I’m on the Radio on February 20 – And Other News Items

The Infinite Mind Conference was a blast. I’ve never been in a room with 300 people, most of whom were multiple. I’ll write more about it later.

The only bad thing about it was that my sister-in-law, who I have known for fifty years, died while I was flying home. I immediately left to be with the family for the memorial service. I’m very sad and not feeling up to writing a whole post, but I have gathered some news items.

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I’m going to be interviewed on the radio on Wednesday Feb 20 at 5 PM Pacific time! It will be 90 minutes. I’d love if some of you tuned in so I could imagine friendly ears as I talked. If you cannot make it, no biggie – all shows are archived.

Go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/NAASCA and click on number 3 in the box below the description. Then click anywhere on the description. The show starts with an ad, then some music, and then the interviewer explains the series and makes the introduction.

Two people have already been interviewed: Ellen Lacter, a therapist who works with both children and adult survivors and Kim Kubal, an RA survivor. To listen, go to the bottom of the page and click through the numbers until you find the archived show you want. Ellen’s website is http://endritualabuse.org/ and Kim’s is https://kimkubal.com/your-strength-to-heal-healing-from-trauma/

It would be great if some of you would also like to be interviewed – it’s such a great way to share your story, educate people about RA, and/or give them resources. If you are interested, write to Bill Murray and tell him you heard about the series on my blog. You can reach him at support@blogtalkradio.com

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Please consider helping with gathering data for a PhD thesis on ritual abuse survivors’ experiences with social media. I took the survey yesterday. It wasn’t triggering to me, and it made me grateful for the sense of community the Internet gives me.

By the way, Izzy’s Promise is Scotland’s foremost resource.

“My name is Joseph Lumbasi, the manager for Izzy’s Promise http://www.izzyspromise.org.uk and currently a PhD Student at the University of Dundee, School of Social Work and Education.

“To participate in this research please copy and paste this link into your browser [do not click the link please] https://dundee.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/views-and-experiences-of-self-identified-ra-survivors-on-t-4

“Please help me by completing and circulating the survey to your networks.”

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March 5 is Dissociative Identity Disorder Awareness Day. You are invited to celebrate it by explaining to somebody what DID is and what it isn’t. Certainly it is nothing like what is depicted on television! You can also explain to your insiders. There will in all probability littles listening in, so it’s good to keep your language smple.

Power to the Plurals has a free poster. https://powertotheplurals.com/2019/02/15/free-poster-for-dissociative-identity-disorder-awareness-day/ You can print it on 8 1/2 by 11 paper. (A4 paper is what most of the rest of the world uses; it is about 8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches.)

There is also a lovely ribbon available. Read about it at http://www.copingincrazyville.com/index/table-of-contents/didmpd-awareness-ribbon-links-and-info/ Read still more at: http://traumadissociation.com/awareness

And here is a blog entry I liked https://www.discussingdissociation.com/2018/03/dissociative-identity-disorder-awareness-day-march-5/

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Power to the Plurals is planning an online conference for March 28 – April 1. If you would like to participate, let me know and I will pass along your message (it’s not officially announced, so there is no formal contact information published.)

 

News about Ritual Abuse and MInd Control

*May you be safe over Halloween. May you be gentle with yourself. May you remember that Halloween will be over soon.

* Detailed instructions for making comments are in “News Items.”

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I’m posting this early, because I will be busy tomorrow! (Cataract surgery.)

So much has been happening recently that I thought I would bring it all together in one post.

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Conference Listings

I’ve gotten burned out listing all upcoming conferences and workshops. Don’t yell at me – I have been doing it for nineteen years!! So I have decided to post only things that come into my inbox and which catch my fancy. If you come across something that you think is of value, can you email me at rahome@ra-info.org or, better yet, add it to the comments section of the blog? Thanks!

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Anthology of Accounts of Difficulty Finding a Therapist

Jade Miller writes:

American friends: I’m working on a new project and wanted to see if anyone is interested in taking part.

What I’d like to do is highlight the need for trauma-informed care in America. I’d like all who are willing, to email me the story of their search to find a therapist that can help them with dissociation, DID, personality disorder in general, or (C-) PTSD. If you did eventually find one, please tell me how long it took. If you haven’t been able to, please tell me that.

I’m setting up a site where I will post those stories – with permission, (because that’s the point of this project) so please don’t send me a story you don’t want me to share. I can withhold your name if you prefer to be anonymous…make sure you tell me that.

I haven’t (in 4 years of trying) figured out yet how to change the education requirements in America for those who want to become therapists/ psychologists… but I have an email and I’m not afraid to use it. 😉 I will send a story a week to someone in a position of authority, asking if they know how to change this situation. Sometimes it might be the dean of a major college. Sometimes it might be someone on one of the licensing boards. SURELY if I throw enough rocks I’ll hit something good!

If you’re interested, I set up a separate email for this so that they don’t get lost in my “Talk to J8” email. It’s
thetraumasurvivorstale@gmail.com

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You can read Jade’s post “Pregnancy and Loss in Ritual Abuse” at https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/pregnancy-and-loss-in-ritual-abuse/

and a review of her first “Dear Little Ones” book at https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/book-review-dear-little-ones/

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Anthology of Accounts of Forced Abortion, Sacrifice, or Forced Adoption of Babies

I am working on an anthology of prose, poetry, and artwork about women who have been impregnated in a cult setting and lost their child through forced abortion, sacrifice, or forced adoption. Submissions by partners, friends, therapists and another allies are also welcome.

I’m seeking submissions from all over the world, not just from the United States. If you are not confident about your English, I would be happy to help you with the translation

Except for very minor edits, the accounts will be written just as submitted. I want everything to be in your words, not in mine. I’ll let you know if I make any changes.

Please use a pen name. I, as the editor, will use one, too. Please make sure you, your perpetrator, and the group which abused you cannot be identified. If you have trouble being true to your truth without identifying the group, I will help you work around the problem.

Even if you have not been abused this way, could you spread the word and tell all your survivor friends, therapists, pastors, etc. about the project? Thank you so much!

You can contact me at rahome@ra-info.org for more information. I also have a post office box now if you would rather write me. If you are submitting a piece, remember to give me a way to get back to you, as there is paperwork to allow me to use your writing.

RA Projects
PO Box 14276
4304 18th St.
San Francisco CA 94114

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Surveys on Aspects of Non-State Torture

Linda MacDonald and Jeanne Sarson of “Persons Against Non-State Torture” in Canada conduct research to gain information to back up their activism. They define non-state torture as “Non-State torture (NST) is torture committed in the private or domestic sphere. For instance, NST is committed by parents, spouses, other kin, guardians, neighbours, trusted adults, strangers, human traffickers, johns, pimps, or pornographers in various public and private places.” This includes ritual abuse.

There are seven surveys on their website. I believe all of them are still open.
1. Abuse/Assault versus Non-State Torture
2. For Persons Who May Have Survived Non-State Torture
3. Torture Inflicted in Prostitution
4. Tortures Inflicted in Trafficking
5. Sexualized Harms Inflicted by “Others”
6. Discrimination and Stigmatization
and the newest, which concerns suicide programming
7. Suicidal-Femicide Criminal Victimization

All can be found at https://www.nonstatetorture.org/research/participate

In addition, surveys were done on the location of the abuse. This project is no longer active but the raw data is available. See https://www.nonstatetorture.org/~nonstate/research/maps-surveys

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defendinnocence.org

A mother in Utah shared a website I like. There are resources for parents and other caregivers on how to talk to your child about good/bad touch, setting boundaries, the right to say “no,” and other topics. Simply writen, easy to understand, no jargon. https://defendinnocence.org/

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What’s Happening in Utah

Workshops on healing from ritual abuse are occurring almost weekly across Utah. They are forming in response to people’s needs and are nor planned months ahead with pre-registration, keynote speakers, etc.

There’s a public Facebook group called “Breaking the Cycle of Abuse” at https://www.facebook.com/groups/breakingabuse1/ It is for survivors of all sorts of abuse who have chosen to stay within the LDS Church as they heal.

There are also on-line private groups, to which you must be invited. If you know any Mormon survivors, write them and ask fro an invitation.

McKenna Denson is in the process of suing the Church for covering up her abuse and promoting her perpetrator, despite the the fact that she has a taped confession of him abusing multiple women. There are videos of her speaking on her Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/mckenna.denson.3 and on Youtube. (I would select some for you, but my flakey computer has no volume at the moment and its flakey owner can’t figure out how to fix it.)

Sam Young, a former bishop of the LDS Church, has a Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/sam.young.988926 He was excommunicated after a hunger strike to call attention to policies that shame children about sex in interviews that probe for sexual acts they might have committed.

Sam has organized “Protect LDS Children,” which has a website at protectldschildren.org/

There is a petition with over 50,000 signatures which you can sign calling for policies to be updated to safeguard children. Almost 1000 people have submitted stories about their experiences in these interviews and the after-effects. You can search the stories for the following themes:

1. Inappropriate shame and guilt
2. Childhood self-loathing
3. Adulthood self-loathing
4. Normalizing children to sexual questions by adult men. (Grooming)
5. Sexual abuse. (Pedophilia)
6. Impaired sexual relations after marriage.
7. Years of recovery from childhood shaming.  Often lasting decades.
8. Suicidal Ideation
9. Attempted Suicide
10. Suicide of a loved one or friend.

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That’s a lot, isn’t it? I might collect information and post it every few months if people like it.

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UPCOMING HOLIDAYS

October

10/31 Halloween/Samhain/All Hallow’s Eve/ Hallomas/ All Souls Day/Start of the Celtic new year.
November

11/1 All Saints’ Day
11/22 US Thanksgiving
11/23 Full Moon
December
12/21 Yule/Winter Solstice
12/22 Full Moon
12/24 Christmas Eve
12/25 Christmas Day
12/31 New Year’s Eve

Dates important to Neo-Nazi groups

11/9 Kristallnacht
(Some groups also mark Candlemas, Beltane, Lamas, Halloween, the solstices and the equinoxes)

Feeling “Less Than”

* Detailed instructions for making comments are in “News Items.”

* Looking for people who have been impregnated in a cult setting and lost their child through forced abortion, sacrifice, or forced adoption for submissions for an anthology I hope to put together. Even if you have not been abused this way, could you spread the word and tell all your survivor friends and therapists or pastors about the project? They can write me at rahome@ra-info.org for more information. Thank you so much!

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I’m near the end of a two-week trip to visit my kids and attend my high school reunion, which was earlier this week. I felt a little awkward at the reunion because every one seemed to remember me and I didn’t recognize some people. When I learned their names, I didn’t remember them from high school, either.

Outside of that, I was pretty comfortable because at the last reunion I had told everybody (in one of those tell us-what-have-you-been-doing meetings) about my RA background. It went pretty well. Some women were sort of clueless, but nobody thought I was making things up or was crazy or evil. This time, although I didn’t refer to it often, I felt okay mentioning it when it was appropriate and didn’t have butterflies in my stomach, not even once.

The catch-up group was the last meeting of the day. I was next to last to talk. All those women were doing so much, accomplishing so much! They seemed to have so much energy, such great organizational skills, and so much creativity. I began to feel more and more inferior. I thought about the number of projects I have on the back burner and how little I get done. I felt myself getting smaller and smaller as each woman described her life.

Finally I pulled myself together and thought, “Taking care of my body is a half-time job in itself. Besides, it is natural to slow down as you age. It is unrealistic to think you can do all you did even ten years ago.” Of course we all were the same age, so that didn’t explain much.

Then I thought, “Anything I do takes a lot of effort because it always brings up my own history and issues. I am wounded. Whatever I do, I must fight the old tapes that I will fail, I will never do anything right, I am helpless, and the situation is hopeless.” I know these things are not true now but I still have to spend precious energy dealing with them.

“And everybody else with a ritual abuse history is wounded. That’s why there are so few organizations, so few grass-roots movements. It takes so much courage to fight the lies and threats we were made to believe and to actually do anything for ourselves and for our community.” I felt a little better.

I realized that our need is great and our resources are few. Our perpetrators and oppressors are so very powerful. But you know, I, and thousands of other survivors, keep on doing things for ourselves and others. We may not do as much as we would like to, but we do what we can…over and over again.

Then I was honest and said what I had been thinking, even though it was scary to be so vulnerable. I had some perspective and no longer felt less than all the others in that room. I felt I was real and that I was sharing the real me. No more hiding behind a curtain of silence!

In writing this, I realize that I see people, today, who are moving mountains, and they make my heart sing. I think they are amazing and I cheer them on. In turn, there are people who think I do amazing things. Maybe they are deluded or maybe it’s just that I was trained to have no confidence in myself. Practically speaking, it doesn’t matter. I am just going to continue doing as much as I can. And that is enough.

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UPCOMING HOLIDAYS

October

10/13 Backwards Halloween
10/24 Full Moon
10/31 Halloween/Samhain/All Hallow’s Eve/ Hallomas/ All Souls Day/Start of the Celtic new year.
November

11/1 All Saints’ Day
11/22 US Thanksgiving
11/23 Full Moon
December
12/21 Yule/Winter Solstice
12/22 Full Moon
12/24 Christmas Eve
12/25 Christmas Day
12/31 New Year’s Eve

Dates important to Neo-Nazi groups

10/12 Hitler’s half birthday
10/15 Death of Goering
10/16 Death of Rosenburg
11/9 Kristallnacht
(Some groups also mark Candlemas, Beltane, Lamas, Halloween, the solstices and the equinoxes)