multiplicity – Ritual Abuse

Self-Talk, 1999 and 2020

August 10, 2020 by Jean, posted in alters, healing from ritual abuse, multiplicity, ritual abuse

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It’s interesting how the same themes come up over and over again in my healing. I used to think I could deal with something once, and it would stay dealt with. I wouldn’t be talking about it, thinking about it, fussing about it, year after year. I was wrong, of course, but rather than being discouraged, I’ve realized that I change on a deeper level each time I revisit an issue.

Healing is not like, say, tearing down a house, carting away the debris, and then planting trees. That only has to be done once, and it stays done. You will remember the effort it took to get that young forest going, but every time you visit it, you feel proud of the accomplishment and pleased and in awe of the beauty you created. Nor is it like a broken bone that can heal and be as good as new or a cold that runs its course and leaves the body just as it was before the cold came along.

It’s not like the grind of housework, either. Dust settles every day, dishes and clothes get dirty, and eventually you have to clean them. Your effort makes everything look nice for a day or so if you are lucky. And then you start from the beginning, all over again. Thank goodness! If healing were that way, I don’t think I could start it for more than a couple of months.

I forget who said this, but I once read that healing is not linear, it is a spiral process. You circle around the same cluster of issues, going deeper and deeper each time you visit them. They are the same issues, yes, but you see them with new eyes and notice aspects that you have never thought of. You make new connections and understand your life and yourself better. Your heart grows larger, and your mind grows more peaceful. Now that kind of healing I can live with!

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I found an article that I wrote for the Survivorship Notes in 1999 tucked away in a remote corner of my computer. It’s on how to make self-talk less critical and more kind and gentle.

I still catch myself being harsher than I wish, but I also catch myself being sweet and gentle to myself. That internal mean bitch has developed tact and an ability to praise and even jump up and down with excitement at some accomplishment of mine. It is so nice to see my inner critic becoming an expert in constructive criticism. So much learning and growth in those twenty-one years!

There was something else that surprised me when I read that old article. I didn’t know that I had stumbled upon the technique of labeling thoughts and urges and then turning my attention elsewhere so early on. I thought I remembered inventing it about ten years later. I guess healing tools get used and forgotten and rediscovered just as issues do. They aren’t all lined up in my mind, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. I have to wait until the time is right to use them, just as I have to wait until the time is right to deal with a particular issue.

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So here is my September 1999 article:

Self-Talk

I think that many survivors have a real double standard when it comes to the way they address themselves. I know I say things to myself that I never would say out loud to another human being. Things like idiot, dummy, stupid, “What is the matter with you, anyway????” And those are the more printable things I say to myself.

I don’t talk to children like that. I don’t speak that way even when I am fighting with somebody. And yet I routinely put myself down in a million different ways. Does wonders for the old self-esteem. Not.

I used to believe I was just being honest with myself, but I wasn’t. I was being rude and cruel. When I figured out that “I” was the most verbally abusive person in my life, I decided to do something about it.

When I meditate, I use a mantra, some word that captures my imagination at the moment. Whenever I notice a thought, emotion, or sensation, I just label it and turn my attention back to the mantra.

Why not try this with my internal dialogue? I decided to try the experiment. Any time I noticed that I was talking to myself with less respect than I deserved, I simply labeled the thought “programming.” Didn’t matter if it was a variation on the ‘I’m no good theme’ or a specific programmed urge to hurt myself, I still called it programming. And then I didn’t get into trying to figure out what had triggered me or what the meaning of the thought was. I just turned my attention back to whatever everyday thing I was doing at the moment.

For about three days, I drove myself nuts because every second word was “programming.” It began to feel like that awful word had become my mantra! But then I noticed that the undesired thoughts and criticisms started decreasing dramatically, and I was actually treating myself pretty decently.

This technique works far better for me than affirmations because affirmations tend to arouse my inner cynic. And if I counter a negative thought with a positive one, I am inviting myself to get into an argument with myself. With the labeling method, I don’t get all caught up in an endless loop trying to figure out if a positive statement is really true, or partially true, or sometimes true. The label is the push I need to turn back to the present.

I don’t know whether this would be helpful to others, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. If you don’t like “programming,” you can use a different label, like, for example, “lies.” It’s a technique where you are in control. It doesn’t seem to shut down memories, it’s something all alters or parts can learn, and it doesn’t cost anything. Worth a try, anyway!

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Upcoming Holidays

August
8/15 Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8/24 St. Bartholomew’s Day
September
9/1 Full moon
9/5 – 9/7 Feast of the Beast/Marriage of the Beast
9/7 Labor Day (United States)
9/22 Fall Equinox
9/29 Michaelmas/Feast of Archangel Michael and of all Angels
October
10/1 Full moon
10/12 Columbus Day (?)
10/13 Backward Halloween
10/31 Full moon (Blue Moon)
10/31 Halloween/start of Celtic New Year/start of the dark half of the year

Dates Important to Nazi and Neo-Nazi groups
7/30 Tisha B’Av (Day of Mourning)
7/29 Hitler proclaimed leader of the Nazi party
(NOTE: Not all groups meet on Jewish holidays. Some groups also mark Candlemas, Beltane, Lammas, Halloween, the solstices and the equinoxes.)

Memories and Ambivalence

July 30, 2020 by Jean, posted in alters, healing from ritual abuse, multiplicity, ritual abuse

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First, an update on shell alters.

I learned a lot from the three people who talked about their understanding of themselves in the comments section. Thank you!

What you shared has me 90% convinced that I am organized this way. I think it would be 100% if I never had a sense of being “me.” But sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. Can whatever is front morph from being an alter, a person, to being a shell and back again? That would explain everything.

The more I learn, the more questions I have!

I asked the therapist study groups I am on about their experience with shell alters. A couple said they found them to be very common, even the majority of the DID people they saw. The others had never seen one that they knew of. I think this is a testimony to how effective this type of programming is at hiding multiplicity.

One therapist said that shells could also be used as information storage devices, like file cabinets. I haven’t quite visualized how that might be, but I believe it.

Nobody knew of an article published in a peer-reviewed journal. Alison Miller does discuss shell alters in different parts of her two books, “Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse” and “Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control.’ Look the book up in Amazon. Click “Look Inside” and then search for “shell.” (Searching for “shell alters” will get you far too many citations.)

Also, Svali has written a short article on shell alters, how they are created, and how they operate. https://www.transformation.dk/www.raven1.net/mcf/svali_speaks.htm#13

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I have an unpleasant habit of waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep. I’m tired enough that I think that I am going to dose off any minute, so I don’t get up and do something useful, like the dishes, or fun, like playing a computer game. I lie there, minute after minute, wondering when exactly I am going to get to sleep. Sometimes I brood over something in the past that was unpleasant or something happening now that is even more unpleasant, like the coronavirus and its effects on our society.

A few nights ago, I was ruminating about things that had gone wrong in my friendships, and, to my horror, I noticed that I couldn’t remember the names of some of the people involved. Rather than start obsessing about whether I was getting demented, I wondered whether I really wanted to remember.

On the one hand, I wanted to know. I wanted to remember who had been in my life at each stage. With all this forgetting, my past looks pretty sparse, and I wish it were full and rich and projected on my mind’s eye in technicolor.

On the other hand, why should I want to remember all those unpleasant things that had happened with my friends? I really didn’t want to relive all those cringe-worthy moments. My nights would be much more serene if there was nothing upsetting to remember.

I also noticed that I had the worst of both alternatives. I remembered the icky stuff and forgot what I had liked about my friends, the sound of their voices, the times we laughed together, all those good things. I would prefer it to be the other way around.

It’s definitely the same with things that happened in the cult that I still don’t remember. It’s push/pull – I want to know them, and I want them to stay forgotten. At times, I had it both ways; I could remember and then forget all over again. I discovered this when I found some old writings and was amazed at what came roaring back to consciousness.

I think it is totally normal not to want to know all those horrible things that happened to other children, animals, innocent adults, and to me. It’s a lot easier to get through today without having that knowledge tearing me apart. How can I take pleasure in stroking my soft, friendly cat while remembering all the cats that were tortured and killed? How can I smile freely at children? It takes more healing than I can manage to hold both in my heart at once.

And yet, this is my life and my mind. Mine. All mine. I have a right to know what happened. How dare they erase my past? My past belongs to me, not to the cult.

I know very well that, when I do remember something, it makes me feel more whole. It explains things I have never understood before and reassures me that there is nothing wrong with me and that I am not crazy, after all. I grieve and then feel lighter and more open to pleasure and happiness.

Unfortunately, I cannot push a button and remember. It’s as if the memories decide whether they come or stay hidden, and I am just an observer, along for the ride. If I could choose, I am pretty sure I would choose to remember. Perhaps I am already remembering all I am strong enough to bear. I don’t know. But I do know I would like to just accept things the way they are and stop fussing about them in the middle of the night!

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Upcoming Holidays

August
8/1 Lammas/Lughnasadh
8/3 Full moon
8/15 Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8/24 St. Bartholomew’s Day
September
9/1 Full moon
9/5 – 9/7 Feast of the Beast/Marriage of the Beast
9/7 Labor Day (United States)
9/22 Fall Equinox
9/29 Michaelmas/Feast of Archangel Michael and of all Angels
October
10/1 Full moon
10/12 Columbus Day (?)
10/13 Backward Halloween
10/31 Full moon (Blue Moon)
10/31 Halloween/start of Celtic New Year/start of the dark half of the year

Shell Alters

July 20, 2020July 20, 2020 by Jean, posted in diagnosing dissociation, multiplicity, programming, ritual abuse

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I remember when I first learned about shell alters. It was so long ago that I had read all the books on ritual abuse that had ever been published. Imagine! I had just gotten a computer and had joined a couple of Usenet groups. My inbox received maybe two emails a week.

I met a survivor, way back then, once upon a time. We found each other in ASAR (Alt Sexual Abuse Recovery), one of the groups I belonged to, and then managed to meet in person. We clicked immediately and started talking about how our minds worked and whether we were multiple or not. Neither one of us seemed to switch the whole time we were together.

She had figured out how her system worked. There was a front person, and other inner people used that person to talk through. It was sort of like borrowing somebody’s clothes; the front person’s personality and mannerisms were borrowed and passed around. This meant that switching wasn’t obvious – alters flowed into each other seamlessly.

I don’t know where she heard the term, or whether she thought it up independently, but she talked about her “shell alter.” By that, she meant that the front person was transparent and served as a shell to hold and display what other alters were thinking or feeling.

I visualized a sea shell, but that doesn’t work. It is more like a shell that a lobster, one day, can shed. There is a real live lobster inside it, and the shell serves only to contained and protect it.

No, that doesn’t work, either, because it’s one lobster, many shells, whereas, with this form of multiplicity, there is one shell, many lobsters. Maybe a snail shell used by many different hermit crabs in succession? I can’t find a good metaphor, but I think I know what I mean, and I hope you can figure it out.

In Googling “shell alters” I came across this definition: (http://traumadissociation.com/alters)

“A shell alter is an Apparently Normal Part (host alter/front person) which handles daily life and is designed to hide the existence of other alters from the outside world. Shell alters do not exist in DID, they only exist in one form of DDNOS (now renamed to Other Specified Dissociative Disorder). The apparently normal part (ANP) is a shell through whom the inside parts/alters act. The inside parts can come near the surface, temporarily blending with the ANP. The inner parts are not regarded as separate, distinct states although amnesia may exist between them. If DDNOS is caused by ritual abuse and mind control, the shell alter is not supposed to know about the others.”

From this definition, it seems that if a person’s mind is organized with a shell alter, they will not know this and will think that they are a singleton. It is only when the programming begins to break down that they learn about the shell alter and those who come forward to interact with the world.

Many questions come to mind. Why doesn’t this system qualify as DID? Why can’t the alters be separate, distinct states, with their own names, ages, histories, etc.? And can there be more than one shell in the same system? Google was of no help.

I see no reason why there can’t be more than one shell alter. First, programmers like to make backups in case something happens to the original. Why shouldn’t they create more than one shell? Second, being “out” or “fronting” for twenty-four hours, day after day, is tiring. Handling all the challenges that the world constantly throws at people, being available to dozens and dozens of inner people, some in conflict with each other, sounds exhausting to me. To survive, you’d think even the strongest shell alter would need a break.

I know that some complex systems have layers of alters arranged in different ways. It is quite possible that one or more of these layers have a shell alter, while other layers are designed in such a way that they do not need a shell.

I’ll offer myself as an example. I was used to test how easy it was to implant a system and how easy it was for the handler to use it once it was formed. I was sort of a lab to test prototypes.

The main way I interact with the world is through fragments that group together for a purpose and then go their separate ways. Other systems, which do not depend on fragments, were also placed in my mind.

One was a whole village with men, women, and children. There were groups of soldiers, priests, farmers, cooks, teachers, etc. As far as I can tell, the people in the village interacted with each other, but an interface with the outside world was never created. It was as if the programmer said, “Yup, works fine, but it’s sort of boring. Let’s shut it down and go on to something more interesting.”

Another was based on mathematical figures and was, basically, just a method of storing information. No part of this system had consciousness; all it could do was accept information for storage and display that information on command.

Three very different systems. Things can get complicated.

I don’t know, once a person has figured out that they have a system that uses a shell, whether the shell starts to reveal a personality and an ability to act independently of other alters. I don’t know whether the shell, from the beginning, thought of itself as “me.” If not, was “me” ever-changing, depending on who was interacting with the world through the shell?

I don’t hear a lot of survivors talking about shell alters. I can’t remember ever reading an article about shell systems, nor did I come across any when I did my Google search. Perhaps not has been written about it, and so therapists aren’t looking for it. They may assume that there are many teen or adult alters who come to the front in succession and have learned to act in pretty much the same way.

It’s also possible that there just aren’t many shell systems. It may be more difficult to create or work with. Or it may be less apt to break down than other systems and therefore doesn’t come to the attention of the survivor, therapists, or people close to the survivor.

It will be interesting to see if anybody who reads this writes in the comment sections saying, “Yes, that’s me. That’s how my mind works.” Hopefully, they will share some of the many issues I haven’t touched on in this short article.

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Upcoming Holidays

July
7/25 St. James’ Day/Festival of the Horned God
August
8/1 Lammas/Lughnasadh
8/3 Full moon
8/15 Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8/24 St. Bartholomew’s Day
September
9/1 Full moon
9/5 – 9/7 Feast of the Beast/Marriage of the Beast
9/7 Labor Day (United States)
9/22 Fall Equinox
9/29 Michaelmas/Feast of Archangel Michael and of all Angels

Upcoming Holidays

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Upcoming Holidays

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Upcoming Holidays

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