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My Darkest Memory

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged buried alive, flashbacks, healing from ritual abuse, Ritual Abuse on September 19, 2013| 15 Comments »

Victory (c) Microsoft

I recovered my Achilles’ heel – the final piece to the puzzle that explains my freak out whenever I see a splinter, my aversion to silence, and my need to use the bathroom immediately before bed, even if I just went five minutes before. With the recovery of this memory, I have fully reclaimed myself – Hallelujah!

***** trigger warning *****

I have already written about the first three parts of this memory. Part 1 is about being buried alive, and Part 2 is about being buried alive with my sister’s “corpse.” Part 3 was about being forced to “kill” my sister, which happened immediately before being put into the box. What I recovered this morning is Part 4.

To weave it all together, I was told that it was time for my sister to die and that I had to be the one to kill her. My entire life was about doing all sorts of vile things to keep her safe. Her death was not an option.

They put something (a rag??) in my hands and told me to smother her with it. I touched her face as lightly as I could, but she “died,” anyhow. My guess is that the rag had ether or equivalent on it to knock her out. They told me that she was dead.

Next I was brought to the “burial site” by the large box I have already described. They made a dramatic entrance with my sister’s limp body in someone’s arms. They placed her into the box and then said that because I was a “bad girl” and killed my sister, I would be buried with her. They made me get into the box and then buried us.

Whether or not I was ever actually buried is another story. That box was HUGE, and I seriously doubt they dug a hole that deep. However, I **believed** that we were buried, which is what is relevant to processing the trauma.

I was frightened but resigned to die. My reason for living was lying “dead” beside me, so I was ready to die as well. I shut down. Then, after a period of time, my sister “came back to life.” The air in the box was already warm, and I feared that my sister might suffocate, so I tried to break out of the box. I always obeyed the rule not to show emotion, but I gave it all I had. I screamed, hit, and clawed the box, desperately trying to get out. That’s how I got the splinters, which were a tangible reminder later that this event really happened, which is why they were always so triggering to me.

Once my sister was fully awake, she joined in trying to escape from the box. No matter how hard we tried or how loudly we screamed, we were trapped, and the more we screamed and moved around, the hotter it got in the box. This is why my sister freaks out unless she has air flowing onto her at all times. She keeps a fan everywhere she goes.

We eventually gave up after a long period of time, and then it was completely silent except for the sounds of our breathing. That’s why silence freaks me out – I always have to have white noise going in the background. We laid there a very long time, so long that I lost control of my bladder – hence the need to use the bathroom immediately before bed every night.

The wait went on and on and on and on and on. I have no concept of time in my memory, but it felt like hours. We were eventually released from the box into the cold night, and somebody gave me a blanket. The kindness of the blanket after the cruelty of the box messed with my head even more.

So, that’s the end of the “old me” story. I am relieved to have finally reclaimed this part of myself so I can heal it.

I sobbed heavily after “reliving” this memory this morning. I played Contemporary Christian music the entire time and couldn’t even get out a “help” in prayer because I was so distraught. I felt God all around me, telling me that this didn’t break me because He wouldn’t let it.

I have nothing left to fear. All of the traumatic memories have been recovered, and I survived! I survived the abuse, and I survived the memories. I know that I have a “fun” couple of weeks ahead of me as I process the emotions, but I WON! I won the war against my abusers and within myself. It might take me a while to recover from this last battle, but the war is won. I am a new creation, and my past no longer has power over me. Praise God!

Photo credit: Microsoft

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Filling in the Missing Link between Abuse at Home and Ritual Abuse

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse on August 16, 2012| 8 Comments »

Yesterday, I shared that I had recovered a flashback of my aunt (mother’s twin sister) sexually abusing me as well ritually abusing me. Today I am going to write about why I think this is information I needed to process.

I was little in the flashback based upon how large the garage appears. It feels like I was around four years old, which would make my sister two. This would have been roughly three to six months after my mother first sexually abused my sister in my presence. It makes sense that the threat that I am processing today (that I reacted to in momster’s letter) would have happened soon after my mother made me aware that she had started sexually abusing my sister. My aunt lives across the country, so we did not visit that often. When I was in my teens, the trip was every summer, but this incident would have taken place before I was in school, so travel would have been easily facilitated at any time of year.

Up until this point, my memory has been that my mother started sexually abusing me as a toddler and then started sexually abusing my sister as a toddler. My father walked in on momster abusing me when I was ~ six, and he made her stop (although he did not talk with me about it or get me counseling). My parents hooked up with S&L, my most sadistic abusers, when I was ~ six. They “coincidentally” met S&L, our next-door-neighbors who never interacted with us until they were moving, and became fast friends. My sister and I were constantly over at S’s house after they moved (which happened right after the friendship started), so S’s abuse started pretty much right after momster’s abuse stopped.

I have always seen this as an unfortunate coincidence, but what if it was not? Momster is of low intelligence, and her sister was clearly the brains of that twosome. Momster started her abuse when I was little, and her sister stepped in to make sure I did not tell about my baby sister being abused. As soon as momster was “busted,” S took over the abuse. S brought my sister and me into the child porn and prostitution ring, which disguised itself as a cult.

My parents never interacted with any neighbors, so S&L might never have lived next door. That might have just been the cover story as my abuse was transitioned over from momster to S, and the timing was specifically to protect momster while the delivery of two children for a child porn and prostitution ring would have been profitable.

It all makes a warped kind of sense – actually more sense than just being unlucky enough to happen to live next door to RA abusers who just happened to ignore the little girls next door until they were moving away.

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Another Piece to the Puzzle

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse on August 15, 2012| 11 Comments »

I have been working on healing the traumatized part of myself that was triggered by momster’s letter. That part was too terrified at first to reveal anything specific that I could use to heal it, so I focused on loving and accepting that part back into my core. I have been listening to the same song over and over again: “Undo” by Rush of Fools, which is a contemporary Christian band:

Turn me around, pick me up

Undo what I’ve become

Bring me back to the place

Of forgiveness and grace

I need You, I need Your help

I can’t do this myself

You’re the only one

Who can undo what I’ve become

I have also been meditating on the following Bible verse:

No weapon forged against you will prevail. ~ Isaiah 54:17

The first information I recovered was flashes of women’s breasts, which I could not make heads or tails of. The second piece of information to reveal itself was that the threat was to my baby sister – I had to comply to save her. I have already put in a lot of work processing threats to my sister, so I did not think this was the piece of unprocessed trauma that I needed to focus on.

I now recovered the missing piece that I need to process. Thankfully, while this is technically “new information,” I already had the sickening awareness piece for years, so this wasn’t shocking information to process.

I had a flashback of being very little in a very big, dark room with sunlight coming through the second floor level of a small window. Once I took a step back, I recognized the place – it’s my aunt’s garage. This is my mother’s twin sister. That’s the only piece I needed to recover because I have already processed the types of abuse as well as threats to my sister’s life.

This is validated by a recurring nightmare I had early in therapy when I was processing the mother-daughter sexual abuse. My aunt would be sexually abusing me while my mother stood by watching with a blank stare on her face. At the time, I was only aware of the mother-daughter sexual abuse and believed she was my only abuser, so I interpreted this dream as a metaphor – that I was too frightened to face that my mother was my abuser, so I dreamed her staring vacantly as her sister harmed me. However, I now believe this recurring dream was a flashback rather than a metaphor.

This adds another piece to the puzzle of my life that fits, which I will go into tomorrow.

Photo credit: Microsoft

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My Friend’s Reaction to Momster’s Letter

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 14, 2012| 16 Comments »

I only trust two people on this planet enough to let them read momster’s last letter to me – my best friend and my therapist. I trust them both with my life and know that neither would use anything in momster’s letter to try to influence or hurt me. After I realized that my intense triggering came from that letter, I sealed it in an envelope and gave it to my best friend to read. She is going to hand-deliver the letter to my therapist since she will see him before I will. That way, my therapist and I can hit the ground running talking through it when I see him.

I handed her the sealed envelope at a park, and I ran an errand with my kid before meeting up with her at her house, which gave her time to skim through the letter quickly. The look on her face when she opened the door was scary – she looked like her mind had just been blown. She said we needed to talk privately away from the kids.

She talked me through what was in the letter (parts of which I did not remember – presumably from being so triggered when I read it), being very careful to speak in generalities and spoon feed me with enough information to validate that this letter was EXTREMELY triggering. Knowing my history, she would have expected me to be very triggered and VERY ANGRY at so many words (well over 30) that directly reference triggers from childhood, such as “kill,” “dog,” “pants,” and “chain,” and she noted that some of the words (such as dog) did not fit within the context of the paragraph. She said that the absolute last reaction she would expect from me – or anyone – reading the letter would be “peace” and a desire to connect with the author because it was “f#$%ed up” (she rarely uses profanity) and the most disturbing letter she has ever read.

*** possible ritual abuse triggers ***

She said there was a recurring theme throughout it of mothers and children returning to each other, but it also had a story about different types of cows and how the mother cow will kill her calf if the calf is not removed, so the calf is placed with a herd of a different type of cow to raise. It also had lines from an inappropriate skit involving a man taking the pants off a woman and being the “boss” of the “little girl.” This was right before the directive for me to email her, which I felt a strong compulsion to do after reading the letter.

*** end possible ritual abuse triggers ***

The most disturbing thing is that these are the only parts she felt were safe enough to talk with me about. She wants my therapist to read the letter and offer his own thoughts. She could tell how triggered I got about the cow part and said no more, which I think was the right call. She wanted to walk the fine line between validating that my getting triggered by the letter was completely understandable and that my feeling peaceful after reading it was not “normal” while also being careful not to tell me enough to trigger me again.

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Sister’s Reaction to Momster’s Last Letter

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 13, 2012| 39 Comments »

I talked to my sister about momster’s letter and made her promise to talk with her therapist about it. Her reaction (and she says her therapist’s reaction) is that I am overreacting to the contact because I am fighting processing momster’s mortality. Momster has had three surgeries in the last couple of months, and they believe that I am fighting facing the reality that momster could die before I work through my issues with her.

My reaction is that this is complete BS and so far off the mark that I couldn’t see it with a telescope. I do not have unresolved feelings toward momster. She “died” to me in 2003 when I recovered the memories of the mother-daughter sexual abuse, and the only reason there is any sliver of connection between momster and me is because we are both still in my sister’s life. The only information I receive about momster’s health, etc., is through my sister, and I endured three months of internal emotional hell before and after seeing momster at my sister’s graduation in 2009, not because of unresolved feelings toward momster but because my love for my sister was stronger than my very strong repulsion at the thought of seeing momster.

I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in therapy working through my feelings toward momster in 2003-2006. I recognized that while I grieved the loss of having a mother, I was not grieving the loss of HER as a mother because she did not offer motherhood to me. She was something I endured and survived by the skin of my teeth. I have no unresolved issues with her because I resolved them quite well through years of therapy. If my sister was not in my life, all connection with momster would be 100% severed, which would be a relief. I endure the limited information about momster because of my love for my sister—I do not keep a relationship with my sister for the purpose of maintaining a connection with momster. I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree on this topic.

My sister and her therapist strongly encouraged me to talk with my therapist about all of this, which I have already done through an email. He has not been able to see me yet because of family medical health issues, but he is aware of all that is going on and wants to meet when he can focus on my stuff so we can process everything.

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Talking with My Sister about Momster

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 10, 2012| 6 Comments »

Believe it or not, I wrote all of the blog entries over the last two weeks in one long sitting. This is part of my process of addressing priority #1 – dismantling the programming. My head is killing me, my reflux is acting up, and I feel anxiety running through my thighs (where I “hold” my terror). Despite all of this, I have already written and pre-published nine blog entries to roll out over the next two weeks shouting my story from the rooftops. I will NOT be held hostage to cult programming.

I wrote all of these blog entries (including this one) on Saturday, 7/28, which means I have only been aware of the programming for fewer than 72 hours. I am not yet ready to address priority #3, which is talking with my sister about all of this, but I know that has to be on the to-do list. I am hoping to talk with her before all of this publishes. However, if I can’t, then I guess I run the risk of her reading about it first. If that happens, I will deal with it. I need to put on my own oxygen mask before I can deal with someone else’s.

I do not believe my sister is complicit in any of my mother’s programming efforts. She has been too faithful in too many ways for me to question her loyalty to me. Nevertheless, if I am vulnerable to such an “attack,” then my sister likely is as well, so I do believe I need to let her know what is going on with me so she can have a “heads up” to protect herself, doubly so since both she and her children continue to remain in contact with momster.

Making my sister aware of what has been going on with me has the potential of rocking her world, and the timing isn’t great in light of what is going on in her life right now. She reacts to things differently than I do, though, so it might just be a blip for her. Who knows?

Regardless of her reaction, I need to let her know that momster is dead to me – as well as her family – and why. I don’t want any messages passed through my sister from momster: I want all connections between momster and me severed. My sister will need to know this. She has always been respectful of my boundaries re: momster, and I do not expect anything different in this situation. I just cannot focus on this aspect right now because I am so overwhelmed in dealing with the other two areas of healing, which need to come first.

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Recognizing Momster’s Culpability

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 9, 2012| 21 Comments »

I really wanted to take Thursday off, but I had to work to make up for the sick day on Tuesday, so I toughed it out. I work from home and by the job, not the hour, so I was able to work in a 90-minute nap. I slept like the dead. I continued the inner dialogue of being loved and safe.

I was calmer on Thursday since I understood what was going on. I went back and forth slightly about whether my theory was right or not, but I chose not to question it for the following reasons:

This answer came to me immediately after prayer, and I trust my faith. I had not remotely considered this possibility before that light bulb moment.
This piece of the puzzle makes sense out of the last seven months of my life. Before that puzzle piece, nothing was making sense.
After this realization, a large, wounded alter part emerged. I don’t think that is coincidence.
The steps I am taking in reaction to this theory are resulting in healing, not further emotional damage.

Since there wasn’t much more I could do about priority #1 (that is going to take time and lots of self-love and acceptance), I moved on to priority #2 – accepting the reality that momster continues to be a threat. She is both mentally ill and of below average intelligence, so I have underestimated her – a mistake I will not make again.

The bottom line is that she knew the combination to the safe in my head to unleash the programming in this alter part. I can only see two explanations for this: either she was in on the programming when it was done to me as a child, or she is in current contact with ritual abusers who gave her the combination. (It is also possible that both are true.)

I am angry that momster is still trying to f@#$ with my head, and I will give her no further opportunity to do so. I will throw away any further letters that she sends me and tell a safe local friend about it. I am also cutting all contact with her and well as members of her side of the family. (I currently exchange Christmas cards with her sister and a couple of cousins on that side of the family.)

The good news is that this attack has removed the conflict that I have wrestled with for so long. Momster is not some innocent child abuse victim who is so broken she does not remember what she has done. She is not some wounded person that I am hurting by staying out of her life. She was a co-conspirator in trying to break me as a child, and she continues to use their tools to try to break me as an adult. I am 100% DONE with her, and it feels good to have the internal conflict resolved.

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Processing and Dismantling the Programming

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 8, 2012| 18 Comments »

It was like a light bulb went off in my head, and all the puzzle pieces fell into place. My mother’s letters triggered this reaction in me. She had activated programming to return to her (and presumably the cult), but the healthy part of myself was resisting the pull, putting me into internal conflict that had been battling it out for months. That’s why I haven’t been able to sleep, why I overreacted and felt out of control, why I had reflux all year (I booked the flight to my sister’s graduation, where I thought I would see my mother, on January 6 and was incapacitated by reflux within two weeks.)

For the first time in a while, I felt sane. All of my actions and reactions had seemed so illogical all year, and THIS made sense. I was having a very logical reaction to defying the programming. My subconscious viewed the broken foot as punishment for my defiance as well as “breaking” the child, and the timing of my mother’s card arriving the day before receiving this news sealed the connection in my head. (Yes, I know logically that the broken foot has no connection to the letters, but the traumatized alter part believed this to be true.)

I immediately called my friend, and she said it all makes sense. She said that X, Y, and Z had seemed “weird” to her but that this explanation addressed all of what she had seen as “off.” She also said that even though she has never met my mother, she really hates her for doing this to me.

I did not have alone time to begin processing all of this until Wednesday evening. I identified three areas I need to address in priority order:

Dismantle the programming by healing the wounded/traumatized part of myself that was programmed.
Process the reality that my mother continues to be a threat.
Address what is going on with my sister.

I only had the energy to begin focusing on the first priority as I laid down to sleep. I have always processed healing alter parts as I lay in my bed at night. I invited that part to come out and took the same steps that I also do to heal alter parts, only I was much more thorough since this part is so much more wounded.

I repeated ~ 100 times, “I love you. You are safe. I am sorry they hurt you.” I did deep breathing as I did this. I told this part that I WILL NOT OBEY the programming but that the part did not have to be afraid – I will keep her safe. Obedience to the programming will not keep her safe, but being loved and accepted by me will. I could feel the alter part tentatively trying to integrate.

More tomorrow….

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Severely Triggered

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 7, 2012| 7 Comments »

My friend was worried about me because I sounded so “off” on the phone that she came by unannounced, and I almost didn’t let her in. She has only done that once before, and that was when an alter part had been triggered, and my son called my friend because he didn’t know what to do about his mother shaking and crying asking him not to hurt her.

She came over on Tuesday with her 11-year-old son, and both of them were shocked by my appearance. They said I was not myself. My friend said that I even “looked different” – it was like I was not there. My body was, but I was not. I thought she stayed for about 10 minutes, but she says she was there an hour and that I talked the whole time. She said I looked better when she left – not good, but better.

When I picked up my son from tutoring, I told the tutor that I was upset about my son’s foot, and she said, “I can tell because you don’t look like yourself.” Again, not I did not SOUND like myself or ACT like myself but LOOK like myself.

I was “off” and “not me” all day. I felt defeated and anxious. I could not handle my life, and everything was out of control. I had reached a breaking point.

However, something snapped back into place that evening after dinner, and I felt better – not good, but better. I thought about the day and decided to celebrate the victories – I did not consider suicide. I had a fleeting thought of self-injury but quickly dismissed it. I did not binge eat. I did choose to eat a snack as a tool to help calm me down but not in a “stuff it down” kind of way. I had not been triggered that badly in a very long time, and I got through it without being self-destructive. In fact, I had taken steps of self-care, such as calling a friend and taking a day off work to get my head together.

The next day (Wednesday), I awoke tired from insomnia but otherwise in an OK place. I got through my work and was holding my own until my best friend called to check on me. That was when she told me about the day before (not looking like myself, etc.), and she made a well-meaning comment about overreaction to the foot being broken (she was very diplomatic). This triggered a less intense emotional reaction that I AM NOT OVERREACTING and that EVERYTHING IS OUT OF CONTROL.

As I drove to pick up my kid from camp, I decided to pray and ask what the f@#$ is going on with me. I said that I have no idea why I am this “crazy” right now, but G*d does know. Please reveal to me what’s going on with me so I can heal it.

Immediately, I “saw” my mother’s letter, and I had the sickening awareness in the pit of my stomach – she did this.

More tomorrow…

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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Triggered by Contact #3

Posted in My Story, Ritual Abuse, tagged contact with ritual abusers, cult programming, dismantling programming, programming, ritual abuse programming on August 6, 2012| 11 Comments »

I stayed in this place of limbo over the summer. A horse stepped on my kid’s foot and broke it (at this point, I thought it was only sprained because the fracture did not show up on the initial X-ray), so I had bigger issues to deal with than writing momster back. I would occasionally think about the letter during the day but then decide I’ll deal with it later – I had too much else going on in my life to worry about writing momster back. I also lost the desire to send her my email address as the weeks passed.

My family went away for a week on the trip from h@#$ (another story for another time), and it took all of my endurance to survive the week emotionally. You also know from the topics I have been blogging about that I have been reevaluating many areas of my life, including my marriage … which just hit me – My husband was my safety net away from momster. I am not sure it is coincidence that I am reevaluating my marriage at a time that I was also feeling a pull to reconnect with momster. That’s not to say that the issues in my marriage are not valid, but the timing seems suspect.

I had to sort through a week’s worth of mail on Monday, 7/23. I saw the return address of a card from momster, and I wigged out. I thought that was a weird response because the last two letters were so peaceful. I was surprised that I would go back to my old reaction rather than a continued peacefulness from the contact. I wasn’t sure what that meant. The card was actually for another family member, not me, so I set it aside.

The next morning, I took my son to the orthopedist and learned that his foot was, in fact, broken. After I got him to camp, I came COMPLETELY UNGLUED. I have not been that out of control emotionally in a long time. I called my closest friend to tell her about the foot, and she thought I was just majorly overreacting to the news. I kept thinking that I am NOT OVERREACTING and that she doesn’t get it. I knew I could not handle my life any longer and shut down. I called in sick to work and just laid down. I felt like I had fought the good fight but that it was hopeless (even though I did not know what “it” was).

More tomorrow…

Photo credit: Hekatekris

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