Finding Happiness Among the Horrors of Ritual Abuse

Upcoming Holidays
October
10/5 Full Moon

10/13 Backwards Halloween

10/13 Friday the Thirteenth

10/22 – 10/29 Preparation for All Hallows’ Eve

10/31 Halloween/Samhain/All Hallows Eve
There are two previous posts on Halloween:
https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/halloween/
https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/samhainhalloween/  
November
11/S Full Moon

11/3 Satanic Revels

11/23 Thanksgiving
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12/3 Full Moon  
12/21 St. Thomas’ Day/Fire Festival 
12/21 Yule/Winter Solstice
12/24 Christmas Eve/Satanic and demon revels/Da Meur/Grand High Climax
12/15 Christmas Day
12/31 New Year’s Eve

Important dates in Nazi groups
11/9 Kristallnacht

11/11 Veteran’s Day: Armistice, 1918
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Finding Happiness Among the Horrors of Ritual Abuse

This picture was taken only a year or so after the memories flooded me. Looking at the photo, it’s hard to believe that I had been recently curled up in a ball in bed afraid that the force of the memories would kill me. I feared that my body could not take the stress of learning what had been done to me and that my heart would simply stop. Hour after hour of horror, the full strength of the emotions I had felt as a little child and had buried away for the sake of survival. I do not know how I pulled myself together to do what I needed to do – eat, sleep, shower, drive, work, pay bills – all the mechanics of daily life. But I did, somehow.

It isn’t just fear, anger, and sadness that are buried. All emotions are. After ritual abuse, who would dare show joy? The adults would disapprove and you would feel guilty to the core.

With some people, emotions burst through the amnesic barriers at times and show themselves with great force. With me, the world was dull and flat. I did have a full range of emotions, but they were faint, like ghosts of the buried ones. I had no idea what a “real” emotion felt like while I was amnesic for the ritual abuse. I was very timid, afraid of meeting new people. afraid of new places, afraid of getting lost. And once I had children, I was really afraid I would not understand what they were saying and not be able to protect them. I had no way of explaining to myself why I seemed so much more timid than others.

Just as the whole range of emotions had been buried, the whole range reappeared once the damn that held the memories at bay had broken. Enthusiasm, enjoyment, and even joy came back. Not at first: the reaction to the memories was too strong to let anything surface that was not related to the horrors I had seen and been a part of. But they did reappear.

So here I am, on a beach, with beautiful waves breaking and sand dunes and sea gulls. Hungry sea gulls. Brave sea gulls when they spotted food.

I had brought what? Bread? Cold cuts? I don’t remember. I do remember the gulls circled and one would get up the courage to take the food from my hand. I remember that their bills dripped, like a junky spotting cocaine. And I remember that if the piece of food was too big to swallow in one gulp they would fly away as fast as they could to escape their thieving pals.

I was ecstatic. When the food was all gone and the gulls had left, I felt satisfied and pleased that they had trusted me enough to eat from my hand. It had been perfect. I felt happy, I think it is called. And they didn’t even bite me!