Recovery
This page is concerned with recovery and its many aspects. Recovery is stopping any current victimization, and/or addressing the psychological and physical effects that the abuse has caused.
Stopping Current Victimisation
Many, if not most survivors are currently being abused. Simply by remembering the abuse defintely does not mean escape. Many survivors are under the impression that remembering means escaping the cult, but the cults have many devious ways of controlling a victim and do not wish to let him/her go. They spent a lot of money and programming into making the person a victim and don’t give up easily. Current abuse is by being accessed, reprogrammed and deployed. Accessing usually happens on a regular basis (e.g. weekly). It is the way the victim is contacted. This contact is how the handler and cult members continue the hold over the victim/survivor, and tells the victim/survivor where to go for reprogramming and deployment. It is the primary way the cult and handler control the victim/survivor. If the victim/survivor doesn’t contact then s/he can’t be controlled and directed. When being accessed the handler and cult will continue the lies that he or she has abused to have power over the victim/survivor. This could be “saving” the victim or people that s/he loves, etc. Reprogramming happens when the handler and the cult want to ensure they are maintaining the programming. The handler will again abuse electrocution, drugging, setups, lies, etc in order to have fresh and thorough control. It also means being deployed such as having to go to ritual abuse ceremonies and the organized crime activities of the perpetrators.
It is extremely important for the victim/survivor to stop accessing. Accessing is any contact that the cult/handler has with the victim/survivor and is either conscious or non conscious. When not conscious dissociated personalities maybe ringing or going to physically see a handler/cult member. Even though it may seem that the victim/survivor is not contacting, it is in fact the opposite. The handler and cult have forced the victim to non consciously contact by using the programming. It goes back to the no choice setup where the victim/survivor “does what the handler says or he or she dies”. If there was no programming the victim/survivor wouldn’t contact. S/he is forced to. It maybe conscious such as when a handler/cult member harasses a victim/survivor in his/her home.
Signs of non conscious accessing are missing time when a dissociated personality of the victim reports to the handler/cult without the victims knowledge. This could be non conscious ringing on a regular basis, or visiting (usually periodic) the handler/cult member at a public area such as a market or the handler’s place of programming. Accessing signs are feeling like a zombie when going to a particular part of the city/town/region, having needle marks and small bruises from when the handler and other perpetrators injected drugs, memory of being somewhere else that’s unusual, and using a telephone unusually like a public phone when you have a mobile phone and a landline. It can also be feeling like you’re waking up from a dream and yet you are walking in the city, meeting people you usually don’t meet, having to do something at a particular time that’s important and not accounted for, doing something on a periodic basis that has no real worth in it, the phone ringing in what seems a sequence e.g. three times and then stops, and a feeling that people are strangely coming to your house/flat for no particular reason, etc. These strange occurrences and others happen when the victim/survivor is dissociated and is not conscious of the accessing. It’s really important to take notice of any fear one may have about accessing. In most cases it usually means accessing. Accessing is the main way that the cult has control. As said if the victim/survivor doesn’t contact then s/he can’t be abused. She can’t be directed to go to a particular place for more programming, and can’t be told to go to a cult ceremony, etc.
Stopping accessing means stopping any contact with the handler and cult. As it is non conscious the victim/survivor needs to find when the accessing is happening without her/him consciously knowing. It’s like looking at your back with a mirror. You need to know when something happened without being able to directly and consciously see it. There are many ways to know if you are being non consciously accessed. Firstly there is using your intuition. Does something not feel right about a specific time and/or place? For example, why do I have to go to this particular suburb for no known reason? Are there any obsessions such as wanting a mobile phone which may mean that you are being accessed by phone? It is also important to use objectivity. For example, when looking back on the month why is there this irrational reason to go to this particular park to ring on Sunday mornings? Always check if you are doing things on a regular basis but is not accounted for. Ask for feedback from friends, therapist and innocent family if there seems to be unusual things happening, particularly on a periodic basis. Check whether you are doing anything extra during the week. See if people not close to you but know your routines are saying anything unusual about you. For example are your workmates, neighbours or flatmates saying things that show that you are doing things unusually and you’re not aware of? For example, not having lunch at the workplace on Fridays anymore. Also friends, innocent family and your therapist can give feedback about ones psychological condition. E.g. that s/he seems like s/he just woke up when its lunchtime. In reality, the victim/survivor had actually been accessed and reprogrammed that morning. Have discussions with personalities who can see what is truly happening and can also truly tell when and what the accessing is. You can gently ask all personalities if there is any accessing and how it happened. Sometimes personalities are programmed to give untrue information which they think will help you overall. Ask the personalities to show when the accessing actually happens as in real time. Personalities when trusting you will give you the correct information if accessing is happening. You need to develop trust by showing that you respect them and will not harm them. You also may need to show that the perpetrators, especially the handler, are the ones who hurt the personality. Once they see this they will be closer with you.
Intuition and ones gut feelings give a good understanding of what is happening in the non conscious person. There maybe inkling that accessing is happening every Sunday morning. This can be followed up by noticing that the victim/survivor goes on walks every Sunday morning with no real clear idea of why s/he is doing this. In fact the victim is being accessed by a public phone. The victim/survivor is told to use a public phone as there is no record of a phone call on the telephone bill. Another example of accessing is that you feel dread every Wednesday morning. You have put bricks against your bedroom door so that you won’t be kidnapped. Memories emerge to show that on Wednesday nights a handler will come to the house and drug and rape you in a separate room of the house. This happened to me. Stopping accessing is doing the opposite or different to what you are ordered to do. Do not go outside on a Sunday morning and not be at the house on a Wednesday evening. There will be pain from the programming. It is important to know that this pain is from programming. It does have a source and a reason and can be dealt with. Deprogramming accessing usually means undoing the specific programming related to accessing. When stopping accessing the programming “to contact” will come on very strongly. Stop the programming by either coping with the torture and pain or directly undo it by going to the memories of the programming itself. For deprogramming go to the
Deprogramming Page. It is also important to know that many personalities are also tricked into lying to the victim/survivor that “accessing is happening at a particular time” but is not true. They think they are helping the victim/survivor when in fact they are being abused by the handler and cult to do their dirty work. The handler is trying to deflect the victim/survivor from the real time and to confuse him/her. Use your intuition and ask other trusted parts if you feel programmed parts are giving you false information.
It is extremely important to stop accessing. Stopping accessing, reprogramming and deployment means that her/his recovery won’t be jeopardised by the handler’s debilitating efforts to attempt such. The survivor can keep on recovering and not go backwards. If being accessed and then reprogrammed the survivor goes forward a step in recovery and then back two steps because of the reprogramming. It becomes an uphill battle. So it’s best to stop all accessing.
The survivor also needs to physically escape the perpetrators and so needs a safe place to stay. This is to stop any harassment including being at home. As with domestic violence and escaping a perpetrator, finding safety from cult accessing, intimidation and reprogramming may mean escaping to a new town/city/region. For people who are currently being victimized this is extremely important. However the victim needs to also be sure that it wasn’t a setup by the cult to simply move the victim to a new place and then be reabused. I was tricked this way when I thought I escaped from one city, Wollongong to another one, Brisbane. It was really from the frying pan into the fire. I was still being nonconsciously accessed, tortured, lied to and made to go to the ceremonies and other illegal activities of theirs. Survivors need to be sure that they aren’t being accessed and forced to go to ceremonies and other illegal activities of the cult at the new place.
Escaping the cult is similar to escaping any criminal organisation. Survivors/victims are viewed by the cult as slaves who have lots of information and skills which the cult wants. The cults program the victim/survivor a lot and want to exploit him/her as much as possible The survivor/victim also knows the names of the perpetrators and places of the abuse. Safety can be found at a refuge, a house/flat with security, living with other people, living at a block of flats, living at a boarding house with lots of residents. It is important to be around other people as perpetrators will not try anything if there are witnesses. The last thing the cult wants is to be found out. If there are witnesses, the survivor can go to the police and say that the perpetrators in his/her family have been threatening them. The police will have to investigate. If a survivor is worried about telephone calls, an answering machine will screen calls.
This article on Preventing Reaccessing of the Survivor is by an ex-programmer/handler called Svali. Her writing about understanding programming is well respected by survivors.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/illuminati/svali1_12.htm
This article by the well respected psychologist supporting ritual abuse survivors, Ellen P. Lacter, explains how to reduce and prevent recontacting abusers.
http://endritualabuse.org/healing/ritual-abuse-and-torture-based-mind-control-reducing-and-preventing-re-contact-with-abusers/
Stages of Recovery
Recovery for any abuse is the process of freeing oneself from abuse and its effects (whether past, present or both). We escape from an abusive situation, cope with the abuse of the lies, violence, and enforcement to do wrong, and can work through the memories to be rid of them. We also seek out specific support to help us. Ritual abuse recovery follows the same steps.
Awareness
The stages generally start with awareness of being abused. This is either currently, in the past, or both. Awareness comes from memories, trusting ones intuition, and/or finding information from newspapers, counselling books, survivors written stories, talking with other survivors and/or with counsellors, searching the internet, etc. It also means trusting feelings about there being something wrong. For example asking why are there scars on ones body? These scars were from the cult perpetrators cutting a victim/survivor at a ceremony.
Validation and Acceptance
The second stage is validation and acceptance that the abuse exists. Ritual abuse survivors generally need to validate these memories and/or current situation as the cult attempts to stop memory of it, and society generally hasn’t accepted it. Once a survivor accepts that the memories existed/exists s/he can work on them properly. Validation can come from many areas. These are meeting another survivor, seeing on the media a story about deaths that occurred within a cult setting, doing an internet or library search on “Satanism” or “Nazism”, a therapist explaining what ritual abuse is, etc. As said because there is very little information about ritual abuse, the victim needs to seek a lot of validation. Friends, and sometimes even the counsellor may not know about ritual abuse and so therefore one must search for validation. Thankfully due to the internet and online book stores such as
Amazon.com, survivors can find information. Libraries even may have books on ritual abuse. My local library at Perth has Safe Passage to Healing by Chrystine Oksana which is excellent. Books can also be ordered from other libraries.
This process of acceptance and validation can either be long or short and the important aspect is knowing yourself. It is important to trust inklings that abuse happened/is happening e.g. being worried that you are missing time and that this missing time is in fact ringing/contacting a handler. To see the situation from a different perspective e.g. if feeling that you are being abused in a particular town, go to another one for a day and see what it feels like.
Safety
The next main consideration is having a safe place to live. It is very important for being safe in order to work on the memories and the programming. Firstly memories will come out more clearly when there isn’t cult abuse. If there is current cult abuse the memories can come out in a stressful way. The survivor is trying to keep ahead of the current cult abuse and the memories are a reaction to it rather than coming out more easily. As said with escaping current victimisation, the survivor also needs to physically escape the perpetrators. This usually means going to a new city, town and/or region and even country. This can mean stopping accessing by the previous handler, and being triggered by places that had horrible memories for them such as a specific church. With hopefully no accessing and other abuse in the new place, and no direct triggering and cueing there is the ability to recover well. The old handler cannot access and reprogram (do new programming), and there is nothing at the new town/city/region such as a specific mountain or cemetery that has bad memories. It is a new life free from the cult. It is also important that the new place has support for ritual abuse survivors such as counselling. Please see the
Support for Victims/Survivors page where support can be found. Survivors can still recover in the place they were abused at. When they stop accessing and further programming by the handler and the cult they can recover like all survivors. It is important that someone is with the survivor most, if not all, of the time, to make sure s/he doesn’t get non consciously accessed and isn’t non consciously going to cult activities. I knew a survivor who stayed in her hometown because of her children and was dealing with non conscious accessing and cult abuse. She had to be with her partner all the time to make sure she didn’t dissociate into a part and be non consciously controlled by the cult.
Also make sure that the new place you/the survivor goes to is not another place of victimisation. This is not a place where the old handler and new handlers are still controlling you. Make sure you know where you are at all times and if there is anything you may do that is unusual. Ask parts if they are being accessed and abused and exactly where. Sometimes parts are stuck in the past or are programmed to say that they are being abused when they are not. This is to keep the survivor thinking that s/he hasn’t and can’t escape and pushes the survivor unfortunately back to the cult.
Survivors when physically away from the cult can develop a sense of inner safety. Safety is a personal place in one self where the cult and its brainwashing and abusive memories cannot psychologically get to. The aim is to create a more solid safe place in ones self. This is the free, creative, untouched, joyous, childlike, adventurous and soulful nature of yourself/the survivor. From this base you/the survivor can start to work on the memories and the brainwashing. If you/the survivor don’t feel in touch with this unaffected personal place, take time out, go for a walk, do enjoyable and creative things, etc. Drawing and artwork can be very important for this. Think of what is important for you. How you are not like the cult. The cult can never control a person totally. Even by reading this you/the survivor are stepping outside of what the cult told you not to do.
This is a good webpage that includes many, if not all the safety tips needed for being safe. It also includes more tips from other webpages.
http://endritualabuse.org/activism/safety-tips-for-ritual-abuse-survivors/
Getting Support
The next stage is usually about getting support. You/the survivor needs people around them who are aware of the abuse and know how to support you. It is very important as people can understand you and help when in a crisis. Support is by loving and innocent family, friends, counsellors, other ritual abuse survivors, and survivors from all forms of abuse not only ritual. For many survivors, family or family members maybe the perpetrators, and so there is a strong need to stop contact. For some survivors including myself, most of the family are non consciously abused and are lied to that you/the survivor “are hysterical, making things up, and even lying” and so it is important to step outside the contamination of them by the perpetrators. Please see the
page for Support For Victims to find counselling.
Self Empowerment
The fourth stage is when the survivor empowers him/herself so that she/he controls his/her life. This basically is about working on the indoctrination and the memories of the cult activities and how you/the survivor were forced into them. It is usually important to firstly work on programming about accessing and returning as this is what the cult will be demanding when the survivor begins to escape and heal. As said, working on the programming means that the survivor is less likely to be accessed and reprogrammed. It is very important to work on accessing programming so that all the work in counseling and survivorship isn’t undone by a current handler disrupting the counselling and recovery. It may also be important to work on return programming when a survivor maybe called back to cult ceremonies and activities. For Satanic Ritual Abuse survivors this is particularly strong between Easter and beginning of May as there are two close dates of Good Friday and May 1st. There are also other dates for SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) and all RA (ritual abuse) survivors and these need to be looked out for. Please see a calendar of ritual abuse dates at
http://survivorship.org/resources/dates.html. A handler may also have specific weekly/fortnightly times of programming that have to be broken as well. A survivor needs to watch out for missing time which s/he cannot account for. S/he must watch if s/he is going somewhere for no reason such as looking for telephone booths in the next suburb in order to non consciously ring a handler, driving somewhere for no reason which is non consciously to a cult members house, etc. Also look out for needle marks on the body where the victim/survivor has been drugged.
Stopping all programming is extremely important for self empowerment. The victim/survivor maybe doing it non consciously or non conscious personalities who are aware of the programming maybe working on it without telling the victim/survivor. If there is a lot of memory coming up it maybe concerned with undoing specific programming that personalities know is hurting the victim/survivor. Try and understand why a lot of memory is happening. It is usually about an accessing time or a callback for a ceremony. The handler and the cult will attempt to abuse the programming as much as possible for control. The victim/survivor can cope with the memories of the programming setups.
During survivorship you/the survivor either responds to crisis periods or works on memories at a more even pace. Crises happen when breaking the programming deeply such as stopping callbacks, stopping accessing, telling people especially a counsellor, etc. There is a feeling of urgency as the programming is being seriously challenged and the memories of the programming traumatic setup surface. When there are no crisis periods, there is a better pace where you/the survivor can work more easily on the memories and programming.
Programming consists of setups, torture and forced obligation. If undoing them it is important to look at the memory of when these happened and unravel them. Stop the processes of control such as the electrocution and get rid of the perpetrators. It then is important to get rid of the handler who was or currently is illegally deceiving, torturing and manipulating the victim with the memory of the programming setup. No one has a right to control another and particularly by false means, torture and non conscious ways. The handler is one of the perpetrators and not a saviour. He or she knew that the torture was going on and was part of its organizing. S/he didn’t save the survivor. He or she wanted the survivor to be firstly tortured in order to be pretend that s/he was a “saviour”. The staged obligation only meant control of the survivor for the cults wants and not for the survivor’s own wants. The handler is a manipulator who cornered the survivor and then forced the survivor to do things that only benefited them and most probably caused harm or near death to the survivor. One handler wanted me to go to an area in Indonesia where I could have been killed as a foreigner. She didn’t care about me at all. The handler wanted the survivor to go to a massacre of people (a ritual abuse ceremony) which the survivor would not want to do. S/he wanted the victim/survivor to do child pornography or drug production or other crimes. Undoing the setups and lies of “saving” and “obligations” means reclaiming oneself. A dissociated part usually holds the awful and deceitful memory of the programming. When it is shown that they were torturing and lying to him/her the part will let go of the control and come back to the survivor. S/he is not controlled by an external and abusive handler anymore. S/he is within the survivor and truly safe. For more information concerning deprogramming please see
the Deprogramming webpage.
Recovery is very rarely linear
Recovery also is never usually linear and problems occur such as finding a counsellor who can work with ritual abuse survivors, surviving intimidation, physical problems caused by the abuse, as well as the usual problems of relationships, mothering, finding work, etc.
Memory Work
The survivor will also be dealing with memories of cult abuse. This is when the survivor was forced to go to ritual abuse ceremonies and had to partake in activities of the cult that were for the attainment of their wealth e.g. child pornography, gaining information about foreign people, sale of military and other armaments, drug production, etc. Memories of either programming or the activities come up when they can. Sometimes they surface when need be such as memories concerning accessing programming when a survivor is being forced to contact. Sometimes something will trigger off a memory such as seeing a church and the survivor will remember the awful things associated with it. A callback date will cue a survivor. Cueing is different to a trigger. Triggers are unintentional reminders whereas cues are deliberately set by the cult. Sometimes a memory occurs from seemingly out of nowhere. Memories can be remembered quickly such as two hours or sometimes over days. Dealing with memories takes perseverance. Sometimes they can be full-on and sometimes they can be flickering. Sometimes a survivor has to lie down because the pain is so severe. Sometimes the survivor can deal with it by doing physical exercise. It’s important to know that memories surface when they can. They can’t be pushed. Once a memory is remembered fully the pain also goes and the survivor doesn’t carry the pain around anymore.
It is important to know what is going on particularly in the programming and seeing that it is a staged setup. The survivor can get angry at the handler and other perpetrators. In fact it is healthy to do so. Programming is staged and all the cult activities are intended to harm the survivor so its very good to be angry at the perpetrators. During call back such as for a ceremony or being accessed memories can come on fully. The survivor is wanting to remember the programming so as to stop the accessing or callback. This is not beneficial in the long run. It is adding a lot of pressure. What is best is to ask the part holding the memory what s/he needs but not go into the memory fully. Say that after the attempted accessing is over the survivor can help the part to undo the memory and this promise needs to be fulfilled. Also ask how the survivor can help the part in other ways. Reassure him/her that nothing horrible will happen as the survivor wont let anything horrible happen.
It is best to take the memories as best as one can. To “rewind” the memory and remember the horrible pain in a way that is best. Remembering pain, torture, deception and betrayal are not easy but with time and courage they can be remembered, lived through and put aside. It is important to remember that it is really not happening now and that the memories are that. The memories maybe horrid but they are memories. They also come up when they can. For all memory work, particularly at the beginning, it is best to do it with support from a counsellor and/or another survivor as they understand how horrific memory work is. They understand how to approach memory work in terms of addressing it, putting it aside when need be, dealing with the most awful periods, etc. It can be done alone, however, all survivors I have talked to have seen it close to necessary to get support from a counsellor, other survivors, literature, the internet, workshops, support groups, etc. As confidence in memory work increases the survivor is able to do it by her/himself.
Also, initially in recovery, there can be memory flooding (also called flashbacks) where you/the survivor is overwhelmed with so much memory. This can be because the survivor is panicking about being accessed or ceremony callbacks and therefore works on programming memories related to accessing and callbacks. Also it can be caused simply by acknowledging that the abuse existed and the memories will come flooding back. It is very important to stop memory flooding as it can overwhelm you/the survivor. It is very important to talk with parts about putting the memory aside for the moment and to ask them why it is necessary to look at the memory. The memory surfacing could mean that accessing is happening and the survivor wants to get rid of the programming memory concerning accessing. If this is the case it is important to address accessing, see how it is happening and stop the programming memory that allows accessing to happen. This is to put memories into some perspective and not be overrun by them. Memories do come up for a reason. They show that abuse happened/is happening, they show what type of programming is occurring e.g. accessing, they warn that a particular ritual abuse callback is happening, etc. They also release the survivor from the terror, deceipt and pain of the abuse generally, and from programming itself. However the memories need to be controlled, and not controlling.
If having intense memory flooding please see the Support for Victims webpage and what to do during a crisis. Also a good webpage on memory flooding and flashbacks is
http://www.traumahealed.com/articles/flashbacks-experiencing-distress-in-safety.html
Memories can be both real and fabricated by the cult/organization/programmers. The best thing is to not listen to the cult/organization/programmers but to see and hear what is really happening. For example, the cults/organizations/handlers may lie that “your mum has been killed”, that “your brother is there” etc when in fact they were not. The handlers and the cult will abuse hallucinogenic drugs and hypnotism to deceive you. You could be lied to that there is "cult activity happening is this particular place" when it is actually happening elsewhere. There are real memories of cults/organizations killing people, raping children including possibly yourself, of abusing people for pornography and prostitution, of programming people abusing electricity, of killing animals, etc. Reality has a way of standing out and it is this trust of what is real that is important.
Generally, how far one goes in bringing back and working on these memories depends on how much you/the survivor wants the truth and wants to be free from an abusive background. It is very important to stop accessing and callback programming so that you/the survivor are not controlled by the cult/handler. However, on does not have to remember everything. Too much memory work is not enjoying life which is the main aim of recovery. Many, if not most surivors work on memories that keep them stuck emotionally or tied to the cults/organisations, and memories that dont do this they dont work on. There are other more important and enjoyable things to do. One does need to have a life.
There are many benefits of memory work. One is that you/the survivor can work on them in order to get an understanding of what the cult/organization did. You can try and piece your life together and get an understanding of it. Another is to overcome any programming threats by the cult/organization to stop you remembering them. Memory work enables you/the survivor to feel healthy so that you don’t have any past emotional or psychological "baggage". You can get some information that will help society and the police, media, legal institutions, etc get some specific and general information about ritual crime. What is important is that by doing memory work you/the survivor can have a functional and manageable life and with the emphasis on life. You/the survivor can work on as much memory that needs to be worked on in order to do things happily.
It is also very important to understand that the survivor did not want to be part of the cult’s activities. The survivor did not organise them, did not want to go to them nor participate in them. The survivor was forced to under duress and/or weren’t conscious of being there. If s/he wanted to be there s/he would continue on today in cult activities willingly but s/he doesnt. The non consciousness was deliberate by the cult in order to get you there. If the survivor could choose not to be programmed and not go the survivor would not have. The survivor doesn’t hurt or maim during consciousness. The survivor was/is forced to and when not in control of her/himself.
As recovery continues more memories will surface and survivorship is basically about working on memories. This time period of working on memories can be long or short depending upon the amount of abuse, its severity, whether perpetrators are still alive, and ones support. The good thing is that over time memory work becomes less and less and the survivor can concentrate on other things and enjoy life more.
Independent Life
The last stage is breaking away from the support network and establishing an independent life that is not seriously affected by the abuse. When a person deprograms sufficiently so that they are not constantly affected by programming and abuse memories, they can start to leave "the nest" of survivorship and have an independent life. Signs that a person has deprogrammed are: not acting out greatly e.g. not seeing similar looking people today as being the same as the perpetrators, and not seriously falling into the same patterns of abuse e.g. sexual compulsion. It also means being in touch with owns emotions and being responsible for them; if adults, having a functional and normal life- studying, working, parenting, leisure, organized domestic life, friendships, sexual relationships, community pursuits, etc. Please note that during survivorship, the person maybe either already on his or her way to, or having some form of, an independent life. This may include part time study or work, being in a community organisation e.g. a church, doing the necessary aspects of life e.g. travelling, shopping, paying bills, etc, being recreational e.g. bushwalking, maintaining friendships with supporters, etc. Words that can describe having an independent life are Functional, empowered, manageable, effervescent, the land of the living. It means not being dependant upon a support group, counsellor, etc. Most long term survivors I know still keep in touch with other survivors in order to not feel alone. It is still difficult to talk with people generally about ritual abuse as it is not well understood. One can never be perfect. The effects of abuse particularly from ritual abuse can be long term and fundamental. Sometimes a survivor needs to check in occasionally with a counsellor or support group for expression and feedback. The important aspect is that the person now has a fully functional life, with the emphasis on life.
Stages are not fixed
These stages are also not fixed. E.g. a person can be in therapy for another reason e.g. depression and then get memory and follow the stages. S/he didn’t get awareness of ritual abuse and then go to therapy. They are the general pattern of what survivors go through.
Length of Recovery
There is no standard time period for recovery, and also no established definition of what recovery is within a specific time period. There are many definitions for “recovery”. Two common understandings of recovery can be when the survivor is not in need of support and can work on memories independently or another is when the survivor has no current cult abuse and memories to work on and is therefore not affected by the cult or memories anymore. Recovery means different things to different people.
A First Definition of Recovery as Being Independent
A survivor can work on memories and cult pressures by him/herself. This is after learning how to escape the cult and doing memory work unaided by a counsellor and other survivors. I know of one survivor who was able to be independent after four years of support. She can work on memories by herself and is safe within her own biological family of a partner and children. She doesn’t need a counsellor or other survivors. Many survivors even though independent and not in counselling like to be around other survivors so that they don’t feel alone. Talking about ritual abuse can be difficult as most of society hasn’t heard of it nor understand it. The survivor doesn’t need counselling, but does want to be understood and so a survivors group on email or face to face is important. S/he may also have continued friendships with other ritual abuse survivors or survivors from other forms of abuse such as rape. Most survivors I know are on long term email survivor groups so that they don’t feel lonely. Also if a painful memory does come up the survivor has other survivors around for support.
A Second Definition of No More Memories and Not Currently Affected by the Cult
This is a good situation to be in but also some caution is needed with this. The cult does lie that “all the memories are gone” so that a survivor wont work on the memories anymore. At the same time s/he is being tortured and reprogrammed even though supposedly “there is no abuse or bad memories”. I had this happen to me when I was moved from Wollongong to Brisbane. A new programmer took over and lied that I “wasn’t being abused anymore and didn’t have to worry about the memories”. Also I think that the abuse can be so horrible that memories can happen for a long time and even ones whole life. Firstly the abuse is quiet severe and is about the near deaths of the survivor and horrible torture and rape. With some survivors the abuse can be a couple of years, whilst for others including myself it can be for fifty years. For some survivors it can be as an adult only, for some as a child only, and for other people including myself it can be both as an adult and as a child. The amount of abuse also depends on how much the cult or cults abused you. Some survivors were abused in one cult, whereas victims/survivors such as myself were abused in many. Also there can be abuse in related cult activities such as abuse by the CIA and organized pedophilia criminals. How much memory one has does vary from individual to individual, however it is important to recognize that the abuse is horrific. I like the approach taken by many survivors who believe that it is beneficial to be with other survivors, including email. There could quite definitely be many horrible memories still there and they could be doing memory work for a lifetime. Therefore being with other survivors means not being alone and having an opportunity to get support when doing memory work. However if there are no memories, not affected by memories and not currently abused by the cult/s, a survivor can see him/herself as recovered and not needing other people for support.
Specific Aspects of Recovery
There are particular aspects of recovery for ritual abuse survivors. These are due to the specific aspects of the abuse. Survivors need validation as the cults are incredibly secretive, have different abuse and indoctrination, are unknown generally within society and misunderstood within the medical community. We need specific support in counselling as non conscious dissociation and multiplicity was abused, and the ritualising of megalomania particularly with murder, rape, etc needs to be understood.
What is specific about ritual abuse is the cult’s ideology of ritualising megalomania by annual ceremonies of murder, rape and other heinous crimes. To the cult, “severe abuse is good” as it follows an anti societal and anti human ideology. The cult will abuse anyone in order to get their kicks of control, including that over life and death. As different to other organized crime and violent groups, the violence is preplanned to fall on particular dates that are about murder, rape and other degrading and inhuman acts. There is a continual view of desiring the deaths and rapes of innocent people. Perpetrators find ideologies that can fulfill this view such as Satanism, produce one from history such as the worship of Baal who enacted infanticide, or produce one of their own. Perversions of mainstream and beneficial religions such as Christianity is also common to ritual abuse perpetrators.
A survivor needs to have a counsellor who can believe such horrid organisations and activities exist, can feel the pain that a survivor goes through, and support the survivor so that s/he doesn’t feel alienated. A ritual abuse survivor already feels alienation because s/he was abused in a very secretive group, has programming torture to not tell people about it and has memories of an extremely bizarre group with disgusting ideologies and practices. S/he also deals with a society who is mostly not aware of its existence and is treated as delusional in some areas of the medical community.
Survivors also need counselors and support people who can understand that the cult ideology, structure and roles are about fulfilling an extremely twisted megalomania. It can be seen as a contest between the devil and god, but it’s really about power obsessed criminals getting their kicks. Like war, the cult seems a place of random bloodshed and severe abuse, but it existed/exists so that criminal megalomaniacs wanted/want to get their fix of power. Counsellors and support people need to see this criminality for what it is and help a survivor escape from a criminal organization that does not want its controlled people to escape, and remember and disclose about it. Ritual Abuse survivors have experienced torture and pain that is similar to survivors of Nazi concentration camps, Ku Klux Klan ceremonies and Mafia controlled operations. By understanding that ritual abuse has similarities to other forms of severe abuse is very helpful to the survivor. S/he will feel less alienated.
These activities are also hidden from society and no clues are left to their existence. The cult will kill a person and cover it up by any way they can. They will murder a new born child from one of the girls/woman in the cult; kidnap, detain and kill someone from the street; kidnap and kill someone from a nursing home, etc. All of these and other ways are hidden by a cult doctor. S/he has gotten the university medical degree and other legal abilities to sign a death certificate at a home where the child was born but is labeled “dead at birth” or sign the death certificate at the nursing home. The secrecy concerning cult activities is instilled by the cult through lies, torture and false threats, and implanting suspicion that the 'outside world' "is corrupt". Since society generally hasn’t revealed the criminality the survivor feels alone. Rapes and murders are on the news every night but ritual abuse crimes of rape and murder within a cult setting are not. This means a continuous need for validation of what seems like hazy and extremely strange memories and/or current abuse. It also means maintaining safety from a very secretive mafia style organization.
Stopping Isolation and Normalizing Ourselves
The major concern from the secrecy is that survivors sometimes feel very alone. We are/were abused by a very secretive group and the abuse is not generally known and accepted. We sometimes feel that the cult is exotic and extreme and not existing elsewhere in society. It can feel sometimes like we “are making it up”, but which in reality is just buying into the cult’s lies. The indoctrination intends to disrupt support from counsellors, friends, professionals, the media, other survivors, etc.
However, if we are to look closely we are only at one end of a societal continuum where murderous and seemingly unfathomable violence exists daily. One just has to look at the new headlines to find incomprehensible murder daily. Children are starved to death, neighbours do kill each other over a simple thing such as a dog barking, people are murdered on beaches for no reason, etc. There are reasons for why people die and in horrible ways but they are not outlined. Ritual abuse cults ritualize murders of children and adults in order to get their kicks just as a murderer will senselessly murder someone on a beach.
We specifically are also very similar to survivors from other destructive organizations. First of all there are known homicidal organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. We are also like survivors from organized crime such as the mafia and its child and adult pornography, human trade activities, "snuff movies' or filmed actual murders, etc. We are also similar to ex members of bikie gangs who break away from the organized crime and inherent violence of them.
It is very important to be with other survivors so that a survivor feels normal. The survivors can be in a counselling group, or an online email list, get together by themselves, etc. I have gotten a lot out of talking to and emailing other survivors. I don’t feel alone with my memories and pain.
Caution: For support groups of survivors it is important to watch if there is any disruption. Some survivors are still being non consciously accessed and may be abused by the handlers to disrupt the group. This is without the survivor even knowing she is accessed and disruptive. There are real perpetrators who organise groups with the aim of sending the survivor back. The group maybe a general survivor group for anyone suffering abuse and the group coordinator will try and cue the ritual abuse survivors to try and get them to return to the cults. I know of one in Brisbane for survivors generally. I joined the group and the coordinator instantly tried to make a friendship that went outside normal group boundaries. I soon found that I wanted to go back to the cult as the words the coordinator used were cueing. The coordinator I found out was also the handler.
Survivors also have to deal with the nonconscious aspects of ritual abuse that still affects our lives. Even if the abuse was decades ago a victim/survivor can still be recovering from a cult mindset. This cult view was done deliberately to exist only within the victim/survivors non conscious being. The victim was not allowed to know about it during ones awake and conscious lives. Unfortunately this non consciousness still exists within the survivor so the worldview doesn’t go. A victim/survivor can feel very different from society because they were abused in a non conscious state. To break this means to allow the non conscious to come to the conscious and work on the lies such as “rape is good” etc. Also we were abused in a very different way to the normal Western and Christian way of life. Satanic (and other cult) “worship” involves major sexual abuse, organized and gratuitous killing, nighttime lives, calendars that revolve around full moons, etc. It is deliberately opposed to the day to day general routine of the Western and Christian way of life. Social isolation from the general and normal world is a major issue with survivors. Even though ritual abuse is similar to other forms of exploitation and violence there are different “values”. Many survivors seek out help with Christianity and other beneficial religions. Positive approaches to life, and beneficial philosophies and social movements can also be of help. I have found that The Reevaluation Counselling social movement is very helpful as it sees people as being born good and are conditioned to do wrong.
Support Can Be Found
Even though it may feel very lonely at times when in recovery, support can be found. Most sexual assault crisis lines are aware that ritual abuse exists. There are crisis numbers for sexual assault nationwide at http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/crisis.html. ASCA the national support organization for survivors of child abuse believes that ritual abuse exists. They have a nationwide number at 1300 657 380. There may not be someone there but will get back to you. Lifeline at 131114 answers calls all the time. They may not know about ritual abuse but will be very concerned about your safety. Also see
the webpage on Support for Victims.
Stopping Cult Lies
Victims/survivors are programmed, and usually non consciously, with many lies. The first one survivors usually deal with is that "nothing is/was happening to them" or that they “are/were not being abused”. The memory of a cult killing was “all made up”, etc. They are also lied to that "they don't have the ability to leave" in that they are not intelligent and brave. Other lies are that “he or she will die”, "they only belong in the cult", or we “will not be listened to”, etc. The victim maybe lied to that “the cult/perpetrators/handlers/etc are not cult”. That the person who mysteriously appears “to save him/her” in the programming sessions (in reality the handler) is “a lovely person”. Another lie is that the handler whom the victim/survivor has to ring once a week (really being accessed) is “very helpful, kind and loyal”. The handler is really only keeping tabs on the survivor/victim and is only deploying him/her where the handler wants the victim/survivor to go to. The handler only exploits you/the survivor.
Victims usually do not have a conscious knowledge of the lies. They may have personalities who are deliberately split off. The lies of the programming stay within these personalities and so the deception is separated from the host person. A lot of work is needed to show that they are such. This can mean inner dialogueing by the host person with the personalities to show that there are lies and what they are. The survivor needs to show the personality that s/he has been lied to. It can also mean working on the torture and deception of the programming setup that produced the personality in the first place.
The cults also abuses lies concerned with other people and abuses the victim/survivors altruism. They threaten that people including the counselor, family, friends or the survivor “will be killed”. The cult will not kill someone whom they are abusing as it is against their interests. The police will investigate a murder thoroughly and if the survivor has given information about the cult to a counsellor or any other support person the police will follow it up. The cult would also not kill someone close to them as it will be too revealing and gives the survivor credence in what they said would happen. The cult does not want the police, counselors, social workers, etc to have any evidence that ritual abuse exists. Everything they say about “someone being killed” is a lie and they know that. I have known over two hundred survivors who have left the cults and no one, including the survivor, has been killed. Also survivors may believe that “society does not recognize it or would not believe that it could exist”. These are past and present cult lies, and perceptions from when the survivor was a child. They are different to today. Society has changed and people do believe that ritual abuse exists.
Not Aware and Aware
Survivors are usually programmed to be aware or not aware of the abuse. If they think the survivor wants to escape by knowing about the abuse, then they are programmed to be unaware or not conscious.
Multiple and Singleton
Survivors can also be "multiple" and have many personalities, or "singleton". Being multiple means that a survivor sees the world from many different personalities. They could see it from the viewpoint of an eleven year old boy or from a fifty one year old man depending on who is at the forefront of the person at the time. The view could change suddenly depending upon who is out and can deal with the current situation. Being a singleton means s/he is seeing the world from ones view and not changing.
Having many personalities and which is called multiplicity is very common for people who were indoctrinated with the recent (mainly1950s onwards) programming that organized dissociated (split off) and multiple personalities. The person views life both from many personalities' angles and within a specific personality. The analogy of viewing by a kaleidoscope is beneficial. If viewing from one angle in a kaleidoscope the viewer sees a particular thing. If this changes and the angle is different the view will change. This is the same for multiplicity. When one personality steps in and takes over the view the person is seeing is from this angle. When another personality takes over there is a switch and the world is seen differently. When the cult and handler want the victim to do something they will force a dissociated and controlled personality to come out and take over the victim. This happens particularly during accessing and when called back to the ceremonies and activities. These parts that are dissociated and controlled by the cult and handler need to be understood and cared for. This stops them and the victim/survivor from being abused. This is the basis of recovery. To help dissociated and controlled parts be known and to care for them so that they and the victim/survivor are not abused.
Multiplicity and the switching are not problematic. It only becomes so when there is confusion and disagreement between the personalities and which causes distress for the survivor. The survivor cant do things clearly. The survivor needs to understand that personalities are coming from fear, pain and deception and to care for them. Personalities will listen to being cared for and will start to stop acting on the torture and lies. Sometimes also the survivor has to take control and explain that s/he is being clear in order to do things clearly. This is not a criticism of the personality but a need to be clear so that the survivor is coping and doing things well.
Personalities have the programmed lies and destructive attitudes and so the survivor needs to comfort and support the parts and still not buy into the lies and harmful thoughts of the handler and cult. The personalities need to be shown that they have been lied to and to think differently. To think of positive things. They also cant criticise other parts or the survivor as they base their views on the lying and devious handler.
An important aspect of recovery here can be integration where the person wishes to view life from a whole or to remain multiple. There is nothing wrong with being multiple. Each personality has thoughts and the person can be like a collective with many opinions. This provides many points of view and can be good for discussion and getting a well considered view. However, like a collective, it takes time to come to a decision. If wanting to have a single viewpoint there needs to be the association of traumatized parts. Association is the opposite to dissociation and means working on the painful memories and discussion with parts about the lies that the handler and the cult did. This brings the personalities back to the person. Personalities who are conscious are usually already reclaimed by the survivor so there is usually no need to work on the painful memories fully. The personalities that are not conscious to the victim/survivor are the parts that need help. The decision whether to be multiple or singleton really is a preference based on whether one likes having many opinions or to view the world singularly. Most survivors I know are fine with being multiple.
With people who have many separate personalities, some personalities may accept that it happens and others not. The aim is to support all the personalities. Personalities are lied to and tortured. Educate and challenge, and overall, support and love them. Ask them what they know about the abuse. Some parts whose job it is to make up false information will have to follow the handler/perpetrators. Their falsifying is based on lies told to the part by the handler/perpetrators and so it is important to talk with the part as to what are the lies told. Personality by personality will start to believe that s/he was abused. Personalities will also start talking among themselves that the perpetrators, particularly the handler, are liars, torturers and abusive. The handler really doesn’t care about them.
Singleton survivors are those that were not programmed by a multiplicity approach. “Singletons” do not feel there are parts of themselves with distinct personalities, parts which hold distinct memories, or parts that speak through them. All of what is inside their head "feels" like themselves, and they view life as "one". They approach recovery as if they are one person and so will do memory work as one. There is no need to dialogue etc.
A Master Race Ideology
Victims/survivors come from many quasi “ideologies/religions”. They can be abused by many cults and have parts that correspond to specific cults. The main cult is The Illuminati which “worships” Satan and is obsessed with “world domination”. They control the ritual abuse cults and are at the “top level” of the cult hierarchy. They also control the programming and program the victim for the specific cults. The ones we know in the west, and possibly the east, are The Illuminati (also world government and satan worshipping), perverted masonic, druidic, celtic, nazi, neo nazi, and perverted Christianity. There maybe many we do not know about and need to be educated on. The common aspect is of a megalomania or "master race" ideology. The Illuminati see themselves as the top cult/group who will supposedly "rule the world". Programming within the Illuminati is related to secretive government mind control programs. Mind controlled victims will supposedly become slaves to a supposed world elite of Illuminati controlled government, military and business.
It is very important to address whether there is any conscious or non conscious attitudes about “world control”. Victims/survivors can become obsessed about groups and world domination. Obssessions are simply that. A continuous preoccupation about something that may or may not eventuate. All attempts at world domination from the Romans to the current attempt at global economic control by transnational companies do not eventuate. They cannot be sustained as they need continuous and forceful exploitation and which humanity by its own existence does not allow.
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition where the survivor is psychologically upset for a lot of the time in their daily lives. S/he is reliving awful memory and not able to distance her/himself from these painful memories. Their lives are difficult and disorganized. They are in a lot of pain and find it difficult to do normal and everyday things such as going shopping, reading, etc. Anything may trigger someone with Complex PTSD and so there is a strong need to be focused and not triggered.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was first diagnosed among war veterans. They were suffering from wartime memories and finding it difficult to cope with everyday life. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder results when a person experiences a short-lived trauma e.g. car accidents and natural disasters. Complex PTSD, however, is the result of long-term trauma. These are chronic traumas that continue for months or even years at a time such as being imprisoned in a concentration camp. Being captive to a perpetrator or many perpetrators is also common to Complex PTSD survivors. Complex PTSD has the following symptoms: persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, inhibited anger, forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, feeling detached from one's mental processes or body, helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, a sense of being completely different from other human beings, being preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, isolation, distrust, a repeated search for a rescuer, a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair. Ritual Abuse survivors suffer from these symptoms and need a lot of counselling to express their current fears and concerns, and work on memories of past trauma. The aim in counselling is to have a functioning life.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Dissociative Identity Disorder is another condition Ritual Abuse survivors have. It used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder as the condition means that two or more personalities exist inside the person. The personalities have distinct identities and act like a person in the sense of intelligence, emotions, behaviours, etc. A singleton views the world from one identity while a person with DID has two or more identities. Identities usually form from repeated long term abuse such as sexual and physical torture. The stress is known to come from severe physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse at a developmentally sensitive stage in childhood. Over time with repeated torture the child and adult develops a personality. As was written before, the cult deliberately abuses dissociation to produce a personality. This personality is deceived into thinking that s/he has to be cult obligated because a handler lied that s/he “saved the victim from something worse than death”. It’s all lies but the personality did not/does not know this. The handler/cult also wants a personality who is separated from the person in order to abuse him/her without the persons knowledge. A case of manipulating the dissociation process to suit the deviousness and abuse of the cult. The survivor has to not only know of a separate personality being abused, but must also explain things to him/her. Explanation and working on the memories means s/he reunites with the person and the cult does not have control anymore. The survivor must explain the lies and also help the part with the pain of the memory.
Addictions
Many survivors have addictions including alcohol, substances and sex. They were/are overly used because the survivor isn’t/wasn’t able to see the reality of the abuse. Once a person can stop being dependant upon addictive things, the memory of current, past or both abuse will come back and s/he can work on them.
The Opposite to being Mind Controlled – Aware, Conscious, Loyal to oneself only and Having a Free and Independent Life
As victims we were made deliberately unaware of the abuse, deliberately dissociated so that we weren’t grounded and focused and also in a separated personality, had to be cult loyal first and only to them, and were not free but dependant upon them. They abused torture, false threats, lies, false promises, etc in order to control us.
We need to do the opposite. To be aware of the past and possible current abuse. To accept our memories, even if they are horrible and painful. That they cannot control us by torture and pain. We need validation that the memories/torture were/are real. We need also to be conscious of the abuse and the memories. This is different to awareness. Bieng conscious means living in a state of consciouness all the time. The cult/organisation cannot cue us into a different mind set and/or a different personality who are controlled by them and not conscious to us. We need to know where we are at all times, and if we are being accessed, reprogrammed and/or manipulated to do their dirty work.
We need to break the chains, binds and other ways that the cult/organisation has coerced and forced us to be cult loyal to them. These are working on the memories and breaking all the bonds they forced us into without our real consent. We were tortured and tricked into being cult loyal and we don’t have to accept them anymore. We only have to be loyal to our own growth and authority. We can truly have an independent and free life.
Effects of Class, Gender, Sexuality, Race/Ethnicity, Ability and Age Situation and Conditioning
The survivor’s class, gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, physical/intellectual ability and age affect the victim's/survivor's abilities to recover. It exists as both the situation e.g. working class people have less money and resources, and as conditioning e.g. middle class people are told they cant talk publically about abuse.
Class People of all socio-economic classes are abused by ritual abuse cults. There are four main classes- capital- owning large scale companies/land, middle- professional and administrative labour and dependant small businesses, working-technical and physical labour, and poor- charity/welfare dependant. Capital and middle class people can generally pay for private therapy and therefore have choices. The conditioning however is to keep things very private and so need to speak out more. Poor and working class people generally cannot afford private therapy and are more dependant upon government funded and Medicare accepting therapists. They need to "shop" around more. They can also speak up more as they see injustice everywhere and generally speak out against it.
Gender is male and female conditioning. The abuse happens to both genders in the same numbers and with the same violence. The difference lies in that girls/women have violence connected to menstruation and pregnancy. Both genders suffer parenting violence ie their children are killed. The cult also enlarges the general societal conditioning of making particularly working class boys/men violent and angry, and working class girls/women passive and easily manipulated. Both genders suffer shame, guilt, fear, excessive anger and are intimidated by the cult/organization. Feminism has been important. Girls/women can believe that "women can do anything". Boys/men need to be in touch with their emotions again and to accept that boys/men can be abused. We need to work through the memories and to organize and speak out publically that we too are raped and victimised. Men also need to work on the lies fed them that they are "naturally" violent and sex addicts. In the survivor movement there is a disproportionate number of male survivors in that there are roughly one male survivor to about ten women survivors. This reflects male conditioning that we cannot be victims/survivors. Boys/men need to see that we are victimized and can work on emotions in a healthy way to escape the cult and thrive.
Sexuality There are three main sexualities- homosexuality-gay, lesbian, queer, etc; heterosexuality- straight, and bisexuality- bi, queer. Male homosexuals have been treated very badly by society and have been labelled as perverts fitting into a supposed cult image e.g. sex addicts, rapists and pedophiles. There is nothing about homosexuality that makes a gay male a sex abuser/child sex abuser. It is not genetic. Female homosexuals have also been cast wrongly as cult like- e.g. vampires. Again there is nothing about lesbianism that produces this. Male heterosexuals have been wrongly cast as uncontrollable sex addicts, and female heterosexuals have also been wrongly cast as promiscuous. There is nothing about heterosexuality that causes these. Bisexuals have been stereotyped as unfaithful and promiscuous. There is nothing genetic about bisexuals being “unfaithful”.
Race/Ethnicity incorporates both cultural values, and economic/political power in how the specific nation's and international economies treat races e.g. Aboriginal people are treated as poor/working classes. Specific cultural values around class, gender, sexuality, etc can hinder or help people. For example, women from many Asian countries find it difficult to get counselling because they would be breaking family taboos. There needs to be a maintained universal human recognition and practice that everyone has a right to counselling. People from races treated unequally have a hard time finding counselling as only the government by health departments provide this and they may not be aware of ritual abuse. Most of ritual abuse counseling is by private practice and which costs.
Physical, Psychological and Intellectual Ability is concerned with the actual ability to obtain counselling, People with a physical or intellectual disability can find it difficult to find counseling but there is support. People with a psychological disability or having a mental illness find it difficult to do a lot of things including finding a therapist. Ringing a therapist is difficult enough but when one has difficulties focusing then it become very problematic.
Age is also seen in terms of abilities and use of experience, and the stigma attached to it. Many younger people feel that they do not have the power to escape and work on the abuse as society says that young people are “not powerful and cannot make decisions”. This is not true. Young people are very competent people. Middle aged people are told that they should not work on abuse as they are told by society they should be "upstanding being in their prime and forget about personal growth". This is also a lie. No one should have to put up with abuse and middle aged people need to have a wholesome personal life. Many older survivors feel that it is unimportant to work on abuse as they are told by society that they are "going to die". It needs to be remembered that older people are living and need to have a good life free from abuse and its effects like everyone.
We are Not Criminals
Many survivors think that they will be arrested if they come out of the cult and go to an accepting professional/police seeking assistance. This is not the case. Professionals and the police correctly see a person as a victim who has escaped and is giving them valuable information. We are not seen as perpetrators. We were programmed by drugs, hypnosis, torture and deception and most survivors are not conscious when they were/are abused. We did not have a choice in what happened to us. The real perpetrators, the handler and the cult knew that we were/are innocent. Survivors are like people escaping a totalitarian regime for want of a better comparison. We were forced to be there and escaped when we could. This line of false thinking is also programming/brainwashing by the cult. In the seventeen years of survivorship, talking to police, including superintendents, and professionals, and going to royal commissions, etc, I have never been charged for what I was forced to do. Neither have at least two hundred other survivors that I have talked to.
No Harm When Talking to Professionals
By talking to a counsellor you are not putting anybody else at risk. A counsellor is someone where the information you tell him/her will stay only with that person. You do not need to worry that it will go to the police or another professional if you don’t want it to.
No to Guilt
One of the hardest things for a victim/survivor to work on is the supposed "guilt" from either being forced to do cult activities, from escaping and leaving family and friends or from living after seeing people killed. You/the survivor are not and will never be responsible for those cult atrocities. You/the survivor is also not responsible for family and friends still being abused by the cult. You/the survivor cannot save anyone. Only the victim/survivor can save her/himself. If you go near family and friends you put yourself in danger of being revictimised. If a handler is saying that he or she is “protecting” innocent family this is a lie. The cult does not stop abuse of a victim because a handler supposedly says not to. The cult exploits a victim as much as he or she can. The handler is lying if he or she says he or she is “protecting” someone. He or she would not say anything to stop a victim being exploited.
The atrocities were organized by the cult. You/the survivor were forced into them by the cults and their programming. You/the survivor did not have a choice in being taken to cult activities and were forced to be there. If there was a supposed choice why is there indoctrination (programming) and why is it so painful to undo? Why does the cult abuse threats, lies and torture to try and force you/the survivor back? There is no free will or choice when someone is indoctrinated so painfully and with so many lies. If there was choice you/the survivor could just leave. There is no choice. The only choice the you/the survivor want is to be free to go wherever you/the survivor want and not be abused. You/the survivor have the right to be always conscious of where you/the survivor is.
Ways of Stopping Intimidation
These are ways in which some victims/survivors have stopped intimidation:
Stopping Contact with the Perpetrator
Write to your immediate abuser in the cult (e.g. conscious involved family member or handler) and state that you do not wish to have contact. Stress that if she/he does contact then this is seen as intimidation and the matter will be passed on to lawyers. Lawyers can issue letters of demand that specify that you do not want contact or press for an apprehended violence order (called an avo) through a court. An avo specifically stops any written, telephone, internet or face to face contact and is supported by the police. Both are relatively easy to get. A letter of demand can be simply written by a lawyer and a court will grant avos when a person shows some form of intimidation. Lawyers know how to get an avo very quickly. The avo particularly is treated very seriously by the police. (Lawyers can be free or very cheap for people on a health care card. Just ring Legal Aid in each state.) You do not have to explain e.g. as a cult survivor, why you do not want contact. You/the survivor are simply wanting no contact. This is simply intimidation and must stop and goes for both men and women survivors. Some survivors have said that they are sexual assault survivors (so as to not to have to explain cult stuff) which gives the police some understanding and sympathy.
If you wish to start with professional support, go to a safe, believing and respected professional e.g. lawyer, community worker, psychiatrist, priest, counsellor, etc. You can then simply tell the cult that you have done this without mentioning what the conversation was about. E.g. "I saw a psychiatrist this morning and this professional and I do not want wish for you to have any contact with me." You may add: "If you do contact it is seen as intimidation and will be passed onto legal services e.g. lawyers." You do not need to inform the cult of what has been said to the professional. You have not done anything illegal (defamation or slander) or made any charges (as yet possibly) which the police can be called in for by the cult. You have simply said that you have seen a professional person and wish no further contact. If there is intimidation you can then use the letters of demand or avos as mentioned before.
In all these ways of issuing warnings and stopping harassment, there is a very serious challenge put against the cult. This is backed up by professional, court, lawyer and police support. The stopping of contact is known to a respected professional. You can control the amount of information that is said to all parties, however, the cult is not aware of how much information is going to the professional, the lawyers or the police and will feel themselves frightened. They particularly cannot afford to have their secrecy "blown", names mentioned and a legitimate police investigation. The survivor can therefore use cult secrecy to her/his advantage. The cult may try and abuse some influence with its more powerful members e.g. a cult lawyer, but you have the law on your side particularly with an avo. The lawyers you have talked to, the courts, the professionals and particularly the police will abide by this protection.
Having a Safe Address and Communication
To not allow the cult information to where you/the survivor lives and works, etc. you/the survivor can have anonymous, fictitious or non publically accessed names, addresses and telephone numbers. Addresses can be only postal boxes with redirected addresses. The post office is very concerned about privacy and will try its hardest to ensure this. With institutional recording of addresses such as banks and social security, you/the survivor can give a post office box. When they ask for a home address with Centrelink you/the survivor can ask for privacy whereby only the manager of the office has access. Escaping a cult of any description is grounds in Australia. You/the survivor could also ask a community centre, religious counselling agency, therapist, etc if their addresses can be used. You/the survivor can also make up a name as when having the phone connected. Telstra does not require identification with over the phone instillation. If you/the survivor receives intimidating calls, Telstra can change the number, sometimes free of charge. You/the survivor can also have a mobile phone with only a post office box. You/the survivor can also use an answering machine to screen calls. With email addresses you/the survivor can obtain a free and anonymous email address at an internet email address provider where you do not need to either give a street/postal address or a correct one. Some providers are: www.mail.yahoo.com, www.gmail.com and www.hotmail.com
Stopping Indoctrination
It is the brainwashing that the cult attempts to abuse the most with trying to get the survivor back. There will be lies that family or friends "have died" or "will die". These come from brainwashing setup sessions where you/the survivor had no choice. You/the survivor would prefer to not have anyone die, to have a perpetrator die instead, or to not have to put up with the brainwashing in the first place, etc. Real people also will not die. For example, I escaped nine months ago and my family are all living. No family, friends, counsellors, etc that I know have died also. It is a BIG LIE. Another lie is that there are "cult members in the new place and that you/they have to return to the old place". Make sure there are no cult members at the new place as they could have tricked you to go to a new town or city where there are cult members. See if there is any missing time and if you feel that new information has been added to the programming system. If not the cult is again lying that there are new cult members there and are lying because you are staying there and truly escaping.
The cult also does setups where cult members go into the persons house and pretend that they are going to hurt them if they escape. These are done especially when we are children and so the adult has a long term and mainly subconscious or non conscious childhood memory of this. The best ways to work through these are: to remember that this is a drama that the cult abuses to frighten and plays particularly on a child's fears. We are adults now and can work through this memory and say it was false. We can be rational and see that we have not been intimidated in the year (for example) we have lived in the house. We can also use the law effectively. If a cult member does come into the house/flat, this is trespass and is taken very seriously by the police. If the survivor has also gone to a professional, lawyer, police, etc, the police will also have a firm suspect which will seriously challenge the cult.
Please see
the Deprogramming Page to understand how to undo programming.
Crisis Periods
Every survivor goes through crisis periods. This is when you/the survivor may feel suicidal, desperate, with no hope, have no direction, am extremely stressed and have major physical and psychological problems, etc. This situation is either from the initial stages of recovery where everything seems new. It can also be the direct influence of programming with its lying despicable messages and/or from harassment. Also an event from general life such as a major disappointment that will indirectly trigger programming and/or a memory of the abuse.
Signs of stress are: a disorganized life- e.g. housework not done for days, sleeping a lot, not going out, overly using addictions, not going to work for days, homelessness, etc; lacking hope and seeing no future; and having major (not the usual minor) relationship hassles with other survivors, partners, counsellors, friends and people generally; being overly suspicious of institutions, counsellors, friends and people generally.
Crisis periods are generally short term. If they go for over a very long time, there is a definite need to see a counsellor more. The general ways in deprogramming and working through memories are instead put aside for this short term coping.
These are from a ritual abuse survivor magazine from the 1990s in Australia called Beyond Survival.
Breathe. Breathe deeply and wriggle your toes. Rub your arms and legs. Blink hard. Keep eye contact with something such as your pet.
Make a list of your reasons NOT to kill yourself. Read it. Give a copy to your friends to read out to you when needed.
Be safe and warm. Put a blanket around you and cuddle a teddy bear. Hold onto your pet.
Make a list of things you can do to make you feel better: go out for dinner, have a bath, read a book, suck on a dummy, go for a walk. Whatever works or feels right for you.
Write in a journal.
Ring a friend.
Tell yourself that you are worth being loved. You are good.
Be proud of having survived. The fact that you are still alive after all the torture shows what an amazingly strong you are.
Ring a crisis number and talk to them.
When You/The Survivor Feel Lost
Survivors have many times when they feel lost. There does not seem to be any emotional stability or any other form of strength present. The survivor could be completely lost in negative emotions, or is panicking because a new memory is surfacing, or is finding trust difficult, doesn’t have any social stability such as a daily routine, or is feeling called back to the cult, etc. The survivor feels directionless and there seems to be nothing to hold onto.
The first stages of being a survivor is usually difficult. You/the survivor hasn’t worked on memories and are unsure about the process. Also a lot of memory may come flooding in because you/the survivor feels compelled to deprogram. Also possibly you/the survivor knows something is wrong but cant figure it out. Memories are wanting to surface and like a plant sprouting it is really difficult with the pushing stage. However you/the survivor also know it is important to release the memory as it means stopping programming and getting rid of the pain. You/the survivor may also not know how to dialogue with personalities and which is very important. In fact most of survivorship and recovery are new to the survivor. Your/the survivor's whole life can change. There is a period of adjustment and becoming accustomed to memory work, understanding programming, deprogramming, getting validation, stopping harassment, understanding the terminology, working with a counsellor, meeting other survivors, etc.
Throughout the recovery process there are many periods of not knowing what is happening. They are crises because you feel that you cant cope. A new memory is emerging and you/the survivor cannot handle it. With acceptance and understanding of what is happening and guidance from friends, survivors, counsellors and information, you/the survivor can stop the crises.
Call Back Periods
Call Back periods occur when the cult/organization is calling you back to either attend its violent and criminal ceremonies, to assume cult roles within your/the survivor's age and to work for the cult in its other illegal activities. You/the survivor feel the urge to ring, travel or make contact somehow and to change the usual work or recreation routines. These are for no apparent reason. What is happening is that personalities are responding to a date cue e.g. October thirty first (halloween) that says "you/the survivor must return". It could be said like “return home” or simply “home”. There maybe specific ages in your life which the cult/organization has told you that "you must return". The callbacks are to adopt a role in something that only typically benefits the cult/organisation. The ages may differ between the differing activities of the cults/organizations and determined by what it thinks it can get from you/the survivor in that particular age. E.g. a young person and prostitution, a middle aged person with cult knowledge. The ages sometimes are perversions of pagan numerology such as forty two and thirty six (multiples of six) etc.
Cult/Organization Calendars The major call back periods for ceremonial abuse are within cult/organisation calendars of sadistic events. Within their anti societal ideologies, most dates are perversions of either ancient e.g. pagan (who were and are not today criminal) or modern e.g. Christian religions. If it is a cult that worships a sociopath in history such as Hitler there will be callbacks related to the sociopath’s life e.g. birthday. The dates also are given specific torture related notions e.g. rape of a boy at Winter Solstice. The cults/organizations have also been challenged well and many of them are now aware that the public know of the traditional dates. They have now moved many dates to public holidays as an attempted camouflage e.g. an "Australia Day party" acting as a murder ceremony. They may also utilise a close public holiday as the supposed date e.g. May Day in Queensland (1st May ) as Beltane.
There is a fair amount of variation among the groups. Each group emphasises particular dates according to its own sordidness. Some dates maybe mixed such as Summer Solstice and Christmas. Some dates are not used. Easter, May Ist and Halloween are generally the most stressful in Australia for satanic survivors. Some dates particularly halloween and beltane may go for a number of days. There could also be a variation with a cult dictator's birthday, an anniversary of particular sordidness, a particular year with numerical significance 8th August (8th Month) 2008, corrupting religions such as Jewish holidays, use of full moons, birthdays, Mothers Day, etc. Some groups and leaders may have become obsessed by satanism, nazism, etc and read about other dates within the books written about the ideologies. Generally, incorporation depends upon the leaders' sordidness.
The calendar therefore maybe as follows. The cult may not do criminality on each of these days, but they will adhere to ones they think is important.
Australia Day January 26th
Candlemas 2 February
Lent
Autumn Equinox 21st March
Easter
ANZAC Day 25th April
Beltane Ist May
Labour Day Ist May (Q)
Queens Birthday early June
Winter Solstice 21st June
Lammas 2nd August
Spring Equinox 21st September
Labour Day first weekend in October (specific states)
Halloween (Samhain) 31st October
Summer Solstice 21st December
Christmas 25th December
The well respected
webpage Survivorship has calendars of difficult dates.
External Stressors
Survivors, as people, experience external stressors such as work, exams, study, travelling, sightseeing, parenting, relationships, etc. These can worsen the existing survivorship pressure and anxiety particularly when there is a call back period, harassment, disclosure, etc.
Some situations have indirect effects of programming and memories. They will remind the survivor of the cult. For example an exam with its enclosed and controlled nature and the numbers and question order will restimulate programming. Again, there needs to be a perspective that this is an exam and not a cult programming area and that the numbers are for questions.
Breaking the Cycle/Untangling the Web of Ritual Abuse
When escaping the cult and having a free and independent life we are not only doing it for ourselves, but also for the next generation. We are not allowing our children to be abused and this means that the cult/orgnisation will be less in numbers and in power. If we don’t have children we are also lessening the numbers of the cult/organisation and therefore are untangling the web and being one less thread in their devious activities and organisation. The cult/organisation will disintegrate which is a very good thing.
Survivors Speaking Out
To conclude this page I thought I would refer to a video of a survivor speaking out. She has broken away from the cults/organizations and is recovered well enough to live a normal day to day life. She is what people in recovery call a thriver.
http://endritualabuse.org/healing/dvd-healing-from-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-survivor-trish-fotheringham-speaks-out/
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