-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
Ritual Abuse
Margaret Smith©1993
HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
ISBN 0-06-250214-X
213pps — out-of-print
--[7]--
Chapter 7
Getting Out
This chapter was difficult to write because I didn't want to scare anyone.
After thinking it over I decided I had to tell people all that I know in
order to give survivors the tools they need to protect themselves from their
abusers. Not surprisingly, like most destructive cults, violent cults try to
control almost every aspect of their members' lives. When ritual abuse
survivors have the courage to remember adult ritual abuse, they remember what
seems to be willing participation in these violent rituals. They usually
remember that loved ones and close family members are involved in the cult.
When survivors have these memories, they are overcome with fear and disbelief
I don't want survivors to be overcome with panic. I want them to believe
their personalities, who want to protect them from further victimization.
Based on my own experience, here are some suggestions to help survivors get
through these difficult times.
1 . Don't let fear consume you. Tell your personalities that you must control
your fear until you are safe. If you become overwhelmed with your fear you
won't be able to effectively protect your-self. You might become paralyzed
and give up.
2. Allow your personalities to remember information about the current
ritual abuse memories without the physical sensations or emotions. From these
memories, you must make decisions about how to protect yourself from further
victimization.
3. Don't be surprised if you remember close friends and family members
who are involved in the ritual abuse. If you do remember their involvement,
you might be overwhelmed with grief from potentially losing a relationship
with them. Although you must limit contact with loved ones who are still
involved in the cult, you can still love them and have them in your life. In
order to protect yourself you must exercise certain precautions, but you may
find that your loved ones are in the same boat that you are. They are also
victims waiting for change.
4. It is in your friends' best interest that you break free. Once You're
free, the cult can no longer force them to hurt you. You show loved ones that
it's not hopeless. There is a way out.
5. Don't alienate your personalities who seem to be willing participants
in the cults. It is important to remember your own victimization. If you
befriend these cult personalities, they can help you break free. If you
alienate them or disbelieve them, they will turn to the cult for support.
6. You don't always have to be aware of the behaviors of these cult
personalities in order for them to help you. If you have their respect, they
can slowly manipulate their abusers, loosening their ties to the cult. They
can plan their escape, while you learn to protect yourself from victimization.
Remember:
1. Cults don't usually kill members who were ritually abused as
children. In their eyes, such people are an investment, and they will wait
indefinitely to collect on their investment.
2. In time they will stop pursuing you because it reminds them that they
are losing. In an arrogant stance, they will leave you alone, still believing
you will come back eventually.
3. As you are breaking free, if you have personalities that are still
returning to the cult, they will be reprogrammed and tortured. This will make
you especially fearful and confused. At this point, make the break as soon as
possible. Keep control of your fear, and manipulate your abusers however you
have to in order to make yourself safe.
4. You don't have to punish yourself for searching for freedom.
5. Each day your mind will become clearer, and you will find they -have
less control over your life. Someday you will truly know the meaning of the
word freedom.
HOW LENGTH OF ABUSE INFLUENCES ABILITY TO LEAVE
The length of time that survivors were abused generally determines whether
they will be able to get out of the cult before memories of the abuse surface
as an adult. A survivor who was abused outside of the home only for a short
duration of time-who was not forced to participate for the first eighteen
years of life-has some freedom from the cult brainwashing. A survivor who was
raised from infancy to adulthood in a cult, however, faces a different
situation because the cult controlled almost every aspect of this persons
life. Survivors who grew up in cults have the most difficult time ever
breaking free.
Abuse for a Short Duration of Time
During Childhood
Some children are ritually abused in day-care centers for two or three years,
or by only one family member for a short duration of time. These children
spend most of their lives away from the cult learning a different way of
life. Although the programming and pain of the ritual abuse remains hidden in
their minds, they still develop relationships with noncult members. The cult
doesn't control every aspect of their lives.
Because it is short, the programming of these children is less effective than
the programming of children raised in cults. However, if they were never
allowed to confront and have comforted the pain from the abuse during
childhood, as adults they may feel pulled to violent groups to relive the
trauma of their own abuse. They may join an occult organization only to find
themselves later stuck in a cult that ritually abuses children, still unaware
of their own ritual abuse histories. Even though the cults have less overt
control of these survivors than survivors who were raised in cults, their
lives are still greatly affected by the abuse.
Children abused for a short duration of time are usually programmed during
torture to return to the cult at a specific age later in life, and to remain
amnesic of their cult involvement. Survivors who get pulled into cults in
this way end up being trapped in a cult due to their amnesia.
Children Ritually Abused Throughout Their Entire Childhoods
Some children are abused by either one or both of their parents from infancy
until they are able to leave home. Usually, this means they are abused for
the first eighteen years of their lives. If no one steps in to protect them
from the abusers, by the time survivors are old enough to move away, the
group already has complete control of their lives through amnesia and
intensive programming.
The cults do not want to lose their highly programmed members. If one of
these members tries to leave the group, cults will go out of their way to
bring the member back. These survivors not only have to worry about their
brainwashed personalities returning to the cult, but they also have to worry
about the group physically forcing them to return. Sometimes it seems easier
to these survivors to remain amnesic of their cult involvement and to stay in
denial about the abuse. Staying in denial keeps them from feeling the intense
anxiety and fear of knowing how difficult it is to get away.
If a survivor raised in a violent cult tries to break free, she will face
increasing difficulty when she tries to get out of the group, depending on
how involved her parents were in the cults. just as some people are more
involved in politics than others, some parents are more involved in the cults
than others. Most of the families who are deeply involved in the cults have
multigenerational involvementthe parents are also survivors of ritual abuse.
Many of these families have held specific roles in the cults for centuries.
The cults are very concerned with maintaining the lineage of these families,
and if a survivor from a highly involved family tries to leave, then the
cults will take any action necessary to bring the survivor back. Children
born into these highly involved families will have the most difficult time
breaking free.
Amnesia is the most powerful weapon these cults use to control their members.
Sometimes survivors remember their childhood ritual abuse only to realize
later, in their process of healing, that they are still being abused in cults
today. Some survivors can believe they are out of the cults as an adult, only
to later realize they had certain personalities who never left the group.
When they remember the abuse as adults, sometimes they are fearful of being
pulled back into a cult without their knowledge. This is possible if
survivors are amnesic of certain experiences of their alter personalities,
HOW CULTS TRY TO KEEP MEMBERS
Cults put a lot of time into programming members, so it's not surprising that
they would try their best to retain these members. They use various methods
to this end, including accessing personalities, reprogramming, threats,
infiltration of survivor resources, and the influence of friends and family
members.
Accessing
Part of programming is designed to teach survivors specific symbols, words,
or sounds that "trigger" them to change personalities. The survivors are
taught these triggers while pain is being inflicted, when their minds are the
most easily influenced. If amnesic members do not willingly return to the
cult, the cult will access alter personalities using these trigger words.
Triggering personalities makes survivors unaware of their personality
switches. When a survivor switches to a triggered alter personality, the cult
is able to have complete control of the survivor's behavior without the
survivor's daily personalities being aware of the personality switch. The
daily life personalities are amnesic of the alter personalities' experiences.
These triggered alter personalities are at the mercy of the cult. They are
the tortured personalities who feel all of the survivors' pain. They feel the
weakness the strong personalities shook off when they were able to make a
break from the cult. These personalities are like zombies. Triggered
personalities obey cult orders because they are afraid of being hurt. If
other personalities are able to protect them from harm, they slowly are able
to develop the strength to say no to accessing triggers. Personalities in the
day-to-day life must take precautions to protect the vulnerable personalities
from being accessed and physically harmed. This is one of the most difficult
parts of getting away from the cult. Often the day-to-day personalities do
not want to know the extent of their ritual abuse histories. Only when
survivors listen to their personalities and break the amnesia are they able
to protect themselves.
Even though there is a set of tortured personalities in most Survivors who
are as vulnerable to the cult as children, there are also personalities in
most multiple systems who are every bit as strong as the abusers. These
personalities can take action to protect the other personalities from harm.
They can play whatever games they have to play with the abusers to move
themselves to a place where they are able to get out.
Reprogramming
If a survivor has been talking about the ritual abuse or contemplating
leaving the group, and then is accessed, she will be reprogrammed.
Reprogramming, like the original programming, also usually takes place during
extensive torture sessions. When survivors are reprogrammed, they are told
the same lies they were told in their childhood: That they are unlovable,
that they are evil, and that they do not belong in the world. The context of
the lies is updated to fit their current life situations. The cults tell the
survivors that the people they love really hate them. They say whatever they
have to say to make survivors feel weak and powerless against the group.
Threats
Abusers sometimes are able to control survivors with threats. Some survivors
return to the cult when they are afraid their loved ones will be hurt. Only
when survivors break free of the cult and pave the ground for others to
follow are loved ones truly given an opportunity to be protected and free.
They are given an example that getting out is possible and the situation is
not hopeless.
Infiltration of Resources for Ritual Abuse Survivors
Abusers are able to stop survivors from getting out by placing their own
members in roles as ritual abuse recovery advocates. Cult members who are
therapists are programmed to take on ritual abuse clients. In this way, the
cult can control what memories survivors are allowed to recall. This keeps
the important cult secrets protected. Sometimes cults infiltrate
organizations for ritual abuse survivors to control the type of information
that is given to recovering survivors.
In general, cult therapists and cult organizations teach the
fol-lowing philosophy to keep members trapped in cults. "It's okay to
remember your own childhood ritual abuse, but dont remember any current cult
involvement" Or they teach that people who are being ritually abused as
adults are "evil" or less strong than other survivors of ritual abuse. In the
eyes of the cults, if survivors only remember their childhood ritual abuse,
then the cults aren't threat-ened. If survivors remember abuse that is
happening today, how-ever, then the cults are in danger of losing members or
of having some of their current operations placed in jeopardy.
Using Friends and Family from the Cult to Pull the Survivor Back In
Cult members in abusive situations develop intimate bonds with one another,
similar to the bonds developed between war veterans. The survivor doesnt want
to lose her closest friends, yet these friends may be the people keeping her
in the cult. In order to protect herself, she would have to greatly limit her
contact with the people she is closest to in the world.
It's not surprising, then, that when a survivor attempts to leave the group,
the cult often uses the person's cult friends to pull her back in. Even
though a friend who does the accessing is acting on orders it is very
difficult for survivors' daily-life personalities to acknowledge that their
friends may be pulling them back into the cult. This makes such a tactic
extremely effective.
Sometimes old family or friends call survivors when they are trying to get
out to remind survivors they are bonded to people inside of the cult. The
message to the survivor is that "the cult is your home" and that cult people
"are your family." It is very painful for survivors who are trying to leave
the cult to be reminded that they are leaving people they really care about,
only to face a world that doesnt seem to accept them. Sometimes these phone
calls stir up old feelings of attachment to the cult and are enough to keep
survivors from leaving the group.
Married to a Cult Member
If a survivor is married to a cult member, the chances of getting out of the
group are next to impossible. Both spouses must decide between themselves, in
their daily lives and in their cult lives, to get out of the group. They must
commit to each other-giving their ultimate loyalty to themselves, not to the
cult. Even when spouses are able to make this commitment, the cult will try
to drive a wedge between them by trying to convince one spouse that the other
is lying. If the spouse believes the cult and becomes loyal to the group
again, neither spouse can get out. The loyal spouse will continue to access
the spouse who wants to get free until neither trusts the other. Once more,
the cult has power over their relationship and their futures. in these cases,
in order for survivors to get out, they must separate from their spouses for
their own protection.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THE CULT
Despite what the cult tells them, it is possible for survivors to protect
themselves from the cult. Here are some ways that work.
Move Away
Most cults that ritually abuse children seem to be organized in a structured
network similar to the organized crime network. When a survivor who is raised
in a local cult moves to another city or state, the survivor will be
programmed prior to the move to contact cult members in the new town. For
example, survivors may be programmed to meet cult contacts in support groups,
or survivors might be told to call "old Aunt Mary," a cult member who will
set them up with a cult in the new city All of this programming to reconnect
with a new cult is isolated to cult personalities. The survivors' daily
personalities only feel the results of the programming as an ache or a
loneliness to find someone to be close to. Consciously, survivors are not
aware that joining a support group or calling a family member will pull them
back into a cult.
For most survivors, simply moving to another city is not a solution for
breaking free from the group. However, moving is beneficial. Often the cults
that raised an individual survivor have a greater investment in the child
staying in the group than another group that barely knows the survivor. The
cult in a different city won't try as hard as the survivor's home group to
pull her back in.
Live in a Safe Environment
In order to get out of the group, survivors must live in a safe environment.
They must take extra precautions to assure that the cult is not able to send
a person over to their house to access them in the middle of the night.
Fortunately, in most cases this is relatively easy. Usually, cults only break
into survivors' homes in ways that would look like burglaries to the police.
If survivors keep their homes safe from ordinary prowlers, then cult members
usually won't break into their homes.
Have Selective Contact with People in Isolated Environments
Often cults are unable to effectively access survivors who are trying to get
out until they are alone. If the cult attempts to access a survivor at a
public restaurant, then the personalities vulnerable to accessing are not
physically threatened, and they can say no. If the survivor is alone with
another cult member at her house, then vulnerable personalities might be
physically forced to do something they dont want to do. if survivors
carefully select who they are alone with in nonpublic places, they can often
avoid being accessed by the cult.
Listening to Personalities
Survivors must listen closely to their personalities. If a personality says
someone is not safe, then the entire system must listen if they want to
protect the system as a whole. Sometimes it is very painful for daily
personalities to listen to other personalities who are knowledgeable about
their cult lives. Cult people are attracted to cult people, just as all
people with common experiences are attracted to one another. It is quite
likely that many of the survivor's closest friends are also cult members.
Limiting contact with these friends can be extremely painful. However, it is
less painful to limit these friendships than it is for a survivor to remain
controlled by the cult for the rest of her life.
It is important to remember that daily-life personalities are not the
personalities who know about the ritual abuse. They don't know who in their
lives may be cult members. They do not know how the cult works. It is the
personalities that survivors are amnesic of that have these answers.
Survivors must listen to silenced personalities in order to assure the safety
of the entire system. Sometimes it takes years before survivors have enough
communication and cooperation in their multiple systems to effectively
protect themselves from the cult. Nonetheless, it is the silenced
personalities who need to be listened to if survivors want out of the cult:
They know when they are in danger. They are the ones who know how to keep
themselves safe.
Finding Support
Survivors who break free of the cults need a safe place where they can
express their thoughts and feelings, where they don't have to censor what
their personalities say. It is important for survivors to have at least one
person in their lives who listens to all their ritual abuse memories, and who
supports them in breaking free of the cult. If survivors dont find this
necessary support, it is possible to get out, but it is an extremely painful
and isolating experience.
In order to overcome the amnesia, survivors must listen to their
personalities and treat them with respect. They can't do this if they are
seeing a therapist who is unwilling to hear about current ritual abuse
memories. It is important for ritual abuse survivors to know up front how
their therapists might react to current ritual abuse memories. Survivors need
to ask their therapists in what circumstances would the therapist feel
obliged to report the memories to the police. Survivors need to know if they
are incriminating themselves if they discuss current ritual abuse memories in
therapy. It is not unusual for survivors to switch therapists because, as
they remember more about the abuse, they find themselves less supported by
their therapists. With so little information available to therapists about
the complexities of the issues of prolonged ritual abuse, it is not unusual
for therapists to unintentionally revictimize survivors. However, survivors
owe it to themselves to find support in a non-revictimizing environment. If
survivors want out of the cult, it is extremely important that they are heard
and believed. It is essential that personalities who talk about current
ritual abuse memories are not isolated or shamed by other personalities or by
their therapists. If those personalities feel invalidated, they will stop
talking about the current memories and continue to be victimized by the cult.
Remember: This Pain Won't Last Forever
The first years of getting out of the cult are extremely painful. Survivors
must make permanent life changes in order to protect themselves, the most
painful of which is the limited contact with people they are close to in the
cult. There are many losses during these first few years, but the rewards are
well worth it. Survivors who are finally free have an opportunity to find
love and happiness.
When survivors first try to get out, they feel as if they can't trust anyone.
Many survivors look around themselves, only to realize that most of the
people they are close to in their lives are also cult members. In order to
get out, they must limit contact with people they genuinely care about. They
must always be cautious to make their homes secure at night. They may even
have to leave a good job and move to a new state in order to get away from a
highly possessive cult.
Survivors of ritual abuse will always have to take more precautions to
protect themselves than nonsurvivors, but at some point the cults generally
give up. Cults look powerless when they continue to go after someone who
simply won't come back. Continuing to talk about a lost member encourages
other people who are thinking about getting out to try to make an escape.
Hopelessness is their strongest ploy to keep members trapped. If someone does
not respond to programming for a significant length of time, it is more
effective for the group to forget about that person and to wipe the slate
clean, as if her or she never existed.
Realizing Why You Want to Stay
Survivors who want to break free of the group must realize and acknowledge
their deepest feelings that draw them to the group. After realizing the
feelings that keep them in the cult, survivors can remember the things they
hated about it. They remember the threats of torture, the lies, and the
manipulation. They realize that they can never be free of suffering as long
as they are in the cult.
It is impossible for survivors to honestly look at their lives when the cult
still has them. They can never truly face their inner feelings. They cant
separate truth from lies when they are constantly threatened with violence.
WHY PEOPLE STAY IN THE CULTS
If cults are so terrible, why don't more members leave? As we have said,
people remain in cults for a number of reasons, almost all of them based on
fear.
Reenactment of the Abuse
Cults want to teach as many children as possible their way of viewing the
world. They want to recruit as many members as possible in order to justify
their own lives, which they cannot change. They say that children deserve to
have a choice: a choice between the "truth" of accepting the power of pain
and suffering or a "lie," living in a world that is "fake."
This philosophy usually has been the personal experience of people
who were raised in cults. During violent rituals, they see the pain they are
feeling inside. In the day-to-day world, they live a life pretending nothing
has happened to hurt them, a life that feels "fake." Their faulty logic
occurs when they believe their individual realities of suffering are the
"truth" that must be taught to children.
When cult members abuse children they are really trying to recreate the scene
in which they were traumatized. This enables them to feel close to the parts
of themselves that dissociated during their original trauma. They can see
their own pain on the victim's face, and they can also feel the victimizing
power their abusers felt. In other words, they do it to feel closer to
themselves.
More Painful to Leave Than to Stay
Ironically, by the time a survivor is eighteen or financially independent,
and in a position to leave the group, it often seems less painful to stay.
The survivor has learned to adapt. The life in the cults is put away in a
neat, tidy package, covered by effective amnesia, and the day-to-day life is
not as painful as it was before alter personalities were born.
The dissociation has made the survivor unaware of the pain, but the pain
itself always remains in the body. Survivors simply identify it as resulting
from something other than the ritual abuse. For example, survivors stuck in
cults today may feel a deep aching and longing for something they cannot put
their fingers on, or they may feel bitter, "irrational" self-loathing—"for no
reason." They may feel dead inside.
Remembering the ritual abuse allows survivors to identify those feelings and
realize that they are a result of the ritual abuse. By remembering, survivors
can be free of the pain. Survivors who never remember will never be free of
the cult and its manipulation. The aches, the longing, the feeling of
internal death remain until they are able to face their pasts and get out.
Bonds with Other Group Members
People look for friends who can understand them. Children abused in cults are
no different. Children who are ritually abused stick together because they
can relate to one another's pain. They may have felt ashamed or exposed when
they were with people who had not experienced the same violating acts. As
ritual abuse survivors were growing up, they probably felt like misfits and
freaks around people who had not been ritually abused.
Sometimes survivors who are trying to get free have only felt close to other
ritual abuse survivors. If these other survivors are still in cults today,
then leaving the group may be like leaving all the people they ever cared
about. Even if survivors continue limited friendships with their old cult
friends, a strong wedge is placed in the friendships if one survivor is
trying to get out. However, until both friends are free of the group, it is
difficult to have a supportive, reliable friendship without being manipulated
by other group members.
Fear of Being Alone
Some survivors stuck in cults only remember their childhood ritual abuse and
are unable to remember abuse that is happening today. For these survivors, it
seems easier to remain amnesic of their current ritual abuse memories.
Remembering the abuse in their childhood at least takes the edge off of their
pain. However, if they do not actively confront their current cult
involvement, they cannot make the changes that would provide them with a
fulfilling life free of control. These survivors dont allow themselves to
remember current ritual abuse for several reasons. They are afraid of being
viewed as perpetrators and thus losing survivor support resources. They are
afraid of the isolation involved with trying to protect themselves from being
drawn back into the cult. Interestingly, the fear of being alone keeps many
current violent cult members from leaving the group.
Brought Children into the Cult
Once a child is born to a cult member, the child is considered to belong to
the cult, not to the parents. The cults force the parents to indoctrinate
their children, even if they don't want to. Even if there is a time when the
parents willingly participate in the abuse, the cults see that the parents
are pushed past their limits until they abuse their children in ways they
would never do on their own. This manipulation makes the parents hate
themselves. The shame they feel about hurting their own children becomes the
greatest tactic the cults use to control the parents. If the parents try to
leave, the cult makes them feel ashamed and unworthy of finding a better life
for the family.
It is important to remember that shame is the primary tactic used to control
all cult members. The adult survivor who has a child while in the cult is
probably the least likely to break free. The knowledge of bringing another
person into that life of horror causes so much pain, shame, and grief that
the survivor becomes paralyzed.
Alienation from Society
Society's revictimization of ritual abuse survivors keeps them tied to the
cults. If survivors had a safe, supportive place to run for protection, most
would go there. Unfortunately, there is no place like that for many
survivors. In fact, most survivors who try to find help are revictimized.
Survivors still in cults are aware of the isolation and pain faced by others
who try to get out. Sometimes the pain and shame of facing non-ritual abuse
survivors is too great. It may appear easier to these survivors to nurture
the bonds with their old cult friends than to start relationships with people
who don't seem to understand their pain
Drawn to Their Roles and Positions in the Cult
Many survivors feel attached to their roles and positions in the cult. They
are proud of their power and respect within the group. As adult members, they
can control other peoples behavior and do not always feel at the mercy of
others. They are no longer the helpless child being victimized, and the pain
of being an adult abuser is buried under layers of denial.
Sometimes survivors' own innate understanding of the world is deeply
intertwined with the role they play within the group. The roles are usually
very magical and mystical, bringing survivors a great feeling of connection
with some higher spiritual force. During the isolation and pain of ritual
abuse, survivors often reach for a powerful force outside themselves.
Sometimes the strength and power they find becomes identified as an
experience they can only have when they play their magical, mystical role.
They believe if they stopped being in the cult and playing their role, they
would lose their spiritual experiences. This connection with a higher force
found in the ritual context keeps these survivors tied to the group.
Learned Not to Trust Others
Children raised in cults learned they could never rely on the love of another
person. Because the cults constantly manipulate all members' feelings of
love, group members who love each other often hurt one another, both
intentionally and unintentionally. Any love these children did receive was
about pain, not about protection and security. Nothing in life was safe for
these children. Life was not fair. When life is based on these painful
individual truths, people have no motivation to find a better way to live.
Rituals are designed to evoke emotion. Although the overall purpose of
specific rituals may vary a great deal, all violent rituals are designed to
cause pain. Spontaneous compassion during horrible events is very powerful to
witness and to experience. The positive emotions that emerge after so much
pain are very powerful draws for survivors to return to the cult. The
positive emotions experienced in these moments of compassion and love are
sometimes the only positive emotions survivors still experience.
Many violent cults are based on very old teachings. Some cults ask the
question most people gave up trying to answer long ago: What is God? Our
modern world puts very little emphasis on the spiritual, and some people are
drawn to a cult for the simple reason that it ascribes to the belief that
there is more to life than what we see around us. However, when a search for
God leads people away from their own personal truth, then the search is
nothing more than a manipulation of people by those in power.
Money
Money can't buy happiness; but money is what feeds us, clothes us, and puts a
roof over our heads. Money can buy survivors the best psychological care, and
it can also buy them time to remember the abuse without having to drag
themselves to work every morning in a dissociated state.
Money is power on paper. It is a tool that can be used to ease suffering, but
it can also be used to control and manipulate people depending on who has
control of its distribution. When some ritual abuse survivors uncover their
pasts, they collapse inside and they are in need of economic assistance. They
can't put on the mask in order to go to work. The past becomes so real that
the pain of covering it up is too great. At these times, the abusers, often
the parents of survivors, may offer survivors money to tide them over until
they can function again. Survivors are desperate when they can't financially
support themselves. Sometimes they are risking homelessness and poverty if
they dont accept the money. However, if survivors do accept the money, they
are once again tied to the cult. What they learn at these desperate hours is
that the cult is the one that will bail them out.
BREAKING FREE: A WORD TO SURVIVORS
It is never too late to break free of the cult. if you are a survivor, you
may feel deep fear, shame, and grief at your current abuse, but you must
remember your own victimization. You are not alone. Today, many survivors
around the country are also attempting to remember and break free. No person
is so bad, or so horrible, that he or she is unworthy of being free from that
life of pain. Today there are ways out. Making the break begins with
believing in yourself and seeing your own victimization. You need to remember
your own childhood innocence.
If you have always been aware of your current cult involvement, you too must
remember your own victimization. Every day you know the painful truth of how
your life is controlled by something you cannot change. You need a place to
turn. You need to find help.
Feeling Safe
I would like to share with you some techniques I used to make myself feel
safe as I remembered the abuse. One important thing I did was allow my
personalities to help me. My personalities wrote me a note, telling me what
would happen if I let them emerge and remember:
o You will start having nightmares.
o You will want to kill yourself
o You will want to kill other people.
o You wont want to go through it alone.
o You will want to go back to your home state.
o You will want to go back to the cult.
o You will want to kill your parents.
o You will want to start drawing your memories again.
o You will be able to work because you will feel alive and real.
The personalities also had some suggestions about how I could keep
functioning despite the memories. They said:
1. Take care of yourself Buy some bubble bath, maybe some tea. Listen to
what your babies say they need. Do they want play dough? Do they want to
listen to a certain type of music? Try to find those inner children. They can
give you strength.
2. Keep a list of support resources by the bed. [This is the most
difficult plan to implement. My parts don't trust many people. Nevertheless,
next to my bed I keep the number of three friends and a few rape crisis teams
that I know are educated on ritual abuse.]
3. Keep only safe knives in the house.
4. Keep all suicidal utensils out of the house, so you would have to go
buy something if you wanted to kill yourself. [Stepping out of the apartment
would probably make me switch out of the personality who wanted to do it.]
5. Make us enough money so we don't have to always worry about that.
6. Keep things organized in the house.
7. Let me feel, even if it is bizarre and perverted. Be willing to feel
strange.
8. The adult parts have to take care of our survival needs. They must
get groceries, go to the bank, and get our mail. They must make sure we eat.
They need to figure out our cash input and output. They need to make sure we
go to work with a few sick days' leeway for bad memories.
I knew that remembering the abuse was more than letting myself cry about it.
I knew I would have to allow myself to feel intense physical discomfort from
the body memories for days. At the same time, I also had to make sure some
personality went to work so we wouldn't end Up out on the streets. Most
important, when I felt I was in danger from my abusers, I had to take action
to protect myself
It has been over a year since I have faced my abusers. They have made a few
more attempts to get me back, all unsuccessful because I listened to my
personalities and took care of myself. Each day of freedom is one more step
away from them toward my own life. I never thought I could feel angry at
them. I always thought a part of me would always feel loyal to them. I can't
express to you how wonderful it is to know they are responsible for my pain
and to feel appropriately furious with them. In every cell of my body, I know
they lied to me and manipulated me to get what they wanted at my expense.
They stole from me the most important things in my life, the people I love.
And more than ever, I know they are wrong! And I give all credit of my clear
thinking to the fact that I got out. When they are still there, able to tell
you how to think, feel, and breathe, there is no room for your true feelings
to emerge. Freedom gives you back your mind and feelings. I am proof that you
can get your life back. Believe in yourself: You deserve choice, freedom, and
happiness. There is hope and a way out!
pps. 151-169
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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