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All items copyright © 2000-2008 by Jeannie Riseman or Laurie H. and Survivorship. All rights reserved. You may print out one copy for use in your own healing. For additional copies or permission to reprint, write Survivorship, PMB 139, 3181 Mission St, San Francisco CA 94110.

Yet Another Identity Crisis

When I got my first ritual abuse memories back in the late eighties, I assumed that my therapist knew what he was doing. This was based on little more than the fact that Mike had heard of ritual abuse and that he was in a study group for therapists dealing with incest. My naivite served me well, for I would have been petrified if I had known he was winging it.

It took me a couple of years to figure out that he was no expert. By this time I was through the initial crisis phase. I had figured out that I wouldn't die of fright and I was beginning to come to terms with an identity I had neither wanted nor imagined. I was staring to feel like a "real" ritual abuse survivor.

I decided to move to San Francisco, the RA healing capital of the world. Although I was moving for other reasons, I was really excited by the thought of being in the same city as Survivorship, BAWAR, and all those wonderful, knowledgeable, experienced therapists. Now I could start healing in earnest!

It didn't take me long to figure out that Survivorship's address was a P.O. box and that all those great therapists lived mostly in my imagination. There weren't very many therapists dealing with RA and lots of them weren't taking new clients or couldn't work with me for other reasons. It started to dawn on me that San Francisco had just about the same amount of resources as Boston -- not many.

All this time I had been reading everything I could get my hands on, hoping to find an instruction manual for healing from RA. The closest book was Safe Passage to Healing by Chrystine Oksana, and even she kept saying, "Trust yourself. Look within for the answers." Well, I didn't trust myself, and there were mighty few answers inside, only tons of questions.

As time passed, I started working for Survivorship. (Old social workers never retire, they just volunteer.) I met more and more survivors and put them on pedestals as paragons of healing, assumed they had all the answers that I didn't. But they were muddling through just as I was. No instruction manuals, no simple and foolproof directions, no gurus. Just a lot of hurting people doing the best they could with what they had. Sigh.

Slowly, slowly, I am coming to realize that I am the world-expert on my abuse and my own healing. Nobody else's -- just mine. And each person I meet is the world-expert on their abuse and healing. Chrystine was right all along. We have to trust ourselves, hard as it is, and look within, for that is where truth and integrity lie.

I hope you can laugh along with me as I struggle to assume this new identity; "Expert on Healing from Ritual Abuse." And I hope you realize that this is your identity, too, although it's probably as uncomfortable as a brand new pair of hiking boots. In time it will soften and fit better.

And when we put our collective wisdom together, we will have an instruction manual for the next generation of survivors. It will probably say something like, "Don't self-destruct. Get through the days the best you can. Trust yourself, and look within, for you are the expert."

BASK Flashbacks

Before I read up on flashbacks, I thought they were like living the trauma all over again, in every single detail. Sights, sounds, smells, temperature, and touch all would combine to recreate the original experience in a special kind of hallucination.

Well, mine aren't like the least bit like that. I get little snippets of odd things: a smell of gasoline or perfume when I am swimming; mistaking a car's backfiring for a gunshot; bizarre intrusive thoughts. I never thought much about these things until I learned about dissociation and flashbacks. They were just examples of the stuff that made me peculiar.

Now I understand that, during the trauma, I perceived the event in a dissociated state. I stored the memory in unconnected fragments, and when it surfaces, it comes back in fragments. So each little weird snippet is the memory of a small part of something I experienced years ago.

When I learned about Bennet Braun's BASK model of flashbacks, things started to make more sense. Braun made B stand for behavior, A for affect (emotion), S for sensations, and K for knowledge. Each of these modalities can come back separately. Let's go through them one by one.

Behavior, I think, is the hardest to understand as a flashback. We tend to repeat our traumas. If our Dad was distant, we fall for distant guys. If our Mom was alcoholic, we are attracted to alcoholic girls. But this feels like true love, not a flashback. And yet it is, really, because we are saying, in actions, something about our past. It feels familiar. It's a repetition of the past and is inappropriate in the present.

Here are some of my behaviors that I have come to see as flashbacks. I spend a lot of energy trying to please men and I am afraid of making them angry. I put myself down before others can put me down. I am perfectionistic, fearing that awful things will happen if I make a mistake. The list goes on and on.

Emotional flashbacks (Braun's A for affect) are also confusing. Strong feelings sweep over me and I find myself crying, enraged, or full of fear. My mind searches for a reason for these feelings. Since the reason, the original abuse, is still unconscious, I grab on to something in the present to explain my feelings. It's taken a lot of practice to recognize that I am having a flashback, and that I am not really afraid of this particular mailbox on the corner or this cute little harmless spider.  

Sensation flashbacks are much easier for me to recognize. That piece of trash on the road is not a dead body. All l oud noises are not gunshots. Feeling cold in ninety-degree weather is a body memory. And so on.

Knowledge flashbacks feel really strange. I calmly say things I didn't know I knew, like the comparative cost of different animals my cult sacrificed. I describe code words that were used to trigger me more than fifty years ago. I just know these things. At the same time they seem improbable and surreal, like bad science fiction. I always have the reaction, "Where did that come from???"

Every now and then fragments come together and I know which event is paired with which sights or sounds or feelings. This seems like a photograph in my mind, or a short movie. Very occasionally I think the event is happening now and I have to work hard to separate the past from the present. These more complete flashbacks occurred more often shortly after I figured out I was ritually abused.

I know everybody is different. I realize that your flashbacks may not like mine at all. I know that some people may find it very helpful to intellectually understand what is going on, while others feel it's sort of beside the point. But I also know that many people have benefited, as I did, from using the BASK model to organize their thoughts about flashbacks. It can bring a little order into the chaos and can provide a degree of distance from the flashback experience. It can help you keep one foot in the present, so to speak, and that is very, very helpful.

Borderlines

I really, really dislike this label, even though it isn't one that I have collected (so far) in my career as a client and patient. Many therapists don't understand the etiology of the cluster of symptoms that comprise "borderline personality" and therefore cannot work effectively with "borderline" clients.

For this reason, borderlines have gotten a bad reputation among therapists. They are considered difficult, unpredictable, boundary-breaking, ungrateful, and unchangeable. They are often subtlety or not so subtly discriminated against. In clinics, they are assigned to the junior staff, in private practice they are "referred out," and in hospitals they are treated firmly, but with little empathy. Not always, but often.

It's illuminating to consider where the term "borderline" comes from. In the early days of psychoanalysis, it was considered possible to analyze neurotic, but not psychotic, patients. Neurotic people got better as they talked freely about their pasts and their troubles, but psychotics tended to become more disorganized mentally if asked to free associate.

It was soon discovered that a group of people started off looking neurotic, and then suddenly, often temporarily, acted psychotic. Thus they were considered "on the border" between neurosis and psychosis.

If you read the old case histories, you may notice that these patients look to our eyes like high-functioning trauma survivors who were having flashbacks in the therapy hour. Some appear to be multiples that switched periodically. Since analysts in those days had no idea what a flashback was, they assumed that their patients had tricked them into thinking they were neurotic, when they really were psychotic.

When clinicians started to study borderlines more closely, it was hypothesized that the mother's behavior caused the syndrome. A mother that alternately pulled her baby very, very close and then became distant and rejecting set the child up for a lifetime of boundary problems. Makes sense, doesn't it? Alternate invasion and rejection of the child's very self could very well lead to huge difficulties with relationships.

In this scenario, the father, other relatives, family friends, teachers, and clergy are ignored, and so is the possibility of physical and sexual abuse. There are many ways of stimulating and then abandoning a child, many ways of messing with forming boundaries. And needless to say, ritual abuse utilizes them all.

When people make the connection between early catastrophic abuse and present behavior, when they learn what flashbacks are, when they go, "Aha! So that's why I always expect nice people to turn into monsters," they have a chance, for the first time, to gain control over their lives and their behaviors. This is as true as borderline behavior as of any other symptom of childhood abuse.

What it comes right down to, is that, as ritual abuse survivors, we live on the border of past and present. We are not unchangeable; we are trauma survivors.

Acting Out

This term has been misused so much that it has lost its original meaning. It now means misbehaving, doing something illegal, breaking hospital rules, or annoying one's therapist. It's a pretty good bet that if somebody says you are acting out, they are not happy with your behavior.

It wasn't always that way. It was Freud, I believe, who coined the term, and he meant something very precise by acting out. He meant showing in actions something that couldn't be said in words. There was no value judgement attached; it was simply a description of a non-verbal method of communication.

In this sense, artwork is acting out, but journaling is not. Children's play is acting out, adult games can be acting out, and so can strange or even quite ordinary behavior.

As survivors, we have to act out a lot because we have a lot to say about our past. Perhaps the information is held by a non-verbal alter or by a part that is too terrified to speak. Since the pressure to communicate is unbearable, we do the best we can to show what we are feeling and remembering.

Take self-injury, for example. I would bet dollars to donuts that when we self-injure we are re-enacting something we saw or were forced to do. At the very least, we are following instructions that one of our abusers gave us verbally. We are communicating a memory that we don't consciously remember.

Acting out often has a different "feel" to it than freely chosen actions. Sometimes we feel like we are in a trance, sometimes we watch ourselves doing something without engagement or emotion, sometimes we just feel compelled to do something without knowing why. Usually there is little consideration given to the consequences and little rational forethought. Sometimes there's an internal argument beforehand ­ "Should I?" "Shouldn't I?"

Some acting out comes from programmed instructions, which are like post-hypnotic suggestions. Other instances have nothing to do with programming. Acting out is a normal human way of coping, and there probably isn't an adult on earth who has not experienced it at some time or other. It's not crazy, it's not abnormal, and it's not even unusual.

It's not helpful to blame and scold that part of you that doesn't yet have the words to say what needs to be said. It's far better to empathize with how frustrating it is not to be able to express yourself and to reassure that part that sometime soon they will be able to tell in words. Explain that the "don't talk" rules no longer apply and offer the opportunity to try and tell with pictures, little figurines, or dance. It's worth a try!

P.S. to Acting Out

I'm sharing, with permission, a letter I received about the "Acting Out" mini-article. It makes the point that not all acting out is dangerous or detrimental. In this case, no harm was done to anybody or any thing. A teen alter re-enacted her experience, which helped her both remember what she had gone through and communicate it to other parts of the system. With understanding, the compulsion faded. How healthy! How sad that the term has come to practically be a swear word!

"You did a marvelous job explaining "Acting Out," in the March issue of the Notes. It was well timed, as I've been "acting out" having to keep house for my male parent in 1951 (I was fourteen then) by "keeping house" for the man who lives upstairs in this apartment building.

"Even though I knew I was acting out, I couldn't stop myself, but it wasn't a danger to me -- tiring, though. It allowed me to become conscious and to compare what I was doing for the "daddy stand-in," with what I had to do for "daddy" in 1951.

"When you wrote that acting out has a different "feel" to it than freely-chosen actions, I was helped to see that my cleaning his apartment yesterday had a frantic, adrenalized pace to it, which could be confused with feeling "happy." In fact, when I was fourteen, I had no way to feel "happy," except by pleasing daddy, my abuser.

"I'm dialoguing with Janice-14, (myself at fourteen years old), who is waking up now from the amnesia. "We" are detaching from the re-enacting and starting to freely choose activities that Janice-14 and the rest-of-us will enjoy." Janice

Intermittent Knowledge

When I was a child, there was a fortune-telling toy that consisted of a plastic ball with a window on the bottom. Inside the ball was liquid and a faceted piece of plastic with words like "yes," "no," "maybe," and "later." You asked a question, turned the ball over, and the answer floated slowly into view, then disappeared again.

The awareness of approaching cult holidays floats in and out of my awareness like that little piece of plastic. Even though I type the ritual calendar every month, I keep forgetting what's around the corner. I even manage to forget Halloween and Christmas, despite all the societal hoopla.

Remember, dissociate, remember, dissociate, dozens of times a day.

Many survivors, especially when they first remember the abuse, don't want to know about the holidays. They don't want to risk talking themselves into feeling rotten just because the calendar suggests it should be a bad day.

I've had friends who purposefully ignored the calendar and then called me in a panic, asking, "Is it a cult holiday?" It usually was. This in itself was validation of their memories. I mean, it's not unusual to get upset at Christmas -- but Groundhog Day???

Personally, I find it very helpful to know of the dates in advance. I can make plans to ride through the hours, avoid additional triggers if I choose, and arrange ways of soothing myself. I know there is a reason for my feelings and that it's not some weird brain abnormality. Best of all I know there will be an end to the anniversary reaction.

Maybe someday I'll get to a place where I'll consistently remember the date and the plans I have made. It would be great not to wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, with no idea of the source of my terror. It would be great to also remember that the evening before a holiday is even worse than the day itself, as that is when it was usually observed.

My therapist reminds me that I re-dissociate other things I have remembered, too. I'll look at her blankly when she refers to something I have told her, and then it will all come back in an instant. It appears that there are parts of me that know, and parts that still don't know. From what I can see among my friends, this condition is not all that unusual.

Structure

Sometimes I get so disorganized that I can't stand it. I feel like I am going in circles all day long, unable to decide what to do first, and therefore not doing anything. During those times, even dressing, bathing, and eating can become problematic.

I have to do something to change things and, since I can't seem to trace the source of my difficulties, I try a little behavior modification on myself. Even if I can't find and fix the cause, I can at least treat the symptom.

I pretend that I am going in-patient. Now I have never been hospitalized, so I don't really know what in-patient is like. That leaves me free to design my own program.

My pretend hospital is very structured. There's a schedule marked off in half-hours and my therapists (me) fill in all the activities. Wake-up time and bedtime are the same from day to day, and so are meal times. I schedule three small healthy meals a day, with optional snacks in the morning and afternoon.

Then my occupational therapist (me) schedules ADL (Activities of Daily Living.) Every day includes the basics: cooking, washing dishes, cat care, and a bath. Each day has an extra activity, like watering the plants, tidying up, laundry, or vacuuming. My physical therapist (me again) schedules water aerobics or gardening three times a week. And of course there's my real therapy appointment, with my real therapist.

Time gets allocated to Survivorship and also to my friends and my own personal process. Even if there seems to be no time left over, I also manage to squeeze in a few hours of fun during the week.

Most of the time just thinking up a schedule is enough to snap me out of chaos. Sometime I have to write out the week's plan before I come around, and only occasionally do I have to follow the plan for any length of time. Just knowing it is there if I need it seems to be enough. The nicest thing about my pretend hospital is that the whole staff understands me pretty well!

Trying to be "Normal"

I get pretty uncomfortable when other survivors idealize me. It's tempting to do something rotten in order to adjust others' image of me to fit my own self-image, but I gave up being rotten on purpose many decades ago. I either have to sit with my feelings or find another way of dealing with the situation.

I've tried confessing my shortcomings in the hopes that others will build a more realistic picture of me. I tell you-all when I space out, when I mess up my computer, when I'm phobic, when I blank a holiday. I want to fit in. I want to be considered "normal." Like a teenager, I want to be just like everybody else.

So far, this hasn't worked very well. When I describe a difficulty, the response I get from you-all is along the lines of "Thank you. I thought that I was the only one who did that." "I really admire your honesty." I have a feeling that, in trying to normalize myself, I am in fact inviting further idealization.

So what else can I do? I can't think of any other ways of handling the situation. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know.

Let me tell you what has come up for me over the past couple of years working for Survivorship. When I stay with my feelings, it's anxiety, always anxiety.

I feel like a fraud, of course. I'm no guru of healing. I'm not very far along my path, and I have very few answers. I don't do things by the book, either. I've been an activist of sorts from the very first day, while collective wisdom suggests that you do some personal healing before venturing out in the larger society.

The sense of fraudulence is a real familiar feeling, first experienced as a pre-schooler. I always faked things, knowing there was something terribly wrong with me but wanting to experience life despite my mystery handicap. I faked things well enough to get by, and then some, but I was miserable.

Today, I know I was ritually abused, I know why I have all these symptoms, and I don't have to fake being normal anymore. I am normal, given what happened to me. It's ritual abuse that is not normal.

Digging deeper, I've realized that I'm nervous because I am stepping outside the role that the cult taught me. I was never told that I was special or that when I grew up I would have a leadership role. There had to be somebody who was second in command, to do the work for the leaders and take care of them. That was what I was trained for.

My whole work life has followed that model. I've been the secretary, the administrative assistant, the "girl Friday" in every position I have ever held. I never had the lead in a school play or was President of the PTA. I am far more comfortable quietly getting things done behind the scenes even if it means that I don't get the recognition I probably deserve.

Doesn't the title I chose for myself at Survivorship, Coordinator of Volunteers, fit that pattern perfectly? A peer among peers, nobody special. Figures.

And yet we desperately need people to look up to. The RA community is very young. A good deal of the time we feel like pioneers, without heroes or elders. Not only is there no instruction manual, there are very few role models. This is because we all started remembering at pretty much the same time.

Here's a more empowered way of looking at the situation -- we are all role models, or will be for those who have not yet remembered. As inadequate as we feel at times, the truth is that we are going places in healing where nobody has gone before. We are all brave pioneers.

Like it or not, I am a leader, just like Caryn Stardancer or Chrystine Oksana. And so are you, and you, and you.

Oh, Now I Get It!

My friend Sonya calls and learns I am having trouble getting out of the house and to the copy center. She says she will come with me to make things easier. Sonya and I are both polyfragmented, and we both have a series of parts who slide to the front to do different tasks. We talk about this in the car.

S: "I always think of you as high-functioning and am surprised when you get stuck and can't do something. Happens to me all the time, but I don't expect it to happen to you."

J: "Ha! I see you the same way. I try to work around it. I assume some parts are frightened so I try to explain to them that it isn't dangerous to do these things today."

S: "Yes, and the more you get in touch with those alters, you the more you feel the resistance. But it isn't always resistance."

J: "What do you mean?"

S: "Some alters just don't come out very often, so I have to teach those that are out to do jobs for the ones who don't come out. For example, the one who opens doors is out a lot, but the one who closes them hardly ever is. So I come home and find every cabinet door, every dresser drawer, wide open. Makes the apartment look terrible."

I have a very enthusiastic vacuumer. I vacuum when the cat hairs show. I vacuum when I am upset and need to calm down or think. Unlike other housework jobs, I enjoy vacuuming. The vacuum cleaner can usually be found in the middle of the floor, ready to be tripped over.

J: "Oh now I get it! I need to teach more inner folks how to put away the vacuum cleaner."

S: "Right. It isn't that you are lazy or messy, it's just that they don't know how to do it. I felt so much better about myself when I figured this out."

J: "I always thought that it was inability to finish a job. A strange form of perfectionism - -I can pretend that if I had finished it, it would have turned out wonderfully. But if I actually do finish it, I'll surely be disappointed. Or else procrastination. If things are half done, I can fret about that, instead of the things that are really bothering me."

S: "Well, those things are true, too. It's always multi-layered."

Initially, I'm excited. I have a new way to work around my hang-ups! Then I think of what a pain it is to teach children to tie their shoes or put away their toys. It's far simpler to do it myself. I start spiraling into confusion. If there is a "me" who can teach, why can't that "me" just put away the vacuum cleaner? These thoughts could drive me bats. I'll save them for therapy, if I remember.

Bingo! An insight! This explains why I have such a long learning curve. Say I want to use a new piece of software. It's a bright but frightened, anxious, and insecure child learning, not a poised self-confident woman. And the poor thing has to go it alone, without a teacher or mentor.

Sonya explains that what worked best for her was to write out the steps involved in a task in excruciating detail. She pretends she is writing an instruction manual for a Martian on how to make a cup of tea. That way, if she switches, she only has to remember how to read, not how to make tea or close cabinet doors.

She then invites alters to listen as she reads the instructions. "Would some of you like to learn how to make a cup of tea?" Sometimes somebody wants to, sometimes nobody does.

In time, lots of alters learn all about making tea. The process speeds up as it goes along, because there are more and more internal teachers. One fine day, the instructions are no longer necessary.

I've found it's more effective to say things to myself out loud than to think them. "First you pull gently on the vacuum cleaner cord to unplug it. That's right. Then hold the plug in your left hand. Bend your elbow. Wind the cord around your arm between your hand and elbow. Very good." I'm so glad I live alone and don't have to explain to anybody.

My guess is that this approach might also be helpful to people who aren't polyfragmented. I can't imagine any harm that could come of trying it a couple of times. It certainly is a gentler way of approaching yourself than scolding or putting yourself down for what you can't do at the moment. You might feel silly at first (I know I did), but you might also get results.

Spring Blues

All things dull and ugly,
All things short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
                   Monty Python

Hi, It's Jeannie, editing the whole Notes this time. I hope you can put up with my style and peculiar sense of humor.

For years and years I felt terrible during the spring, roughly from the beginning of Lent to Beltane (May Day). I had no idea why, but I explained it to myself by blaming it on spring fever. All the other girls had boyfriends, and I didn't, and if I did, it wasn't the right boyfriend. All the sheep had new lambs and all the other women had new babies, and I didn't, or if I did, I was too exhausted to appreciate the loud little nuisance.

I felt stupid and ugly, short and squat, heavy of body, heart, and mind, and I would have liked to be even ruder and nastier than I was to everybody around me. It never occurred to me that somebody or something had made me this way.

Now I know why it's just about the hardest time of year for me, and it isn't because the Lord God made me this way. It's thanks to ritual abuse.

The group that abused me merged Christian and Celtic traditions. Spring is full of commemorative days for Christians. Ash Wednesday, when many observers burn the palm fronds they have kept from the preceding Palm Sunday and mark their foreheads with the ashes, Mardi Gras, the last day to eat normally before the beginning of the forty days of fasting that is Lent, Lent itself, Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, when people lined the street with palm leaves to welcome Him, Good Friday, the day of His death, Easter Sunday, the day of the Resurrection – spring is rich in important days observed by Christians.

Of course we reversed them all. Christians days of mourning were celebrated, and Christian days of celebration were mocked and perverted. It was very difficult to tell which was which, as all the days marked by my cult were horrendously abusive.

During the spring, the Celtic holidays did not seem as bad, probably because we observed fewer of them. Also, they were predictable. Major holidays come relentlessly at six week intervals, and so I knew I had six weeks from Candlemas to the Spring Equinox, and another six weeks until Beltane.

All these Celtic holidays are fertility celebrations. They mark the progression of spring into full-fledged summer: Infant into Maiden. Perhaps they seemed less horrendous to me because they emphasized sex, rather than death, and sex is not final, the way death is.

The ritual calendar that Notes offers has holidays that abusive cults have stolen from different religions. I know nothing about Hindu or Egyptian religion, so I gather my group ignored those days. I remember some Roman mythology from school days, and some of the holidays listed are remembered also through flashbacks.

Pan was a hedonistic, seductive sylvan god with cloven feet and horns. Our slang word "horny" refers to Pan's usual state. Enough said.

Persephone spent six months of the year in Hades, (wintertime) six months on earth (summertime), and thus was an agricultural goddess. Forbidden to eat in Hades, she broke down and had one pomegranate seed. Since she ate so very little, her punishment was light. She did not have to spend eternity in Hades, only half of eternity.

The Romans believed that when Persephone traveled between earth and Hades the boundary between the living and dead became very thin and permeable for three days. Spirits and netherworld entities could be contacted easily. It was rather like our Halloween.

April

Many, if not most, survivors swing between extremes.

Multiples are often divided – some alters are passionately for something, others equally as passionately against it. Singletons feel intensely ambivalent – both for and against something at the same time. This ambivalence is greatly heightened around holidays, especially those that are celebrated both clandestinely in the cults and openly, secularly or religiously, by society.

Triggers proliferate. Stores are full of images commonly associated with spring and the various holidays. Families and friends wish us to participate in various get-togethers and activities. You can't easily escape it.

So, how to cope? As best you can, with self-acceptance and compassion. There is no perfect way to handle things, and if you did find the perfect way, it wouldn't be perfect for the next person, and it probably wouldn't even be perfect for you next year.

It's your choice. If you are fearful of the festivities, honor your fears and avoid participating. You don't have to buy or make decorations and candy. You don't have to have a big dinner. You don't have to participate in social activities with anyone. You don't have to do anything at all. Feel free to treat the day as an ordinary day, and do what you wish.

There is nothing wrong with spending a day or two in your pajamas or lying around with a good book. Make yourself as comfortable as possible – for you are in great pain, and every little irritant you can eliminate makes it easier.

On the other hand, if you are drawn to activities and find them fun, go for it! Recruit some internal or external children to participate in the activities. Dress in pretty spring clothes. Make a fancy meal or visit with family and/or friends you feel good with. If religious services uplift you and give you comfort, go to your place of worship.

If you have alters that are appalled by the festivities, talk to them gently. Don't expect an answer, just talk. Tell them that this year is different; there will be no pain, no abuse. Tell them these things are fun if you know for sure that abuse isn't going to follow. Tell them that it is OK to go somewhere else inside and skip the show, and you won't be mad at them. Maybe someday they would like to try and watch or participate. They are welcome to do as much or as little as they wish. This year they have choices that are theirs to make, and they do not have to fear reprisal.

Now for some specifics about the calendar

Easter and the start of Beltane both fall in April this year. Easter is associated with death and Beltane with fertility rites, and both are usually marked for several days. To add to the stress, the full moon occurs on April 30th, Beltane Eve!

Sometimes survivors don't understand why they are reacting more strongly than usual on a particular holiday. One reason could be that there is a full or new moon on the same night. If you are aware of this, you can brace yourself ahead of time.

We have included Passover (the commemoration of the flight of the Jews from Egypt) in the ritual calendar for two reasons. First, some cults pervert Jewish holidays, as well as, or instead of, Christian ones. Second, because Passover, in Europe, has been a time of heightened persecution of the Jews. It was a time of pogroms and murder, and the excuse for mass violence was "the Blood Libel." This was the accusation that Jews killed Christian babies as part of the Passover rites. This accusation certainly was a convenient explanation for children that disappeared during Easter or Beltane, taking the focus away from any practicing Satanists.

Mother's Day

For me, May is a wonderful time, because nothing much happens between Beltane and Memorial Day. It's almost a whole month without the anniversary of a ritual date, and I really have time to catch my breath after the long and difficult spring. But it's not that easy for most survivors, because right in the middle of the month comes -- Mother's Day.

My family did not observe Mother's Day, either in the day life or the night life. It meant nothing to my mother, and she looked down her nose at the commercialism of the commemoration. Perhaps she wasn't thrilled at being a mother? I don't know; I can only guess.

I have no idea what others experienced in the cult on Mother's Day, but I can imagine, and the things I imagine are horrible. I presume they were designed to break any sense of attachment and safety that a child might still feel toward Mother. I presume that all attachment had to be to the cult itself, and that tender feelings between mothers and children were anathema.

So I sail through Mother's Day, with memories only of my own kids' little hands holding lilies of the valley, coffee and burned toast in bed, and home-made cards telling me how great I was. Half an hour of fame, and then a normal day.

This year, though, I got a shock when I was driving to therapy. I was listening to a Country and Western radio station, and there was a song about a mother comforting her daughter about loss. The loss of her best friend when she was a child, a divorce, and finally the mother's death. "What can I do to help you say goodbye?" The tears were streaming down my face.

My mother would not have comforted me. At best, she would have told me to act my age. As a result, I learned early on not to let her know my feelings. I never went to her for advice, for a quick good-luck hug, for a smile on hearing good news. I aimed for a distant, polite relationship, like two strangers who don't much like each other thrown into close proximity. I got the distance, all right, but underneath the veneer was seething resentment and anger.

And of course I modeled my relationships with other adults on what I had learned at home. It never occurred to me to ask a teacher for help. It just never crossed my mind that adults could be a resource. Once, in high school, a classmate became psychotic and I and a couple of other secretive girls helped her hide it from the teachers for several months. If there was a problem, the children took care of it themselves because, if the grown-ups found out, boy, did the problem ever expand!

The truth of it, for those of us who were born into cult families, is that we never had real mothers. Our mothers did not delight in our spirits and active little bodies.

They swung between sadism and dissociation, and neither of these traits is supposed to be part of mothering. They could not teach us how to love and connect with people, because they couldn't, themselves. Or if they could, it was intermittent, or ineffectual. They did not have the resources to protect us, to raise us as we needed to be raised.

That day, after therapy, I stopped at a bookstore and, inspired by Laurie in last month's Notes, bought a "Random Acts of Kindness" bumper sticker. I also bought a book by Laurel Holliday called Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries. I expected stories of devastation, like the stories I read of ritual abuse survivors' childhoods.

What I found, though, was the writings of children who were loved by their families, children who were vibrantly alive. A disaster came upon them from outside. They responded with grief, terror, despair. But there is also humor in these diaries, and joy. There is so much empathy; these children loved themselves, loved life, and felt the pain of those who were tortured, gunned down, starved to death. Even in the Warsaw Ghetto, a father risked his life to obtain bread for his children and birthdays were celebrated as best as possible. It is beautiful to read how people cared for each other, even unto death.

Self-Mothering

Without having experienced love from our mothers as children, how can we learn to love? This question will probably always remain unanswered for me. I know I am capable of love. I see the results in my children and in my friends' faces. I even, at times, can feel that I love somebody, feel the warmth spreading through my heart and the wonder at the exquisite unique complexity that is this beloved person. I know that I love, but I don't know where it came from, who planted the concepts of kindness, caring, connection. It is one of the mysteries of my life.

Many of the books on healing that I read say that you have to mother yourself. Whoof! For me, that's much harder than mothering my biological children. They were so obviously wonderful, to be cherished and tended to and admired. I, on the other hand, appear to be slime to myself. Who can happily mother something that lies squishily on the bottom of a stagnant pond? Now that is a real challenge!

I know from experience that mothering well requires attention to thousands of details – vitamins, mittens in the cold, Kleenex for snotty noses, a myriad of mundane, boring things. Some of these things I can do for myself by now, but they still require a lot of effort and self-pep-talks.

I can brush my teeth every single night, even though I dread it. I can remember to take a vitamin pill with no stress at all. I usually change my clothes every morning, and I am able to wash every day. There were times when I couldn't, or didn't, do these things. I buy Kleenex when I have a cold, but I am still not deserving of paper towels for the kitchen, or hand cream, or socks with no holes. But I am working on it.

These are some of the things I wish we could all give ourselves, things which our mothers should have, but probably didn't, give us. May we all be brave enough to attempt self-mothering, regardless of what we think of ourselves.

Pleasant and nutritious food, not too much, not too little.
Adequate sleep, in a comfortable bed, uninterrupted by night terrors.
Using our hands to soothe ourselves, not to hit or cut or burn.
Self-compliments, acknowledgement, and appreciation for the truly amazing people we are.
Self-trust in our innate integrity and competence.
An environment free of abuse, filled with love, friendships, beauty, and respect.
Ice cream and chocolate cake and balloons for special occasions.

Father's Day

Laurie H.

This month I would like to address some things I think are important to remember when you think of your father on Father's Day. For me. the whole idea of celebrating Father's Day and giving my father homage is very hard. What about you?

I need to remember that my father abused me for reasons that are not my fault. I did not ask for the kind of attention that my father gave me. I was not at all to blame for his behavior. When I feel anger towards him, it is something I need to honor and not deny. I need to put the blame for his actions where they belong, and not on me. I also need to mourn the lack of a well-deserved healthy relationship with my father. I need to grieve.

As I feel this loss, I will go through distinct stages. These four stages are denial, anger, sadness, and acceptance. I have been through this process before and I will make it through again. Since everyone's grieving process is different, I won't hold myself to any rigid formula. It may take me a long time to complete the majority of it, but I won't be discouraged. During this healing process of grieving the lack of a good, healthy father/daughter relationship, I will find plateaus of acceptance and integration and I will not be suffering and miserable throughout the whole process. I will remember that, each time I allow myself to go through my grief and loss, I will shed excess baggage. The memories of the abuse my father forced on me will always be there, but they will have less and less influence on my present feelings and behavior.

I missed forming the internalized mental symbol of a truly loving father, so I need to re-parent myself. I need to create new internal parents – a father image for guidance, protection, setting boundaries, and encouragement. A father who is forgiving, honest, steadfast, caring, and sensitive to my feelings. These are all the things I have always imagined a good father would provide me.

I want to write a letter to my father this year. I will not censor it. I will write of all the abuse, about my childhood, and about the questions I have always wanted to ask him. I will let him know how I feel and who I am. I will let him know in no uncertain terms just how the abuse he forced on me affected me and how it still does. I won't downplay my feelings or minimize them.

This is for my benefit and not for his. When I am done, I will put the letter aside for a few days and then decide whether I will mail it. At least I will have expressed some of my difficult feelings and I can write him over and over for as long as I wish and as often as I wish.

I deserve a great father and I will do my best to bring what a father should have been into my life, even if I have to do it myself. This year I will acknowledge the lack of a good father and honor all the feelings I have about that. I will reassure the parts of me that still feel responsible for the abuse and remind them that he was the adult and the person responsible for everything that happened to me. I will respect the good feelings that some parts of me still feel toward him, remembering that no one is completely bad or good, but rather a combination.

This year I am pleased that I will be spending Father's Day with a few good fathers, one of which is my husband of the past thirteen years . He has been a fabulous stepfather for my two children. I am grateful that I found such a man and that he is a part of their lives as well as mine.

Summertime

It's almost full summer now, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. Leaves are out, spring bulbs have passed, lakes and ponds are starting to warm up, campgrounds are open. It's time to play outdoors.

Or is it? Many of us feel very uncomfortable playing. How many survivors have bodies that are stiff and uncoordinated and who are constantly walking into something or tripping and looking foolish? How many cringe at sports, remembering bad grade school experiences? How many were taught to stay perfectly still while being abused and are afraid to move freely?

And how many of us were abused outdoors, in the soft velvet night? How many are afraid of insects – for good reason? And of other little critters that make their homes outside; snakes, toads and frogs, rodents?

It is infuriating that our abuse can separate us from nature. It's totally unfair that the beauty of a full moon in a clear sky should send us into panic. A walk in the woods should never bring up memories of being hunted as a child and warm summer nights should not bring memories of circles and bonfires. This is not how it is supposed to be.

There is so much beauty outdoors, and we have the right to reclaim it and enjoy it, just like anybody else. We also have the right to complain loudly that reclamation is necessary. We have a right to grieve how we were misused and how nature was tainted with our abuse. We are allowed to be very, very angry.

Some survivors, fueled by anger, seize their right to enjoy nature. They hike, go camping, climb mountains, play softball, do anything and everything they can think of. Defiantly, deliberately, disobediently, they enjoy themselves.

Others dip their toes gingerly into the water, wiggling them to make sure they are still there. They go slowly, they test and test again. Tentatively, they allow themselves to feel the sun on their shoulders, the wind in their hair. They nibble at bodily pleasure as if it were an expensive chocolate. Timidly, deliberately, disobediently, they enjoy themselves.

It doesn't matter "how" we do something. We all have our own individual styles, our own pace in life. It doesn't matter "how well" we do it or "how much" we do, either. It only matters that we try. For if we try often enough, we will find that we are learning all those things that we should have been able to learn as children. Bodily pleasure, animal pleasure, a connection with all living things.

Enjoying Nature

Now is the time when the weather is most wonderful (or least awful, depending on how you look at it) in most of the country. If you are anything like me, you may have almost forgotten what outdoors looks like after a winter of being glued to desk, TV, or computer.

I recently wrote about trying to reclaim our right to enjoy nature. I must admit it's a struggle for me and I have to pry myself out of my apartment because of my chronic agoraphobia. And once I get outside, I can't do much, thanks to a touch of arthritis and fibromyalgia, yet I always feel better afterwards.

I try for gentle things to do. Swimming is good for aching bodies, and nothing compares to the smell of a lake in the woods. Sunscreen, a blanket, a picnic lunch, and sometimes a friend, make a special day.

Other activities that don't require athletic ability include begging stale bread from the supermarket and feeding the birds. Seagulls, if you have them, are even more entertaining than pigeons. Actually, if you get enough bread, you can develop pitcher's shoulder! And sometimes I drive to a park and just wander, sitting and resting whenever I need to.

Outside and inside kids both can run off energy and entertain themselves for hours outdoors. They may return home tired, dirty, and sweet-tempered. Building sandcastles, playing a pick-up game of soccer or volleyball, or romping in the water are wonderful activities for kids and adults alike.

Take care, do it but don't overdo it, and have a good summer.

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 never 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 try and 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 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 rouse 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 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. 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.

Labor Day

It's the last part of summer, those changing days just before Labor Day and the opening of school. As usual with major transitions, the groups that abused us seem to have been particularly active, and so we have more reminders, more anniversaries, and more flashbacks to content with.

In much of Europe, Labor Day isn't the first Monday in September. It's May first, another seasonal transition. And another day much observed by many of our abusers.

I never saw much to celebrate in Labor Day; it seemed a manufactured holiday, an excuse for a long weekend. Since I have started healing, however, I find I am viewing it differently.

It is indeed labor – hard, hard work – to heal from ritual abuse. The little details of life that most people don't even think about come with an incredible amount of baggage from the past. To do the simplest thing can feel like slogging through molasses and can take hours of effort.

Instead of looking at all the things I can't do, or the things I do slowly and with agony, I am trying to recognize just how badly hurt I was as a child to result in such difficulties. It is hard emotional labor to write a letter. More labor to address the envelope. Still more to put on a stamp (and I actually had to enter a public building to get that stamp). Then I have to leave the safety of my apartment to go mail it in one of those big scary blue boxes. I know why these simple things arouse such fear in me, and, believe me, most people don't want to hear the reasons.

Year after year, I have done the things that needed to be done despite all the fear and anxiety. Before memories, during memories, and after memories, the bills got paid, the birthday cards got sent. Sometimes late, but they always were taken care of.

So I think I deserve a Labor Day of my very own. Actually, I think I deserve three hundred and sixty five of them. I think we all do!

It feels wonderful to tap into that defiant anger that motivates me. I can see myself as a child, gritting my teeth and saying to myself, "You can't stop me. I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to do what I want in spite of you."

I couldn't then, of course, because they outweighed me, outnumbered me, and had legal authority over me. But now I am as big as anybody and I am free to make my own decisions and to I do what I want, even if it is hard.

I was a stubborn little girl, a stubborn young woman, and I'm rapidly becoming a stubborn old woman. Yes, I'm doing what I want to, despite them, and I will celebrate it three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days a year.

Seasonal Suggestions: Halloween

I'm really ambivalent about fall. As a child, I never could decide if I dreaded the return to school or couldn't wait. On the one hand there was the relentless pressure to do everything perfectly the first time, the social isolation, the contempt of the other kids. On the other hand there was the hope that I would somehow magically discover the secret to happiness and social ease. Perhaps in second grade? Perhaps third? Perhaps a Ph.D. in Comparative Tibetan Literature would do the trick?

And then, lurking in my unconscious, was the knowledge that some pretty awful days were coming up. I'm sure even a first grader knows on some level that when the leaves start to fall, the Equinox, and then Halloween, can't be far behind.

Halloween seems a very difficult holiday to reclaim. To me, it connotes death and destruction on many levels, and reclaiming death seems impossible. There is nothing in my heritage, either the day heritage or the night one, that allows me to feel comfortable with death or the process of dying.

Nobody I knew spoke of the dead with respect and affection, nobody in my childhood celebrated their lives. I wonder what it would be like to have my first associations with death be The Day of the Dead – a joyful picnic in the cemetery, with laughter and reminiscing, food prepared from ancient recipes, children running around and playing.

So how do I cope? Well, to tell you the truth, I generally try something different each year, because nothing has satisfied me so far. I tried making elaborate treats for the trick-or-treaters. I tried turning off all the lights and going to bed at 5:30. One year I painted the garage. I tried a trip to a tourist town I had never seen. (Bad idea. I found I prefer to be miserable in familiar surroundings. Of course I never would have known that if I hadn't experimented.)

One year I tried to "sanitize" part of the ritual. Along with two tolerant friends, I built a fire in their fireplace. We took slips of paper and wrote all the things we wanted to say goodbye to and then burned the paper. We then wished each other Happy New Year. (October 31st is the first day of the Celtic New Year.) We wrote all the things we wanted to welcome into our lives on more scraps of paper, took them home, and planted them in the dirt so they could grow. That was sort of cool.

This year? I don't know yet.

Self-harm

According to the organizers of Self-Injury Awareness Day, approximately 1% of the population of the United States self-injure. Some people cut deeply, others burn themselves, others make fine surface cuts or scratch or pick at their skin until it bleeds. Some people are more covert, and the behavior shows up as taking unnecessary risks or being accident-prone.

Until recently, self-injury was considered to be dangerous and bizarre, a rare and peculiar form of suicidal behavior. In the last ten years, we have begun to understand that this is not so. Self-injury is a coping mechanism, a way to relieve stress and anxiety, and is a way of communicating when words are just not available. Still, many therapists, health care professionals, family members, and friends hold the old stereotypes. This can mean that we are shamed for doing the very best we can, accused of being attention-seeking or manipulative, and treated brusquely or with contempt in the emergency room.

Often ritual abuse survivors can discover a specific meaning or function to the behavior. Does it happen on holidays? After seeing a perpetrator? After disclosing something significant? Once the meaning is understood, it can be talked about, drawn, danced, sung, or journaled, and the pressure to act physically may well diminish.

So do I self-harm? No. Well, only now and then. Not very often at all. Oh, and it's very mild. Lots of the time I'm not even aware of doing it, so that doesn't count.

Yes, I do self-harm. The first step will be to stop denying it; making it public like this sure helps. The next step will be to become conscious of doing it when I am doing it. The third step will suggest itself when the time comes.

Thanksgiving

It seems that the seasons are getting as confused in the Notes as they are in my mind. This is because I am constantly trying to compensate for missed deadlines and late mailings. It felt very odd to write about Halloween in August for the September Notes, but I knew some people wouldn't receive their copy until late September, and I didn't want to wait a month. If it seems confusing, it is because it is confusing. Please bear with me until the mailing rhythm gets smooth.

So here I am writing about Thanksgiving, one of the very worst times of year for me. It seems that the cults take advantage of any long weekend that comes along, and Thanksgiving weekend is the longest of the year.

What did they have to celebrate? Power, of course. Power to hurt anybody weaker or smaller than they were. Power to torture children's bodies and minds. And the false power that comes with the thrill of getting away with it.

All I can remember from childhood of the "normal" celebrations of Thanksgiving is one bowl of celery and olives. Nothing more, for twenty years. Now that isn't anywhere near normal. I have had a few flashbacks to what I have forgotten, and I understand why I forgot.

I also have difficulty with the social aspect of Thanksgiving, with Norman Rockwell families united around the turkey. When you don't have a family, or you don't like the one you do have, it is an excruciatingly lonely time. It feels like the whole world belongs someplace, has a loyal and loving family, except you. Of course reason says this isn't so – there are plenty of others in the same boat – but that's what it feels like.

If you have managed to find a loving partner or create a family of friends, you may only have to deal with the bittersweet contrast between present beauty and past ugliness. I congratulate you on your stubborn and courageous defiance. You weren't supposed to socialize with kind people, let alone belong with them. You have triumphed.

Many of us though haven't reached that point. Some have reached it and lost it. We may have given up on the idea, or we may be still striving but not there yet. What to do?

My suggestion is to take some time and pretend you have been given a whole day to yourself, to do whatever you want. (Actually, it's the truth, but sometimes it's easier to pretend that you are pretending than to work directly with the truth.) Make a list of all the things you would like to do, and then when the day comes, pick some things and do them.

It might entail going hiking alone. Or staying in bed all day with snacks and junky books. Painting, putting the garden to bed for the winter, anything that gives you some pleasure.

On the other hand, it might mean cooking a Cornish game hen with all the fixings and crying so hard you can't eat a bite. Mourning is certainly appropriate, and grief, that leaden weight upon the heart, is a potent healer. Every time we grieve the losses and deprivations and abuses of the past, we become freer to truly live in the present.

There is no right way or wrong way, despite what we were taught. There are only ways that are more or less suitable for you, and the challenge is to choose what is most in harmony with your inner self(ves) at any particular time.

Christmas

The holiday season is working up to a crescendo. There were Christmas decorations sitting next to the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations in the discount stores in early October. Magazines are getting fat with Christmas advertising. It even seems like more credit card offers are coming in the mail.

Early every December, neighbors a few blocks from me away hire a crane to install a three-story Christmas tree, giant fake presents, and eight-foot stockings with huge stuffed animals peering out the top. Traffic-stopping excess. Every year I am fascinated, admiring, and revolted.

Several years ago, I stopped exchanging presents and sending cards in an effort to deal with the excess of consumption, triggers, and lousy feelings. Holidays have nothing but unpleasant connotations for me, so why should I continue making myself miserable? I'm sure my friends and kids don't want me to be unhappy for the sake of giving them a momentary pleasure as they unwrap the expected gift or politely chew on the obligatory fruitcake.

Not even the grandkids get anything. Guess what? They don't mind at all. They know that Grannie Jean is weird and she doesn't do holidays. Instead, people I love get presents at random times of the year when the spirit moves me. The grandkids love to be surprised, and they appreciate the gifts more because they aren't over-stimulated.

Of course, avoidance isn't everybody's cup of tea. But how about doing it differently? Chuck out all the upsetting old family traditions and do something fresh and new. If there are traditions that you genuinely enjoy, keep them, of course. But why be a martyr when it isn't absolutely necessary?

How about a nature walk, with or without a camera? Even in the city there are little islands of nature with hungry birds and squirrels, trees with bare branches outlined against the sky, and seed pods on dormant summer grasses.

How about playing dj for yourself and designing twelve hours of your favorite tapes or CD's, without one single commercial?

How about hand-made presents, like they did in the old days? Jams, jellies, pickles, cookies, recipe collections, knitted, crocheted, or sewn articles, funny hand-drawn cards, clothespins made into dolls. Creative possibilities are endless.

How about something unique to you that feeds your soul? Something that fills you, rather than drains you? Something personally meaningful, life-affirming, defiantly joyous? It might take a lot of thought, but it might also be well worth the effort.