. As children and into adulthood, trauma survivors are generally caught up in self loathing on at least a few levels.

I don't know how this feeling of being responsible for doom was instilled, but on 9/11/2001, I was healing and earning my counseling degree full time from home, which meant I slept in each morning. My husband called to ask if I had turned on television. I hadn't but did. I don't think I moved much that day. I was riveted to the news, stunned, scared, and believing somehow I must have caused the catastrophe to happen. Earlier in my healing, I researched news I'd missed because I had dissociated most newsworthy events from my life. At one point, I became panicked that I had caused the space capsule explosion that killed Virgil Grissom in 1967. The only thing that calmed me down was realizing that in January 1967 I was living in Iran. The family did not move back to the U.S. until late summer that year.

By the time I graduated, I had worked hard to heal that narcissistic wound. In fact, I used that as a guide for trauma clients who were constantly apologetic. I'd explain the narcissistic wound and start out with, "for instance, on 9/11, did you feel that somehow it was your fault?" I was stunned at how many said yes. So, in my experience, trauma that is sufficient to create DID, creates this feeling in survivors of somehow being the reason for all that is wrong with life. It's not a good feeling. I have a mental image of a cartoon character with that ever present dark cloud over his head.

When I say that it the sophisticated abuser's objective to destroy a child's psyche, I mean that from every conceivable angle. All survivors repeat after me: "It was not my fault! It was never my fault."

When memories begin

When a survivor begins to remember will be individual to that person. Some generalizations are known. An adult who began early life with DID will likely have no idea of the abuse until between ages 35 and 45. It is believed that there is an erosion of the amnestic barrier that goes with age that begins during that period of time. For some, memories may begin after the death of the abuser--when the mind finally deems it safe to remember.

Women who bear children may be triggered by the birth process or when their child becomes the age they were at the time of onset of abuse of a particularly traumatic incident. Along the same lines, any conscious life incident that closely parallels something that has been stored in amnesia, may trigger the first memory. An example might be witnessing a child on a bicycle fall over or be hit by a car. If any childhood trauma involving being thrown from a bicycle or pushed over while on a bicycle, might be sufficiently similar. It doesn't necessarily have to be something traumatic that happens in conscious life--just something with an element of abuse that might be ready to leak through to consciousness.

For me, it was imminent contact with my family. I had avoided visiting them for several years and had dreaded the next visit which was a family event I was expected to attend. As the event approached, I grew more and more apprehensive but knew I had to go. I purchased the airline tickets one day and the next day I had my first memory. I believe my memories stopped me from visiting the family and walking into a dangerous situation with my father.

There is no one reason memories begin. Even if someone is diagnosed as DID, memories will not begin until they are ready to begin. But working with alters and developing grounding, coping skills, and internal cooperation and communication can start with a qualified therapist. The many variables of each survivor healing make it as challenging as it is rewarding to work with survivors of trauma. We need so many more therapists to help our population of survivors. Many areas of the country are in dire need of qualified therapists. When memories begin, the survivor needs professional guidance. That would be part of the greater societal problem created by the propaganda machine who denies the abuse, denies the therapists to work with survivors, and denies the ability to have intensive therapy covered by insurance. It's one big web just lurking out there interwoven into every fabric of our societal being.

How it works (being aware of the dangers)

Several life shaking concepts surface in conjunctioin with memories leaking through. Being DID is one. Realizing you are DID because someone did horrible things to you for likely at least several years when you were very young is another whammy. My memories began with father abuse. The people in robes didn't come up until later and I knew it was my father and his friends...not demons, although one could argue they were. Then came memories for intentionally perpetrated harm for specific tasks.

Here's the cover within the cover. Memories of being in some kind of "ceremonial" group that are very similar to what was done to create the job(s) to be exploited are very similar. For example, one will be done to a child alter so that emotional hypertrauma shrouds another alter being trained to manipulate men through sexual ploy(s). In this scenario something like being raped by a "demon" might overshadow training for how to drug a "trick" and steal his money. Because it's all about the money. I want my share of whatever I earned. To pay for my years of therapy. To put in my retirement fund so I don't have to worry for having missed over five years of work healing from the harm. For the emotional harm and having my will zapped so decisions were never really my own.

You can see how there is an investment of time and training for each victim, initially in the form of a child with jobs that transition as the child ages into a teen and then into an adult. This explains the manpower to interfere with a healing adult. They try to ensure loyalty to the group along with terror of telling and terror of getting help because one person healing means a loss of money to the group.

What are likely to surface are messages to let someone specific know you are healing or to go to a specific location where someone knows how to reinstate the dissociation, delaying any chance of healing. I did not have the experience my two actively abused clients continue to have. If I was followed to therapy, I didn't see it or remember it, thank goodness. But I did have "I think I'll go away for the weekend and hole up in a hotel to pamper myself." Or, an overwhelming urge to call someone from my past to include a family member. This happens in one child, one pedophile situations as well, if the pedophile knew how to use dissociation.

The best tactic when healing begins is to have a safe person. Someone who can tell you if you are being logical. Don't respond to any "spontaneous" thoughts to take a trip, visit someone, call, email or write someone you don't typically contact. Try to not answer any phone calls. Let them go to the answering machine or voicemail first. Many times, cues for alters to act are given over the phone. Because adults usually have full time jobs, their dissociated "job" would have been done at night.

Remember the unbelievability factor. You go to bed. The phone rings. You might answer the phone but an unhealed dissociated alter could respond to the cue which could be words, a sound (like a tone), both, or something else entirely. All you will remember is having a good night's sleep. *You* will be back in bed before the alarm goes off and be clueless as to any other activity. That's how life has been unless you were able to somehow disconnect through other conscious life events. Regardless, those messages surface when you heal if they were ingrained into your psyche during the trauma years.

Hopefully a survivor will be in therapy and work through these urges to call or visit to help the alters with those jobs to heal. Once the alter heals and no longer responds, the survivor heals from that particular cue. Who knows how many are inside with different jobs and cues. That will be different for each survivor. Just know it can be undone. Being very aware of the thoughts that spontaneously come up and grow into nagging, overwhelming thoughts is helpful.

You may have a few slip ups and might, for instance, send email to people thinking that "so and so should know"; but no harm is done (aside from being freaked out when you realize what you've done). The harm comes when an email is returned with a highly triggering phrase that may not click as a the source of feeling exceptionally sick or being overwhelmed with a desire to vacation in Tahiti or whatever comes up. It's following through on delivering yourself to a person or location that is dangerous. They never came to drag me away. They counted on my ingrained messages to work. They counted on a cued adult alter to drive the body to them.

If in doubt, don't do it. Have someone trustworthy in your life do reality checks for you regarding trips or visits. Even conferences or seminars in your conscious life might be used as opportunities for dissociated jobs or, once healing begins, being drawn back into that world. Having someone accompany you to stay overnight to make sure you don't go wandering out after bedtime and to answer phone calls is strongly recommended. I guess that's as thorough as I can be for this format. Safety first.

"Waking up"

Sometimes a single pedophile with knowledge of DID can create messages within alters for when the child begins to heal, whether in childhood or much later in adulthood. Those in the early stages of healing need to understand certain messages that might be dangerous.

Here is one of the unbelievability factors of this sophisticated abuse. An alter or even group of alters can hold messages that do not "trigger" or come to consciousness until a certain date or time or event. The big event is beginning to remember. Not only do many messages of fear of being killed come up, often very strong messages of self harm surface. Pedophiles do not want their victims remembering.

If the survivor lives beyond those initial self destruction messages, there may be "back up" messages. Aside from self-destruction, the perp, if still alive, will want to know their former (or possibly still current) victim has begun to remember. When healing becomes known, the survivor may feel overwhelmed with family trying to invalidate memories, malign any therapy, encouraging the adult child to move back home "to heal", etc. The danger in being around family if any family member comes up in abuse memories is to maintain distance until more of the life unremembered reveals itself. Trust your gut if you sense fear about being around anyone who has been in your life until further along in healing.

The complexity of this issue is difficult to address briefly. Suffice it to say, survivors have many obstacles to overcome just to be able to focus on healing from the abuse as opposed to preventing the self from responding to subconscious cues. Cues and triggers can come from inside as well as outside. However, it has been my experience that alters believe their job is to help the host. Somehow the perp will have convinced the alter that the job is helping. A quick example: One alter may hold a very strong message of suicide at the time of remembering. The "logic" would be that the suicide protects the host from even greater harm believed will be inflicted on the host for remembering. Most alters in the system of a person abused by a sophisticated pedophile will have a job. While it may feel differently in early healing, there are no bad alters--only alters with yucky jobs. All have the capacity to heal.

I do not believe all parts of a system are impacted. Some survivors have protectors who do not hold the trauma but know of the trauma and can indeed help from within. Some in the psychological community disagree that any alter can escape the impact of the trauma. I must take exception. My experience was several protectors who "knew/know everything" and were witnesses but not participants in the trauma. Other survivors have had this experience as well. I learned quickly to trust that knowledge to include guiding what I needed to remember and when. For me, that was the foundation of my waking up to my subconscious world. This is an area that is likely different for each individual.

Other kinds of messages need to be reviewed for the safety of survivors especially during early awareness and healing.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRENORTON

Handling the anger, rage, and depression

An important lesson I learned in my pre-memory therapy was depression can be anger inside out. I was depressed but didn't feel angry. I didn't realize I didn't know anger except as a really scary explosion. So I tended not to allow it out (which really just made it worse). For me, an explosion was screaming and crying and possibly tossing some object I later regretted. Likely most, if not all, female survivors, fear their anger. We learn it's not okay to fight or be angry. We're supposed to be submissive and obey. Male survivors may be taught to be aggressive but may just as easily be taught to be submissive and compliant. There are so many dynamics of abuse and gender of abuser(s). What happens in the person's conscious life could go either way. The "real" person may be a very gentle and caring soul. Remembering does not change that basic nature.

Safe anger is expressing verbally with "I" statements instead of blaming words. I feel angry because... No destruction of property unless planned as part of the safe anger release. No hurting anyone. Punching pillows is always a good suggestion. I personally needed more than that. Getting a punching bag is great for feeling a good sense of resistance and it wears you out faster. Whatever you choose to do will be right for you. Just make it safe. If you've never done this before and are in therapy, it's a good place to plan what you would like to do. Some anger work can be done in the therapist's office.

It's not uncommon for survivors to be so fearful of working with any alter holding rage. The fear is that rage will take over and somehow the survivor will be lost and/or harm will be done to others. While it may not be true for all, I worked with several survivors who were extremely fearful of their rage/anger parts. When "anger" or "rage" comes out to speak to the therapist, that's an excellent sign of wanting to heal. Typically the anger parts don't like their jobs. At the very least, when anger establishes a dialog with the therapist, the part is usually surprised by the welcome and an invitation to return. I've witnessed some amazing healing scenarios of anger within another's system. Those horrid fears of the host did not come to fruition.

Often anger is lonely and sad because the others fear him or her. Acceptance and being heard go a long way. This can also be facilitated by the therapist. Anger/rage is a response to having been hurt. Anger is a protector. Huge energy goes with that part. If that can be viewed as a ball of healing energy temporarily trapped, maybe anger won't seem so powerful. Anger does need a positive safe outlet though.

It's not unusual for expressing anger to peak and turn into a really good cry. Often there is a fear that if a survivor cries, it won't stop. It may feel like a long time, but that is a huge release of tension and anger and hurt that your body needs. Thank anger after the exercise. You may find littles connected to the big scary anger which helps to embrace that part as well. Possibly this won't happen until each survivor, in healing, makes that depression/anger connection.

For people reading who are not survivors, years of abuse at the hands of one or more abusers cannot help but create overwhelming emotions and a painful healing journey.

Anniversary memories & holidays

When I was first told some memories could occur on the day they originated regardless of how many years ago it was, my response was "bull sh*t". At least that was my position until I had THE most horrid combination of flashbacks and memories on November 1, two months after I began to remember. Initially the date had no meaning to me. When I realized the memory went with Halloween, I went a little nuts realizing I'd just had an anniversary memory.

I've stated before how holidays are not fun for survivors. Sophisticated pedophiles, if they have access to the child on holidays, will make it a day of horror. Halloween and Christmas are the worst once healing begins because of stores starting to put out the elements that go with the holiday far in advance.

Trappings such as masks and costumes (what children typically enjoy about Halloween) if present when trauma was instilled will be a trigger when memories begin. In healing, the objective for survivors is to create new memories.

What happened to us sucked. Children born into that world don't have a chance. Even if the child is rescued in childhood, there are likely to be triggers well into adulthood, especially where relationships and intimacy are concerned. Friends and safe family of survivors need to know that special care might be appropriate regarding some traditions. The best way to find out is to ask the survivor his or her preferences. And survivors can convey their preferences if something feels too uncomfortable in the environment. Self care and safety are key when abuse is tied to days where others are celebratory, especially when the environment is a constant reminder.

Roadblocks to healing

Let me count the ways society prevents survivors from seeking and/or getting qualified help.

The well-fed propaganda machine that tells the world that delayed memories can't be trusted and those who claim to have such absurd memories are liars or crazy. Rather than focus more on the group promoting the propaganda, I'm providing a website that can guide you through the ways the False Memory Syndrome Foundation misleads.

Wikopedia provides this as part of their definition: The FMSF coined the term false memory syndrome to describe their theory that some adults who belatedly remember instances of sexual abuse from their childhood may be mistaken about the accuracy of their memory. The term does not have wide scientific use. From this, the Foundation hypothesized that the so-called false memories may have been the result of recovered memory therapy, another term coined by the FSMF in the early 1990s.

When memories first begin to surface, survivors are inclined to jump on the internet and see what's going on. Don't we all do that for symptoms of diseases? When I did this for myself, I kept running into false memory information and how some therapists did not believe memories surfacing at a later age. Add to that information that some people trained to be therapists have another allegiance--to report people who are healing to organized pedophilia so actions can be taken to attempt to bring the healing individual "back into the fold". I was terrified to seek help, which I have mentioned before. Thankfully my fear subsided within two years to seek a qualified therapist.

Many resources that were available to those with DID ten years ago are no longer available. The FMSF has taken it's toll. Highly respected experts have been successfully sued and many facilities to help those with DID (beyond what an outpatient therapist could provide) have been closed. I'm sure there is a statistic somewhere, but the number of survivors who actually sue their abusers is quite low. Ethical therapists working with survivors have the goal of healing--not preparing a client for legal action. Yet that is the focus of the propaganda machine.

Another roadblock to healing is the diagnosis. Why weren't there more with DID prior to the "surge" in the 70s and 80s? Mainly because of lack of training to diagnose as well as misdiagnosis of schizophrenia. Hearing voices was schizophrenia and the poor survivor was placed on very high doses of medication that impeded healing. Research is available on this misdiagnosis if you care to research. The latest new diagnosis for DID is Bipolar Disorder. It definitely can appear that a survivor is bipolar because they embody the extreme of every possible emotion. What appears as bipolar may be switching. In addition, there is a higher reimbursement from insurance companies for a diagnosis of bipolar versus DID. An easy to administer screening for level of dissociation is available but not widely used among the greater medical/psychological community.

In the same light, a diagnosis of DID warrants fewer sessions per year typically by insurance over a diagnosis of major depression. Healing from DID initially may require outpatient visits 2-3 times a week and possible hospitalization for survivors who require more than outpatient care. Nationally, there is a lack of education for hospital staff, including psychologists and psychiatrists, who acknowledge or are aware of DID. Because of the reduction of facilities nationally to less than five, that is rarely an option. Medications have limited impact on DID. Other than anxiety and depression, medication doesn't help. Some very small dosages of some potent antipsychotic medications can help stabilize someone with frequent switching, but too few psychiatrists are knowledgeable in such information.

Another Catch 22 to having been abused as a young child to the point of DID, is survivors are as likely as not to have a past history of hospitalizations, emotional turmoil, erratic behavior, and long-term therapy, all of which create a "witness lacking credibility". The pedophiles win no matter what. By virtue of the abuse, they create a human being whose testimony is likely to be dismissed by the U.S. judicial system.

While a war wages on memories of survivors (which only serves to invalidate a survivor's healing), a war has already successfully been waged in the insurance realm. Trying to gain approval for a survivor to gain appropriate care for DID is a nightmare, to say the least.

This is how society treats those children who were horrifically and sadistically abused by sophisticated pedophiles and who managed to survive through DID. How can this be? What is that saying about when good people do nothing? If you didn't know before, and you are a good person, please spread the word. Speaking out--taking this out of the realm of secrecy--is a good first goal.

Profile of a pedophile & global reach

John Money (7/8/1921-7/7/2006) was a professor of pediatrics and medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University from 1951 until his death. While there, Money was involved with the Sexual Behaviors Unit, which ran studies on sex reassignment surgery. He received the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal in 2002 from the "German Society for Social-Scientific Sexuality Research", for which he worked. Source: Wikopedia

It is likely you heard of the Jane/John Doe case where John Money performed a sex change operation on David Reimer (then a toddler) advising the young boy's parents to raise him as a boy and disregard feminine proclivities. David Reimer wrote his own story, As Nature Made Him, of his torturous life which ended in his suicide as a married adult.

In a 20/20 interview, David Reimer (who had reversed his childhood sex change operation beginning as a teen) and his twin brother, as adults, independently recalled follow up visits to Dr. Money as children. The brother's presence was requested purportedly to compare developmental stages. The twins stated how they hated the visits and begged their mother not to take them. Not divulging why they hated the visits, their mother told them they had to go. David said in 20/20 that "Money sexually abused him and his brother during superfluous photo shoots."

This was John Money's view of pedophilia (again cited from Wikopedia but feel free to research on your own): John Money was critical in the debate on pedophilia. He felt that both sexual researchers and the public do not make distinctions between affectional pedophilia and sadistic pedophilia, including infantophilia (occasionally referred to as nepiophilia), pedophilia and ephebophilia. For Money, affectional pedophilia is about love and not sex.

The focus of my blogs is intentionally inflicted horror and sexual violence on children. Money's view is just as harmful. A child raised to believe that sexual expressions of love are acceptable is still a child of incest. Imagine what it does to a child's psyche when they believe they "willingly" engaged in their own abuse.

John Money was one of the "prestigious" experts who served on the board of the FMSF. He abdicated his position after granting an interview to a magazine devoted to pedophilia. (Interview: John Money. PAIDIKA: The Journal of Paedophilia, Spring 1991, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 5.)

While this example does not involve dissociation, it is a clear example of how pedophiles are at every level of society including the medical field. Who doesn't believe Johns Hopkins isn't one of the best hospitals in the world? Because of my knowledge of this story and following it for more than a decade, as well as my personal history which includes male doctors, I'm wary of any male in a position of authority. Fortunately, now I have my therapist skills which allow me to be assertive and make logical and instinctual decisions about safety. Most survivors have a sixth sense about a person. Some might refer to this as reading another's energy. Bad people have bad energy. I have no other way to explain this ability at the moment.

If you explore the FMSF website, be sure to look at their Scientific Advisory Board of PhD's. One was a colleague of John Money at Johns Hopkins. There is also a note referring to the Wikopedia information, calling it "hostile and false". Please heed advice to have a statistics expert evaluate the validity of any research funded by any member of the FMSF.

What is most frightening is how far the FMSF has permeated the top levels of society. Elizabeth Loftus, a prolific researcher and member of FMSF, has appeared on Oprah. I'm still waiting for Oprah to address the survivors of sophisticated pedophilia. Recently she has been quite vocal about internet pedophiles for which I applaud her. But I implore you to ask her to give time now to adult survivors and experts in the field who treat the survivors. My requests alone are not going to make a difference.

If you have been primarily entrenched in misleading information about DID and delayed memories, please initiate your own balance of information by following links here and at my related blogs for publications by the experts in trauma and dissociation. It is easy to see the hidden agenda of a group whose main commonality is being accused by their children of childhood abuse or those having an affinity for engaging in illicit activities with children such as in the John Money example.

John Money's reach was global. As a renowned researcher at Johns Hopkins, his research went unquestioned (and unretracted long after David Reimer's story became known). The magazine devoted to pedophilia in which Money had granted an interview was also global.

Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (1987–1995) was a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal published by the Stichting Paidika Foundation, a Netherlands nonprofit organization. Articles drawn from it are available from a number of pro-pedophile activist websites. Its editor was Joseph Geraci and the editorial board included scientists and authors such as Frits Bernard, Edward Brongersma, Vern L. Bullough, and D. H. (Donald) Mader, some of whom campaigned in pro-pedophile activism. Being a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Paidika was subscribed to by the British Library and by the Library of Congress. Wikopedia

The past damage caused by the prevalence of skewed and incorrect information about survivors of abuse at the hands of pedophiles can't be undone. We can begin to correct the situation though by allowing the truth to prevail to include embracing adult survivors into mainstream society. Their voices deserve to be heard. Their voices need to be heard to end the plague of pedophilia.

From internal chaos to cooperation

Children who have DID grow up as the most wounded of the wounded. Yet, because of their unchosen coping mechanism in childhood, their coming out of that state of amnesia can appear as anything from sudden mood changes to not even visible to anyone except one trusted support person. It is rare that a person becomes an ever switching person, going from alter to alter. Most can relate multiple personalities to the movie Sybil. While Sybil's story was an accurate depiction, it condensed years of treatment into a two hour movie. A few things I'd like to clarify about people with DID.

Switching (changing from one dissociated state to another and/or from consciousness to a dissociated state)
Prior to a survivor entering treatment with a therapist, it is possible others may have never noticed. It is generally with a safe person that a person with DID may begin to have dissociated parts come forward. Generally, when a survivor "switches" (think of changing the channel on a television), something has just been said, heard, or seen that triggers the dissociated self out. People who switch frequently are the exception. Someone who is triggered, however, may begin to switch suddenly and rapidly until the PTSD level of adrenaline calms down.

How many do you have?
Dissociated self states (a/k/a alters, parts, ego states) develop differently in each individual with that coping mechanism. Numbers are irrelevant. If a child has one self state who takes over when the host child is angry, that one self state may have that job for the entire life until healed. In another person, their mind might create a new dissociated self state for each trauma memory. Often several self states recall a single trauma but healing would still be the same. Yet another child may create anger self states at various ages. It is not uncommon to find the name of one self state at various ages. In addition to being irrelevant, someone with DID really doesn't know how many are inside. They only know what they know. In other words, DID has the component of amnesia. A person may be substantially healed but find themselves still occasionally working with a self state that surfaces.

I've been using the terms self states, dissociated states, dissociated selves, alters, and parts interchangeably. The literature is not consistent and some argue that there are distinctions among terms. As a therapist, I always asked my client his or her preference for a term. And that's what I used. Sometimes a little humor added to a very serious topic can help give the reader time to catch his or her breath. In that vein, to quote a certain fast food commercial from about 20 years ago, "Parts is parts." At least for purposes of this very broad explanation of a very complex process, the terms are interchangeable. Someone who has DID as the result of a main caretaker (and possibly one or two other family or relationship perps) is going to have less internal turmoil than someone abused from a very early age by many to intentionally induce dissociation. The process of healing alters is the same with some added complexity. But it can be done with a dedicated therapist and a survivor committed to healing.

As for the survivor, coming to terms with having DID can be daunting. While some find it easy to embrace that all parts of themselves did their best to help her survive, others fight it with denial which tends to cause more disruption. For people who have successfully healed, there has been a slow and steady journey of creating an internal world of cooperation and safety. Once that is established, identifying and working with new self states becomes mostly a pattern of allowing the part to speak and to be acknowledged—and especially to see that there is no punishment for telling or crying. Since most parts are dissociated from each other inside, each needs to hear the same messages of current safety. Sometimes, there are families of alters or pairs or groups. In my experience they also heal as a group.

It is important to know that most with DID have the capacity to heal and develop strong coping skills over time to stay present (not switch) and work with assistance from inside rather than alters having to take over externally. There are various phases to healing. I prefer not to label them because I’ve learned even those are different for everyone. The goal is to be functioning to where the survivor is back in control of his or her life rather than having dissociated selves disrupt existence.

Whether at the hands of one or many, the emotional impact is very damaging. Some of the damage is healed as internal parts heal. What remains after functioning returns is learning to work as a unit in a healthy way for interacting with society and in relationships. Realize, those with DID have had different thinking processes and only have known one way to process information. It has been proven through the work of Ellert Nijenhuis and others in The Netherlands that brain connections that disconnected through the dissociative process reconnect in healing. The transformation of a healing survivor is incredibly beautiful.

Unfortunately, while healing survivors have amazing courage and would like to share with their friends and greater outside world, we learn very quickly it is a taboo topic. People would rather not hear or know, some preferring to disbelieve. We hate the people who do this to children and then silence the adults who braved the years of abuse and came through their trauma to heal. It's a very unjust world in this respect.

The "wtf?" of remembering

Imagine having no knowledge of a childhood filled with adult men (and possibly women) constantly invading your body in every manner possible. And then you get a glimpse of some piece of trauma coming through as a first time memory and your body rattles with terror while body parts relive the sensations and the mind flashes strange and horrific images. What does it mean? What just happened? Am I going insane? Am I hallucinating? All or some of it happens. And then it happens again and again and again over the course of years. It's so intrusive you may no longer be able to work, you have no energy to be a wife or mother, perhaps you don't realize a therapist could help. More likely you've been raised to avoid therapists and psychiatrists at all costs. What a quandary.

And then you start drawing pictures or creating collages like this:



WTF? And there it is. The wtf factor for every memory. One puzzle piece at a time. The above collage had no meaning to the survivor but it is disturbing. One can only imagine but that doesn't help. Because whatever was done by organized pedophiles to intentionally create trauma is impossible for unperverted minds to conjure. That is why we can't make this stuff up. What totally baffles me is how these perverted men for generations and generations have had discussions of the best ways to intentionally induce the worst possible trauma without killing the child and leaving no scars.

The emotional havoc to one's mind and body from remembering bits and pieces of trauma is indescribable. Especially when that first memory ekes out from a world inside that the survivor never knew existed. It may begin in a nightmare and continue when wide awake. It may begin when wide awake and the experience will be terrifying and disorienting. The art the survivor may have been producing or begin to produce might be filled with images with no meaning--some seemingly mundane, others clearly of something awful. When meaning comes to art, it's another whammy. It's not as much an "aha" moment as a "wtf" moment with a bout of terror.

Flashbacks are pieces of frozen trauma playing like a disjointed movie preview. Or the survivor may begin to hear different voices or different noises inside. Other parts screaming or crying internally, heightened senses, a constant state of PTSD for days or weeks at a time are all examples of what a person might experience. It's different for everyone. The common theme is that it sucks. Also, this past trauma surfacing does not feel like it belongs. I initially remembered father abuse as opposed to graveyard things. My first memory with a graveyard was my "wtf" moment.

Survivors don't want to belief it either. It's not like we have these nightmares and assume it happened to us. Once the amnesia begins to leak, it doesn't stop. The best that can happen is a survivor can learn containment and coping skills to better work with the content. It's easy to deny. Especially when the outside world says cults don't exist and people in robes and chanting and graveyards come up again and again.

I had personally set out to prove that what I was remembering couldn't possibly be true only to find information that validated it. Knowing something that awful happened is not accepted easily. So when a survivor says "I was abused by a cult and made to worship satan", it's as incredulous to the survivor as to anyone else who hears it. During my early healing period when I had connected to other survivors for support, we had all figured out on our own there were bad people who were dressing up as something scary in rituals. Realizing we were not alone in our "craziness" was a relief. Something dastardly was going on nationally and globally.

For anyone who has DID, through organized pedophilia or a single pedophile parent, remembering is awful. Finding a good therapist to help is a frightening proposition thanks to the efforts of the people who would have you believe anyone who claims to have been abused in childhood (including a child) is lying or has vastly distorted memories that can't be believed. Actually, that's not the issue for the survivor. The survivors of abuse, for the most part, just want their life back. They want treatment to heal from the emotional devastation and to heal their internal dysfunctional dividedness. Remember that division of self was extremely functional during childhood. It only becomes dysfunctional in adulthood.

No one can attest to the validity of another's memories. Sometimes a survivor has proof for some things. Many have memories that are so accurate as to names, locations, and/or landmarks that it would be absurd for law enforcement not to tap into that knowledge. Survivors remembering sufficiently to get to those other layers is a way to transform the years of suffering at the hands of these disgusting people. Survivors have fought a war. Their bodies have been the battleground. Their minds have been raped. They don't deserve society's scorn when their truth becomes known.

The abc's of organized pedophilia

Since it typically takes three to four decades of a person’s life before remembering dissociated early childhood abuse and beyond, the first survivors “en masse” globally began to surface in the 1980s and 1990s. Therapists were cited as being overly generous with a diagnosis of DID when, in fact, survivors of abuse from the 1950s and 1960s were beginning to wake up.

Large numbers of survivors had horrific (unbelievable) memories related to the military, government, and other high profile locations. Those survivors acquired the letters MC as victims of mind control. In spite of similar elements to the abuse worldwide, this group of survivors was claimed to have high fantasy quotients or very distorted memories or memories implanted by spurious therapists. Apparently these therapists conspired globally to implant the same memories in thousands of survivors for unknown motivation.

Prior to the “epidemic” of DID in the 1990s when the FMSF had to swoop in and sue therapists for causing clients to falsely accuse innocent parents of unfathomable abuse [excuse me while I roll my eyes], there was the category of extremely rare occurrence of DID in survivors claiming to have memories of devil worship and bizarre, unbelievable ceremonies.

These survivors were given the letters SRA for satanic ritual abuse and also claimed to be liars and fabricators and have therapists who were somehow all secretly trained to implant a lifetime of false memories in a client. A history of ceremonies and masks and similar worship goes back to Pagan times but no perverted mind would ever think, “Hey, there’s a good way to abuse children in horrific unbelievable ways and also be able to have our pedophile sex parties with no one bothering us”...or would they?

And of course this type of abuse also occurred in unlikely places such as graveyards or church basements or in buildings where pedophiles gathered under the guise of community organizations. So all survivors who remembered such places had memory that was highly questionable.

The last group of lettered survivors falls under the letters RA for ritual abuse which is abuse of a ritualized nature (religious based or not) but without the satanic elements. Again, survivors worldwide have similar memories of experiences at the hands of pedophiles in this category. I’m advocating that we stop with the letters and simply categorize all abuse of children who remember group activity as under the heading of organized pedophilia.

What I see are different levels of sophistication (technology and knowledge of pedophilia)—not different categories of abused. It doesn’t matter what a survivor remembers because we know it was made to be unbelieved by the pedophiles. We need to look past what gets seared into a child’s trauma memory and hear they were abused in a group setting. I also highly suggest that those not familiar with trauma memory refer to the work of Bessel A. van der Kolk whose research in trauma is renowned and respected in the psychological/psychotherapist professions worldwide.

As survivors are identified and healed sufficiently to take a survey or speak with law enforcement assigned to investigate pedophilia, information can be gathered. Area law enforcement would be able to see similar locations, descriptions, abusers, etc. to know where a particular group gathers (and it would be more than one location in a community). Think of survivors as resources to be treasured. They have knowledge of the pedophile rings from a perspective no one else on this planet has. They also have knowledge of how they were used in the organized pedophile community as they became adults and were manipulated in dissociated states. That insight would be quite an eye opener for the country, I’m sure.

A large percentage of survivors who recall groups of abusers have kiddie porn memories and startle responses to cameras, clicking noises of cameras, flash bulbs, and more. This is the common denominator. Pedophiles are using the children in their rings to earn huge sums of money marketing kiddie porn and beyond (when adults in dissociative states continue to be drawn into the ring)...not to mention fulfilling their perverse proclivities.

No more ABCs. We all need to acknowledge that pedophiles have various levels of technology, knowledge, and access to various populations. Children could become prey to any group of pedophiles—and pedophiles at different levels exchange knowledge and techniques so many similar elements will be found across all groups. It’s time to take the blame off the survivors and realize they would not have DID if they hadn’t been repeatedly traumatized prior to age 6! Children don’t acquire DID in a vacuum. Something happened. Something very very bad.

The telling from inside

We all hear voices. I know this because the majority of my clients were not trauma survivors. They had issues. Any therapist who works with DID needs to find a balance of trauma work and less intense work. It was my experience that any client willing to enter the domain of their mind and engage in imagery or do "ego state" work, would likely get to their issues more quickly and heal more quickly. Most people can grasp the parent, adult, child selves. I spoke earlier about mother, daughter, sister, wife roles. So we all have parts. It's normal. It's good.

You might not categorize what you hear inside as "hearing voices" but they are there. When you reach for that second piece of cheesecake, you might hear "You know you're going to have to pay for that" or some other critical message. You might also hear "Go ahead. You deserve it. You haven't treated yourself in awhile." You might categorize that as a thought. Either way, it's a message you "hear".

In the medical and psychiatric community, anyone admitting to voices was likely diagnosed as schizophrenic. While there are some similarities, a main difference is someone with schizophrenia will describe voices outside of the self telling him to do something (from the television, from aliens, from demonic voices).

An objective of therapy is to change the messages to something positive and supportive--not to get rid of the messages.

Anyone with DID is likely to describe her experience using different words. Those of us who have had that moment when the first horrific memory leaks through is beyond description. As depicted in one of the collages, "It sucks". It's like falling into a black hole. "It feels like my head is going to explode". Dizziness may overwhelm the person.

Responses to knowing there are other aspects of the self inside vary from terrified to feelings of reassurance. Many have initially described "a lot of noise" inside. For someone with DID, hearing a voice is good. It means a self state is crossing over into consciousness. Healing can't occur until a trauma becomes conscious. Trauma becomes known to the healing host when it is conveyed by one or more self states who experienced the trauma. The message may come from telling of the trauma, writing the trauma, conveying the trauma internally on a "movie screen" (less intrusive than a flashback), through art (real or metaphorical images), flashbacks (which appear as a "real" moment of trauma happening in the mind) where one or more senses engaged in the original trauma might re-enact images, pain, and/or position of the body as well as the emotions including terror. Flashbacks are intense.

All of my abuse feels like it was told to me by someone else. It has never felt "first person". I've had validation for some important information to know that at least some elements were true. I can never know how much was real or a very well orchestrated environment to make it appear certain things happened. Whatever happened--and something happened or a trauma would not have been stored--needs to heal. The self states who recall a trauma may come together to relay the memory or the host might receive the same memory from several parts at different times on the healing journey. The images shared in this post are two views of the same memory by alters of different ages.

Because of the fear to tell, sometimes drawing or collaging can feel less intimidating to the self states, all of whom were constantly threatened if they ever told. An advantage to art is it provides an outlet for the self states to process memories that the host may never need to know. She just sees images that have no meaning or may come to have meaning further down the healing path. The mind is incredible when it comes to watching how others have the capacity to heal. Several of the excellent survivor blogs I follow present art therapy. It's a wonderful tool. Art is telling in a different way.

This is such a complex topic and the purpose of this blog is to simplify the complex so readers can get a good feeling without all the details. Know that an objective of healing is for the host to embrace that she is multiple and work with her selves, as they become known, to heal. Are there scary insiders? Yes. But they all have the capacity to heal. And often the scariest parts turn out to be a very young scared child "made to be" mean or scary. They are so relieved to be rescued.

It's rare that a healing survivor does not discover protectors. Protectors can be a stabilizing, reassuring voice throughout the healing journey and beyond. Protectors come in various states of being, at various ages, with various jobs. Some might encompass very loving and nurturing traits much needed by littles who have never known safety in the outside world. Some may become internal friends to the healing adult. I often describe the major part of healing as becoming very internal. The survivor may well withdraw from her external world except for therapy and other support or responsibilities such as wife and mother.

On the far side of healing, either the host makes a natural transition back to the outside world or, in my case, protectors push you out because it's no longer healthy to be inside as much. Healing from DID is similar to watching a flower bloom. The host opens one petal at a time and learns how to maintain growth and nurturing and self care to continue blooming. It's an arduous process. Having those internal friends is a blessing. Knowing those selves protected us from the horrors is difficult for most to imagine. It allows for an element of internal trust to guide the healing when the survivor is not knowing who in the external world is trustworthy. It is for those with DID who have been so shattered that they constantly fear what is happening inside in addition to not trusting the outside world that self harm thoughts and attempts are increased and healing becomes extremely challenging.

People with DID grow up being silenced in every possible way. How tragic they awake to a world that continues to silence the truth and treats them so cruelly. Ignorance is not bliss for the world. Please open your minds to all of the voices trying to speak the truth.

Life with DID before the memories

I'd like to share, as best I can, in broad terms, what it is like to grow up before the abuse becomes conscious. This is my story and several other stories known to me. I had one big symptom of DID that no one caught. I had no idea it was a symptom until I already knew I had dissociated my abuse and was reading the checklist in E. Sue Blume's Secret Survivor. I had two failed marriages prior to remembering which is no red flag in and of itself. I changed my last name though each time I was married and returned to my maiden name in between. And I was always fussing with my first name and middle name since high school and went through several legal name changes for that.

Apparently it is not uncommon for abuse survivors to change their last name to dis-associate from a perp parent. Most anyone would laugh at my name history. I couldn't believe it was on the incest checklist. (Most with DID would score extremely high on the Secret Survivor checklist.) Outside of that, I could see that I always had a very intense internal world. I created a "safe place" with protectors when I was 5. I met several survivors who had done something similar. I would "pretend" that certain television characters were my real relatives--loving, protective, safe. I had inside imaginary friends. I loved to nap and sleep because I liked being inside more than outside where I was sad and lonely.

The others with DID who had done this absorbed one particular television show with a healthy family and that was their pretend world and family. Some did have very memorable external childhood imaginary friends (in addition to or in lieu of).

Until that first abuse memory hits though, and that amnesia barrier begins to crack, people with DID usually have no idea they were abused and can't imagine having been. We all say, "I would have REMEMBERED THAT!" Well, no. If you have amnesia, you wouldn't remember. People with DID, where the amnesia is in tact, are clueless about the reality of their childhoods and any present danger.

There is no typical way someone will behave if they have DID but not identified as such. It is as invisible as the pedophiles for most and usually misdiagnosed many times even after clear symptoms present. If a child or young person begins to remember while still in that organized pedophile community, that community will use all of its resources to try to stop the remembering. If the person goes to therapy, in my experience with two people still actively being abused, the person becomes a greater target for abuse and the therapist does as well in hopes one will be too afraid to continue.

I was aware of my client's perps because I don't dissociate my environment any longer. I realized how *I* (the one holding the conscious memories of my life) never saw my environment. At the time I began to heal, I realized I missed years/decades of news and had/have virtually no name or face recognition skills. It was all tuned out without realizing such a mechanism existed.

If parts of me knew about others around me who were part of my abuse, *I* never knew prior to the memories. It felt like a life. I had worked through most of the issues in therapy on some level which, I believe, gave me an advantage over many survivors. Depression, anxiety to include panic attacks, full blown Post Traumatic Stress responses to known and unknown triggers, all require the development of coping skills. DID, by necessity, takes coping skills to a new level.

No one knew. Aside from some odd habits which I now understand, I thought my life was normal. Being diagnosed with DID and remembering just a piece of the abuse can be life shattering. Who was I that I lived a life not knowing of such harm? How could this have happened? Maybe it only happened once. Initially there can be very strong denial. Who would blame someone for not wanting to remember a horrific past? There is no going back though.

Likely all survivors have a moment (or two or three) when they wish their minds would just go back to not knowing again. It was so much easier that way. But at what cost?

Around and around and around

One method very easily available to those wanting to cause a child to dissociate is one vehemently denied by even some who work with survivors. I'm not sure why it sounds so absurd. Do you recall ever being spun around by your hands or a hand and foot by a playful relative because you thought it was fun to be dizzy afterward? In such cases, the child can yell out if it's too much and the adult can (hopefully) gauge when fun crosses over into scary.

A child spun around with the intention of disorientation becomes frightened by the "spinning" alone. Unfortunately, there is usually at least one other element to overwhelm and terrify the child. Survivors worldwide have recalled being spun seemingly endlessly on devices similar to playground rides where someone will run around to spin the others seated on the ride (a roundabout?). A large circle on a spinning device--think very fast merry go round--or even a swivel chair can be used. It doesn't have to be sophisticated. Being dangled upside down in a variety of ways is both terrifying and disorienting. Add dunking in water, bright lights, insects or snakes and you have a trauma situation. Further add a drug that causes another element of disorientation and blurred vision or possibly hallucinations, and you can assure the child will have to "leave the body" to endure what is happening.

I would ask why this is so unbelievable. Possibly the disbelief is in the element of intentionality. My point is that intentional dissociation is the main objective of organized pedophiles. There are many names "out there" for what is done. The names given to such a simple act of torment causes people to dismiss the entirety of what is said. The reality is that "spinning" can be connected by very sophisticated pedophiles to certain memories and even perpetrators. It works like this: the survivor begins to have memories surface about an incident (place, date, perp, some tiny detail) and the survivor immediately is overwhelmed with strong feelings of dizziness, nausea, and other factors to take the attention off the memory and onto what is happening with the body. We don't have to understand how this is done. Frankly, I don't want to know that much.

As a survivor, I had to wade through many memories where an element of "spinning" had to be processed to stop the horrid feeling. A very traumatic memory connected to spinning can cause a survivor to be down (incapable of functioning) for days or even weeks at a time. Apparently barns are popular sites for abuse to include spinning. It is a common element in the memories of many survivors at least in the United States. They have lots of room in a protected environment. They are also nice and isolated.

Spinning is one way a child may try to tell a safe adult--turning around frequently until losing her balance, doing somersaults endlessly, wanting to be spun around repeatedly. Messages can only come out in indirect ways if the child has dissociated. And what about babies who have no voice or ability to act out?

We all know about shaken baby syndrome. Someone could spin a baby around in any number of ways to the point where the baby was overwhelmed. The baby can't tell and it leaves no marks. This is the pedophile mindset. It's very gritty. Toughen your senses so we can obliterate it. Please.

Offending the senses

The following information is a culmination of my own recollection of abuse, my personal research, knowledge shared by other survivors both in person and online through support networks, and my experience as a therapist with recovering clients and colleagues who treat dissociation. To cause an infant or child to dissociate, various techniques are used. I’m only going to offer a brief view of two of the most commonly recalled techniques by victims at all levels of pedophilia: bombarding the senses or depriving the senses with a “special” twist.

Overwhelming the senses is when the child is subjected for long periods of time to:

Listen to loud music, bells, or other ear piercing sounds
Eat extremely foul tasting substances
Non-stop talking (usually taped or broadcasted messages of loyalty under threat or subliminal instructions for “x”)
View extremely graphic video/movie
Have glaring light shine into eyes (eyes held open with tape or other means)
Several people constantly touching exposed areas of skin
Sexual abuse in conjunction with any of the above
Placement in very cold environment (tub, large freezer) or very warm/hot environment
Repeated submersion in water
Usually each sense is overwhelmed by at least one method.

All senses overstimulated simultaneously causes a child’s coping mechanisms to be too overwhelmed to “stay” in the body. This is where many survivors will describe viewing the memory from “floating on the ceiling” or standing next to what was happening. You might recall the scene in Conspiracy Theory where Mel Gibson is subjected to bright lights while repeatedly immersed in water. That's a bit of insight for what happens to children.

Remember when Michael Jackson had a sensory deprivation tank for calm and relaxation? Okay I’m giving an age clue. Absence of sound or light can be very soothing when desired. When forced upon a child, however, there can be emotionally damaging consequences.

The following are common elements of abuse that fall into the category of sensory deprivation (see, speak, hear no evil combined with no taste and no smell):

It’s not just the elimination of the senses that causes the trauma for intentionally perpetrated sensory deprivation. It’s the one element that introduces terror while the child has no ability to defend or even scream. This would be memories of being “buried alive”, closed in a box, or otherwise shut off from light, ability to speak, ability to move arms or legs. The terror element is intentionally inflicted. The unbelievability factor definitely applies here. It's something most normal people cannot possibly imagine and so it is difficult to hear and easier to dismiss than believe pedophiles are capable of such harm to a child.

These are examples that have surfaced worldwide for survivors: pick an insect—any insect—crawling around on the child, snakes placed in the container or room. I’m afraid that’s all I will divulge here. It gets worse. Think CSI, Bones, Dexter.

Can a child be made to believe certain things are on her when eyesight cannot confirm? Of course. The Halloween “fun house” where you place your hand blindly into wet spaghetti is an example. I can safely state that most survivors cannot even fathom allowing themselves to enter any “fun house” on purpose. We like to know exactly what is what. No tricks. A young child is very impressionable. It doesn’t matter if the terror element is “real”. The child believes it is real. They are told it is real. The validation for survivors is when seeing ants or snakes or spiders or (fill in the blank) causes an over-the-top startle response. When a child has no ability to physically escape or defend, the only alternative is to “leave the body”—otherwise known as dissociation.

Sensory deprivation can be used effectively by a single perp with a single child to induce the desired dissociative response. It has been used for centuries passed down through the generations by incestuous families and is a proven method for organized pedophile rings.