December 26, 2008
Holidays for DID Trauma Survivors… Making it Nice for the Littles
Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Therapy Homework Ideas tagged Aching, Bell, Child, Children, Christmas, Christmas Light, Conflict, Cookie, Depression, DID / MPD, dissociative, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Family, Family Relationship, Festivities, Freedom, Gift, Good, Good Memories, Grief, Healing, Healthy, heartbreak, Hole in the Heart, Holiday, Holiday Memory, Inside Kid, Insider, Internal, Internal System, Jingle, Joy, Joy of Christmas, Kathy Broady, Kid, Listen, Listening, Little, Memories, Painful, Present, Remember, Smile, Special Occasion, Survivor, System, therapy, Therapy Homework, Trauma, Trauma Survvor, Traumatic, Treasure, Troubled at 7:29 pm by Kathy Broady
I hope you are all having a good holiday season…..
I had hoped to post these thoughts a couple days back, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance until now. And even though it’s the day after Christmas, I still want to approach the topic. I’m proposing that it’s not too late to make a difference this year.
In my experience, from listening through the years, holidays are typically very difficult times for dissociative trauma survivors. All too often, holidays are closely connected with painful memories, traumatic times, and troubled family relationships. Holidays tend to be filled with heartbreak, conflict, aloneness, exclusion, depression, grief, and that nagging aching awareness that things are not anywhere near close to ok.
Years after years of painful memories leave big holes in the hearts of many survivors…
Having a good Christmas holiday is a need unfulfilled – an experience unknown.
Because this is such a common area of tenderness, I am strongly encouraging you to do something different for yourself and your inner people. You can’t force or demand a change in your family members, or create fulfilling outside relationships for the holiday moments when those relationships haven’t already been there, but you can still make the holidays a good time – a memorable and special occasion for yourself and your internal system. As soon as you are able, find a time and a place of your own where you can do a variety of special things for yourself and your inner-ones. Be determined to make some good memories this year!
For example, did you do anything this month to make the holidays new or memorable or pleasantly surprising for your inner kid parts? Did your littles get to read any Christmas stories? Or watch any holiday festivities? Did anyone in your system get any presents? Do you know what kinds of things they might want if they were to get a gift? Most times, it doesn’t take much to bring a smile to their little tiny faces, and I can’t encourage you enough to do these things for them.
Even now, at this point in time in your life, you can take the time to do things for your internal kids to make up for what they may have missed through the years. And especially, if you are not living with people who safely interact with your littles, I’d bet that most of your inside kids didn’t get many treats this year. So those little insiders will probably be looking to you, the bigger ones in the system, to provide those kinds of new experiences.
For most of you, it’s only the day after Christmas. It’s really not too late. There are still Christmas decorations available in the stores (and now at clearance prices!). There are still cookies to bake, and little presents available everywhere. There are Christmas lights all around, and it still feels like Christmas. At least it does around here. And it can, for you too.
Take a few minutes to listen to your inside ones, and find out what they want for Christmas this year. Like all kids, some of their requests might be too big for you to realistically get for them.. But then again, maybe a small stuffie, or a home-baked cookie, or a pretty treasure from the dollar store would brighten their day. (Or, if you can see your internal worlds, you can give each other all kinds of things that way!)
Let the littles have a chance to make holiday gifts of appreciation for the others in your system. Little ones inside might want to give something to each other, or maybe they want to make something to give to some of the older ones as well. Encourage the ideas of giving, sharing, and being kind and generous with each other. These kinds of activities are great in terms of encouraging greater system cooperation and positive emotional connections with each other. Who doesn’t feel more kindly towards someone who shares a nice gift with them?
Encourage pleasant holiday experiences too. Maybe the littles or other people in your system can have a few private minutes to look at the neighbor’s Christmas lights, or to watch a TV show with a holiday theme. Maybe they would blossom at having the freedom to sing some of their favorite Christmas songs, or to jingle a bell. Ask them what they want to do, and if it’s at all possible, make it happen!
The point is this. Let your insiders experience some good things. Create a positive holiday experience for them this year. I’m convinced that a big part of the healing for survivors with dissociative identity disorder is giving your inside kids some of the healthy, life-enriching experiences they may have missed out on while growing up.
You don’t have to make a visible scene in front of anyone else – please be safety conscious and very wise about where you allow your kids to surface, especially in public. But, when you are in that safe and private place, let your kids experience some of the joys of Christmas first-hand. Do something for them, to bring a smile to their face. Let them have a good holiday memory of their very own this year.
Every child needs something good to remember.
What are your inside children gonna remember about this year?
__________
by:
Kathy Broady LCSW
December 21, 2008
Working with Cult – RA – Mind Control and Extreme Torture and Abuse
Posted in DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mind Control, Ritual Abuse, therapy tagged Abuser, Block, Break their Control, Breaking the Rule, Client, Complex, Control, Cult, Cult / RA, Dark Side, Day-side, De-programming, Decide for Yourself, Decision, DID/MPD, dissociative, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Extreme Abuse, Extreme Torture, Flashback, Freedom, Freedom of Thought, Governmental Experiment, Healing, Holiday, Inside parts, Insiders, Internal Part, Kathy Broady, Light, Light Side, Listen, Listening, Manipulated, Memories, Mind Control, Mind Control Programmer, Mind Control Technique, Organization, Owned, pain, Parts in the System, Perpetrator, Power, Power to Decide, Predator, Process, Programmed, Programming, Programming Control, RA, RA Abuse, Ritual, Ritual Abuse, Rule of Silence, sadistic, severe abuse, Sex Slavery, Soul-searching, split, Survive, System, Tested, therapy, Trauma, Trauma memories, Trauma Survivor, Trauma Therapy, Violence, Which side at 3:23 pm by Kathy Broady
“Have you worked with clients that have ‘extreme torture’ trauma history in cult-RA and/or mind-control (governmental experiments)? If so, what has worked?”
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.
Let me say that again: you as your very own person, with freedom of thought, and the power to decide for yourself, can genuinely break their controls over you.
This is hard. It is not easy. They do not put in years of programmed training-trauma-abuse for no reason. Those predators have had every intention of controlling your life, for your whole life.
There is an entire book of information to write on this topic. But, none of the things that “work” will matter two hoots if you haven’t gotten this first step down pat:
The fact is, all the people in your system belong to you. The programmers will have told the dark ones, they belong to “them” — that is a lie. The people in your system came from your head — from your splits — from your life. They are yours. Healing from RA and mind control means that you are willing to do what it takes to get them back, and to show them that they do not have to stay stranded or stuck in those dark worlds.
Here are some soul-searching questions to ask yourself:
- What could your dark-side people say to you that will push you away from wanting to work with them?
- Do you really want parts of yourself to be controlled, manipulated, owned, and used by the cult or programmers or sex slavery organizations? Why or why not?
- Are you willing to do what it takes to claim all your inner people back to you? Why or why not?
- Are you willing to hear in detail what these dark-side parts have been through in their experiences? Why or why not?
- Are you willing to fight on their behalf, even if they are mean and ugly to you at first? Why or why not?
- Have you read RockingComplacency’s article about RA? If not — please do. http://rockingcomplacency.wordpress.com
To get through the process, you will need to be firmly planted on one side of the fence. You can’t play both sides.
Which side are you on?
