Treating Survivors of Extreme Organized Abuse: Insights & Challenges

Healing the Unimaginable Treating Survivors of Extreme Organized Abuse

Present-Day Physical Safety Avoiding Ongoing or Renewed Contact with Perpetrators

Extreme Abuse Survey: Heightened Safety Issues for Client Therapist discovered survivor was reporting to perpetrators about therapy: Other EA 20% RA/MC 50% Therapist discovered abuse was ongoing: Other EA 40% RA/MC 64% and this is when the therapist had found out about it. It took me a long time to discover my first RA/MC clients were still involved with the perpetrator group.

Problems with Assessing Safety Child parts are brought out by perpetrators for re-abuse and retraining. Survivors experience body memories of abuse frequently, usually as punishment for disobedience. Survivors are frequently in pain. Survivors have difficulty telling the difference between current illness, recent injury, and body memories. Young parts live in the past, and don t realize much time has gone by. They may believe perpetrators are around when they are dead and/or gone. There is usually extensive programming for the front parts not to remember current events involving the abuser group. This did not happen. Front parts are switched out when abuser contact happens.

Use of Internal Children for Deceiving Adults Being Currently Abused During rituals, retrainings, and other significant events where belief is important, only child parts are brought out. Current abusers have the victim s black book and know which parts to call out with which signals. Young child parts believe the deceptions that were originally used on them as well as new deceptions. They believe the BIG LIE. They live in the past, at the point where their growth stopped. They don t understand lying. They don t understand past vs. present, or hallucination vs. reality. To help them disbelieve in deceptions and to understand concepts they are not developmentally ready for, they may need to join at least temporarily with older parts, or be supervised by older parts.

The Perpetrators BIG LIE We know everything and are all-powerful. We have magical (for young children) or technological (for older children) ways of knowing what you think and do and say. The walls have ears. Satan s eyes/the All-Seeing Eye watch you. We live in the shadows or in the walls. The crows/squirrels/spiders report to us. Your stuffed animals report to us. A microchip/device implanted in your body tell us where you are and what you are thinking/saying. Everyone you know is linked to us and will report to us. God/Lucifer/Satan (who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-present) is always watching you. Taught with hidden microphones, one-way mirrors, fake surgeries, and other deceptions.

2 Common Mistakes of Therapists Buying into the Not recognizing survivor s belief that current or renewed contact with perpetrators that perpetrators know everything and possible re-abuse and are everywhere is a major concern, and all-powerful and that client may report and that the client anything disclosed in therapy and/or the therapist to perpetrators will be killed for talking. and be punished for disclosures.

Slow Down Disclosures in early Stages of Therapy Access programming is designed by the perpetrators to immediately put the survivor in contact with the perpetrator group if any disclosures are made about the abuse. Reassure the client that your purpose is not to make them tell what happened. Work in early stages on establishing rapport and safety.

Access Programming All survivors have access programming to ensure they make contact with abuser group members and tell the group if they are beginning to remember the abuse, or if any outsider like a therapist is finding out about the memories or inner parts. Survivors are often not physically safe from abusers. Survivors are often mistaken about whether they re currently safe. Healing goes much faster if you can establish and maintain physical safety. Perpetrator groups have more manpower hours available than we do, to undo any gains our clients make. Perpetrator groups are very bold and aggressive in retraumatizing and threatening survivors who are in therapy.

Insiders who Maintain Group Contact Returners have been told to return to the group on significant dates like birthdays, or predetermined ritual dates, or years when the survivor reaches a certain age, or if security has been compromised. Reporters report about disclosures the survivor has made, therapy sessions & plans to relocate. Inside parts who come when called feel compelled to respond to access triggers (answer the phone, open the door, leave the window open, cross the street in response to a hand signal). Front people (parts who handle daily life) are called to go home for supposed family emergencies.

Training to Return Often the survivor is supposed to return to the perpetrators if some of his/her parts have been disloyal. He or she may feel a desperate need to return to the group to avoid punishment, have a disabling program turned off (be fixed ), find out the facts, save someone else, get revenge, or receive rewards sex, drugs, or a promotion. Some parts have memorized specific dates to wake up and return to the group. There are scheduled ritual dates and callback dates.

If a Survivor Returns after Making Disclosures: Reporting parts report disclosures the survivor has made. Punishment is administered for disobedience or disloyalty. Disobedient parts are replaced in their jobs with backups. Old program training is repeated. Threats are made to the survivor and others If you disobey again, a child will be hurt. The survivor may be drugged and his or her therapist may be impersonated. The therapist impersonator assaults the survivor verbally, physically or sexually. The survivor may be forced to harm someone else to demonstrate loyalty. There is electroshock to make the survivor forget.

Report Programming Reporter parts include innocent kids who just phone an apparently innocent family member, and terrified kids who believe the BIG LIE and must tell the handler They report the person s disclosures relocations Activities of other survivors Reporters are also observers.

Calling Home If a survivor discloses secrets, a part who loves family may feel an urge to call home. This part calls (or answers the phone when family calls) and remembers only a normal conversation. The family member calls out a reporter part who tells what is happening in therapy and describes any disloyalty. The family member calls out other parts and gives them orders, e.g. harass the therapist, cut your arms, come to the next ritual.

Preventing or Stopping Reporting 16 Suggest that your client s internal leaders find out how the abusers said they knew things, and how they proved it. Then have them ask the whole system how the perpetrators magic knowledge was actually obtained. Ask to speak with the reporter parts. Help them understand that reporting causes re-abuse. Internal leaders can also tell them this. Point out that it s easy for adults to keep track of a child, but not so easy with an adult who s moved away. Relocation is useless until reporting is disabled.

Personality System Leaders are not told about the reporters inside, who are usually young kids. Inner leaders are supposed to believe the group knows things by magic or science or surveillance. how the perpetrator group gets hold of them. They just find themselves called out by the perpetrators and don t know how they got there. Instead, they believe the BIG LIE. They have been told they are in charge of all inside parts. They will be indignant at discovering (from you) that there are reporter parts who are not under their authority.

Speak to Your Clients Inner Leaders You can talk to them through the presenting part: I want your inner leaders to pay attention; I am talking to you, not the front person. You are the key to recovery. You can tell the rest of the system to change their loyalty, to be loyal to your own true self. Why should you do this?... Because you have been deceived by the abusers. The biggest deception is that the abusers know everything you do. They don t. They create reporter parts whom they hide from you. If the abusers knew everything about you, why would they need to create reporter parts to tell them things? Inner leaders are not little kids and can think this through.

If reporter parts are telling perpetrators about therapy sessions If reporters won t cooperate, have the system put them to sleep after the first five minutes of your therapy session and wake up near the end when you re talking about nothing much. Another method is to make the reporters forget what happened, substituting a memory of a harmless session, You can have reporters report to the inner leaders or to inner copies of the abusers instead of to outside people. Any other ideas?

Training to Respond to Signals When the survivor is no longer returning or reporting, he or she may still be accessible because of parts trained to respond to cues from the perpetrators. Cards or gifts or emails or texts from family may contain deliberate triggers to set off programs or give instructions. Specific auditory triggers such as 3 phone rings, a car honk, beeping sounds, or a pattern of knocks on the door Visual hand signals and face signals. Some parts are trained to answer the phone or open the door or go to the handler, afraid for their lives if they don t. Always answer when Satan calls. Addicted parts are trained to go outside to get drugs; they feel withdrawal when triggered. A touch on the left shoulder with the name of a part forces that part out.

More about Hand (and Face)Signals Hand signals are used to give messages to particular parts in a mind-controlled personality system. They may say Come here, Don t listen to that person, Turn on the flashbacks or various other things. Perpetrator group leaders take leadership positions in churches and support groups in order to give these signals. When survivors are going to be around other survivors, perpetrators may give some people s insiders instructions to use hand signals on the other survivors. An survivor may give another survivor a hand signal while their front parts are unaware it is happening. Many hand signals are disguised as ordinary movements, such as brushing hair back from your face or adjusting your glasses. Cult members hang around downtowns flashing signals to find survivors from other groups.

Availability Programming Leave the door unlocked or the window open (survivor may feel suffocated if it is closed) Don t leave town (taught with simulated crashes) Don t run Don t make a noise Don t move

Handlers Disobedient survivors of organized abuse may be sent handlers persons who keep contact with them on behalf of the perpetrator group. Often a spouse is a handler. Be suspicious of a new boyfriend or a new bosom buddy who appears in a survivor s life suddenly. There are also travelling programmers who pay visits to survivors to keep them in line. Such people are sent when reporter parts alert the group that the survivor is making disclosures.

A Little Pessimism If your client comes from a family with important status in a big multigenerational group, it may be very difficult to achieve physical safety, as she may be followed and tortured repeatedly. If your client has been publicly disclosing important secrets of the perpetrator group, it may be very difficult for the client to remain safe. Groups are aggressive and bold in harassing survivors; they rely on the survivor s dissociation to keep their harassment from memory but maintain obedience.

Some Safety Precautions for Survivors If there s current danger, try to have a safe spouse or roommate who can be informed and stay with you whenever you go out. Turn off the phone ringer. Erase texts without reading them except from people you know are safe. Leave your cellphone in the fridge or remove its battery so it can t be tracked. Change your email address. Open letters and parcels only in the therapy office, where you can discuss the meaning of any triggers with your therapist. If you are ready, work through the memories of the access trainings so that the parts involved no longer feel the urge to do their jobs. Record all information about present abusers, and give it to more than one person unknown to abusers who will give this information to police if any harm comes to you. Make sure the abusers know you have done this.

www.endritualabuse.org/safety (Ellen Lacter s website) This has quite a few good ideas, and also references to other articles on safety for survivors. Kathleen Sullivan recommends being as public as you can about being a survivor.

Perpetrator Groups Motivation (Bas Kremer of the Netherlands on the OEA discussion list of ISSTD) We do not only have to deal with the intelligence of a few cross-border perpetrators, but with the combined intelligence of generations in exercising total control and above all [the groups] being able to stay safe and silence and isolate their victims. We are dealing not only with the most serious crime imaginable, but also with networks that over generations have refined how to protect themselves. This is literally about the survival of these networks. This means that often a cluster of parts is involved in reporting and must do everything possible to keep the network safe and eliminate anything threatening. This is not only about reporting, but also, for example, that a lot of attention has been paid to sabotaging a therapeutic process.

Attempts to Intimidate the Therapist (quotations from other therapists) In a discussion on the OEA special interest group of the ISSTD, a therapist reported that a drone flew over her back yard, and her ritually abused client reported that the abuser group often flew drones over her home. Should she be worried? In my years of working with this population intimidation has come in many forms, from survivors telling me that insect nanotechnology is in my home, to the "white van" intimidation, to weaponry in the session room, to finally the disclosure of what orders and threats had been given, to a military chopper flying through my yard so low the ground trembled. These are just a few. (Amy Bradley) BIG DUH: going up against organized crime and government projects means pushback - especially when we are successful They know who you are. They know who everybody is doing this work. "The good news is you're not paranoid. The bad news is you're not paranoid!" (Susan Pease Banitt) They can only tip their hand so far without us networking with each other or becoming too "real" in the eyes of the public. Take reasonable precautions. Get the highest levels of insurance and licensure defense. (Susan Pease Banitt)

Technology for Spying on Therapy There are of course specialized apps to monitor or eavesdrop on someone via his or her smartphone. Even in a standard app like Whatsapp it is easy to turn on your location and make it specifically visible where you are. These types of apps will no doubt be used, including by network loyal parts inside our clients. It is also always a good idea to ask your client in case of ongoing abuse or doubt about it, to physically switch off your smartphone completely [in the therapy session]. (Bas Kremer) It makes sense they are using drones now - cheaper and less obtrusive than the old school helicopter/light plane surveillance that older patients of mind reported. That being said, I'd go out and give that drone the finger - consider that a clinical boundary setting intervention. (Susan Pease Banitt) If it were me, I think I might make a report to law enforcement, with a photo of the drone if I could catch one, and state that I believe it was sent by people who are endangering one of my clients, but that I cannot disclose the identity of the client or the perpetrators I suspect for client confidentiality and client safety reasons, but that if any harm were to come to me, that information will be held by my legal representative and turned over to the police at such time. The fact that I made such a report might find its way back to the perpetrators and make them think twice about continuing to do harass me. I would think and consult quite a bit before doing anything[about the spying]. (Ellen Lacter)

Psychic Attacks Whether or not you believe it is real, these groups do use their psychic adepts to attack us, our mental health, and our physical health. It is useful to put up boundaries for this. These groups are knowledgeable about karmic blow back. They know if they attack saintly beings (who most of us are) who are doing divine work they are limited in what they can do to us without tremendous karmic repercussions for themselves and their organizations. (Susan Pease Banitt)

How to Handle Intimidation Attempts (Amy Bradley on the OEA Discussion List) RAMC survivors first come to us extremely skilled and often with alternative motives at first, perhaps sent by their networks and with very little awareness of who they are collectively. This brings about the important consideration that they might be there with an intent to program us. Early on they are watching me, as well, to perceive my responses and reactions and to figure out how quickly I will jump to where they direct me. It is important they feel my solidity, security, and steady nature so that the whole system can assess what space I am capable of holding with them. If they are trying to program me, they will be unsuccessful (i.e. if I recognize intimidation tactics I refuse to be intimidated.). This takes a progressive calm sense of introspection, reasoning, planning, and acting (b/c what safety steps are possible need to be considered) I feel it is important to model "out here" what it looks like to not stay in secrecy from a place of intimidation. I will always be checking in with myself internally about my own state of regulation because the world we live in is the world we live in and we are important too.

External Safety Summary Be aware that many if not most survivors of RA/MC/OA are still involved with perpetrators and will report to them any disclosures they make. Be aware that pressing for memories too soon will trigger this. The work is much easier if they are not reporting. Look for signs of ongoing abuse and group involvement. Recognize that your client s front person probably does not know whether or not s/he is safe. Make it a priority for them to gain awareness of present intimidation. Recognize that your client may be re-abused and tortured regularly, but it is their decision whether to continue in therapy and they may well decide that it is worth it. You can t keep them physically safe.