Yes, I have worked with trauma survivors that have talked about extreme torture, cult / RA abuse, mind control and governmental experiment traumas.  Bunches of clients through the years have spoken in detail about many of these things.  All of these survivors have also presented with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD), as these extreme, sadistic tortures cause splits to occur.

That’s the easy part to answer.  The harder question is addressing the “what has worked” part!

And since this is a ritual holiday weekend, I thought this might be a good time to address these extreme abuses.  I am sure that many of my readers have been experiencing difficult memories and flashbacks this weekend.  It’s heavy on my mind that many others could be experiencing current-day traumas as we speak, so it seems to be an appropriate time to address this topic.

As far as “what works,” that is a very complex question.  The simple answer is, basic good trauma therapy, listening closely to the inside parts, soothing the pain, creating more internal (and external) safety, reconnecting those parts with the rest of the system, and addressing the concerns raised by those internal parts in all the normal ways, etc.  Many of the very same processes that work to help heal “regular abuse” continue to be effective in addressing more extreme abuses.

Mind control and programming are very complicated topics.  Most people who have been programmed with various mind control techniques have experienced some of the most hideous of abuses.  Healing comes by processing the traumas, but also in freeing the mind from the controls of the abusers.  The various techniques and approaches to de-programming are quite complex — I’ll write more specifics about that on another day.

Working with the trauma memories themselves is much the same — start by hearing the story of what happened.  Because of the level of pain and violence involved, it is very common to have more than one insider involved with any specific RA memory.  So, be sure to check with a variety of parts in the system to hear what they know, to understand what they saw or felt or heard or smelled.  It is also common for a person to split off new parts during extreme tortures, so you might find that you are meeting a bunch of new insiders while you are working on these extreme abuses.  These inside parts each helped you to survive some of the most horrible of abuses, so welcome each of them into your world.

It is absolutely essential to remember that the inside parts are not the “bad guys”.  Don’t “kill the messengers” of this bad news.  No one finds memories of cult / RA / sex slavery stuff to be good news.  However, your internal people didn’t create these original traumas — they just lived through it, and they survived.  So recognize them as your heroes, not as people to be feared.

Of course, these internal parts with dark-side roots will have been taught dark-side things and would have been expected to behave in dark-side ways.  That’s all they know.  Don’t expect them to present as goodness and light when they have only participated in the dark worlds.  Some of these insiders might not have ever even seen the day-side world or light-side activities.  They will likely have been locked away from all that, contained and controlled by their perpetrators.  They will be as disconnected from your everyday “normal” life as you are from their hidden dark worlds.  They will have been already told how terrible and horrible your day-side world is, and they will be initially resistant to your efforts.

This is normal.  Don’t get discouraged.  The perpetrators planned ahead for this and have created various system “blocks” to prevent easy access to these parts.

The fact that you are meeting them is HUGE.  They are courageously breaking the first rules given to them by even admitting and showing their existence to you.  Breaking the rules of silence is not easy, so expect the road to be bumpy. And, these dark-side parts will need a lot of time to work though the years of gunk they have experienced.

Healing comes as you can claim these parts as your own people.  Listen to them.  Hear their experiences.  Address their concerns, fears, anger, etc.  Remember, it is very likely that they have heard ONLY teachings from the dark side.  They won’t initially believe you or agree with you.  They have already been taught and programmed to think dark things.