Revisiting the double language

The more I learn from survivors and new answers from my own past, the more insidious the abuse. Children are provided with benign terms that are used to describe sexual or other abuse activities. A child has no language for such acts and so uses what the abusers call it. Recently it became known that "having a date" or "going on a date" has a terrifying meaning for Tyler (see first entry of this blog). He's only about 9 now but heard the term and expressed great fear of "going on a date". It connected to harm by his good parents as stated by the abusers. He has been safe from them for about two years but still deals with many triggers and fear of being taken by the abusers.

A few weeks ago I learned the term "washing hair" was terrifying to one of my littles. It was an awful meaning. That's been processed. But if someone witnessed and then reported to a safe adult, "Joe washed Jimmy's hair," no one would hear abuse. Another innocent word had been connected for me to abuse. "Exercise" was sex...sexual abuse. I have always had an aversion to exercise. That finally was processed when the meaning came out yesterday. Instead of trying to convince myself that "exercise" was a safe word, I created my own term since "exercise" still caused a visceral reaction in me. My new term is healing energy work. I can do healing energy work.

So how do we fight this? A child tries to tell and no one hears. An adult hearing a child tell something that seems innocent needs to notice behavior and emotions of the child reporting. Is the child frightened by telling you? If so, it should be reported. Let the child trained interviewers find out what the phrase means. At least it might help get more children out of dangerous situations.

I can imagine when I had language and may have tried to tell my mother, "Daddy made me exercise when you went shopping". Her response would likely have been, "Exercise is good for you." All these terms the perps use are so calculated to prevent the world from ever knowing. We need to start listening very differently.

Change in Perception Changes Lives

An article reporting on child exploitation describes the dynamic of how a change in perception can lead to greater child safety and arrest of more child predators. This is exactly what is proposed by this website. Closed mindedness keeps children in that world of exploitation and the bad guys remain invisible.

If DID were viewed as the impact of very early childhood abuse so adult victims were helped and law enforcement were mandated to work with those with DID instead of dismissing them, the secrecy of the predators could be broken.

The Boston area recognized their own child exploitation issue as national. Let's hope it spreads. Support and awareness by our greater society is essential. Change in government is coming with our next president. This issue needs to be heard loudly and clearly. You can express concerns online to the Obama Administration.

Fear of firemen, police & hospitals

In what I suspect is every incestuous family, children are instilled with the fear to tell. The same messages come up for every survivor...like there's a "how to" book of terrorizing children to ensure they don't tell of the dirty little secrets. Whether the child dissociates or not, they believe the threats.

With organized pedophilia, it is especially essential to the predators' "livelihood" that a child lives in fear of telling. To ensure a child has no "safe person" to tell, as instructed in schools and elsewhere, organized pedophiles wear uniforms of police and firefighters and other helping professions while abusing a child. Not only does it add the element of unbelievability to a child trying to tell, it terrifies the child who might otherwise seek help from anyone wearing those uniforms.

This was the memory of many adult survivors I knew and the experience of Tyler who always wanted to destroy the firefighter toys during sand tray therapy. They were the perpetrators of abuse and part of his healing was being given permission to act out his anger on the toys.

I heard on Oprah today that the Protect the Children legislation passed which will give more resources to law enforcement. How I wish that legislation included protection for adult survivors who become aware of current abuse. It is a sad fact that a large percentage of women with DID are unable to work and live with very restricted incomes. Survivors of organized pedophilia rarely have the resources to pay for their own healing or security if they "wake up" in the middle of their own real life nightmare.

It is also possible that one of the ways neighbors do not call for help is when a perp dons clothing indicative of law enforcement. Who would suspect harm when the uniform represents safety to most?

As for hospitals, ambulances, orphanages, and other related facilities, an overwhelming fear surfaces usually connected to messages from parents that they will be locked up or given away if they ever tell. Some survivors recall being driven to a psychiatric institution while the parent stayed with them parked outside threatening to take them inside and leave them there to die. Some remember the additional element of being placed in a straitjacket for the ride to the place from which they believed they would never return.

As far as I know, all people with DID also have PTSD. Hearing the siren of a police car or ambulance can send a child or a dissociated child part into a state of terror. I've indicated in a related blog that holidays were intentionally made to be not fun days for children of this world of predators. Halloween is approaching. The sight of masks and costumes is triggering by itself. Add to that triggering by what most would think are mundane or ordinary costumes such as a doctor or police officer or fireman. There isn't a survivor I know who looks forward to Halloween, although adult survivors who are moms will do their best to make it extra fun and special for their own children.

Anything involving costumes, masks, and clowns (painted faces) can be extraordinarily terrifying to a child. Tyler has been able to enjoy a Halloween since being rescued in spite of being very frightened by people in costumes just a few years ago--something his now adoptive mother noticed, bless her heart. Genuine love, safety, and an adult to protect is what every child deserves. It is what every healing adult with DID wishes they'd had. It is what every pedophile sets out to destroy.

The Usual Suspects

If you visited this blog previously and read about Katie, her story has appeared and disappeared several times. Issues arose surrounding the telling of her story. In consulting with others whom I admire in the world of psychology, I came to believe it was in Katie's best interest for her story not to appear. But the objection came from the community in which I advocated for help for her as her former therapist.

Since removal of the details of her abuse, Katie has learned, unfortunately, her congestive heart failure is advancing faster than expected. She also must undergo surgery because of leakage of fluid from her brain surgery several months ago. It is not known if the crack in her skull came from when Katie stated she was knocked to the ground by the bad men or when Christina consciously fell about a month ago. If not surgically repaired soon, she may die of the leakage first.

Christina (the adult) and Katie (the very abused child alter) have never known life without abuse or with acknowledgment by family of her having been a victim originally at her uncle's hands in very early childhood. In my attempts to help her, I was witness to the highly discriminatory treatment by hospital emergency room staff and law enforcement.

There are too many Katies who know of the abuse but are never heard because of the unbelievability factor. Abuse by organized pedophilia is everywhere and intentionally unbelievable. My mission is to help the nation understand that "unbelievable" is a ploy. It says "We are here."

A quote from the movie The Usual Suspects says it all:

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

Using God to Abuse

As I was driving home today from a doctor appointment, I heard something on the radio having to do with God. It reminded me of one of Tyler's disclosures (see his story, the first post on this blog). Tyler was taken to another location by Franklin, his mother's boyfriend. Tyler would have been 4 or 5 at the time. He was brought into a room where he waited alone. A man from a different room entered saying he was God and invited Tyler into his room where there was a bed. Tyler, who remembers because he did not dissociate, challenged the person. Something like, "No, you are NOT God!" The person insisted he was and a child will believe whatever lies are told. The message was: If you don't allow God to *touch* you, God won't love you anymore...and no one else will either. How devastating is that? Imagine the next time Tyler went to church with his safe parents?

In fact, after Tyler was in safe custody, that was a major issue his parents worked on with him as I did to uncover the messages behind his fear.

Unearthing the deception - Little boy saved

One of my clients was a pre-school boy in the primary care of his biological mother. The biological father and his wife were concerned about odd behavior when they had custody for the summer. I was asked to meet with "Tyler". During one of our sessions (which were always play therapy), I used the term "time out" for a toy. I set the toy aside on a chair and told it that it was in "time out" for five minutes. Tyler's reaction was atypical behavior.

During the next session, he announced he wanted to play "time out". I watched as he enacted yelling and strange behaviors with dolls. Since I was unable to understand what he was trying to show me, during the next session I asked him to show me using sand tray (a form of play therapy) what happened when he was in "time out". He was quite verbal at age 5. He explained that "time out" was when he, his mother, the live-in boyfriend, the boyfriends teenager son, and a toddler half-brother had to be naked and mommy, the boyfriend, and boyfriend's son, touched him and made him do things he didn't like. He demonstrated with dolls the positions he was made to be in and showed me what the adults did to him even imitating their voices as they told him to do certain acts. The father including the teenage son is a demonstration of multi-generational training. Can anyone who is not a child predator possibly understand a father "bonding" with his son while raping a child? That is very difficult for any of us comprehend.

Child abuse had not been suspected. The bio father and stepmother (now the boy's adoptive mother) were concerned about their son being withdrawn and afraid at seemingly innocuous triggers. They confirmed that when they had used the term "time out" with Tyler, he had an extraordinarily terrified response. We realized just how deceptive a tactic that was. When Tyler visited his safe parents, he would tell them his mother or Franklin (mom's boyfriend) had put him in time out. The natural response was "Why? What did you do wrong?" The response served to reinforce messages that Tyler was somehow bad for being in time out and shouldn't tell any more. But he did try to tell. Thank goodness.

I filed a report immediately after the session where "time out" became known and the bio father was able to have emergency custody granted. The judge listened to my testimony and honored the knowledge, much to my great relief. It did not appear Tyler had yet dissociated, although his relaying the details of the abuse told me that had been the objective. (See more on this topic at the dirtiest secret blog.)

As further example of the length pedophiles will go to make the child sound unbelievable, they use names of other members of the child predator community in the victim's presence to match those of people who have died or names of living relatives of the victim. Over the course of many weeks, the 5-year-old Tyler's story surfaced. Numerous times he referred to "Franklin's mother".

Franklin and his son were cited in the touching and sexual acts for which my little client had no vocabulary except for the names of games that any adult would think is innocent. Neutral names were also given to sex organs. "Franklin put a 'hammer' into my butt." Anatomically correct dolls helped to clarify the language for me and correct terms were provided. Franklin's mother was mentioned several times as someone who lived outside of the home although it sounded as if Tyler only saw her when there were many others also touching children.

During the custody hearing, the defense attorney cited some of my documentation where Franklin's mother was mentioned. He asked me if I would be surprised to learn that Franklin's mother had been deceased for a number of years. Knowing that world, I responded vehemently that the child knew SOMEONE as Franklin's mother as a tactic to make the abuse appear unbelievable. The judge granted full custody to the safe parents.

That's one child. I don't know the statistics, but I hate to think of how many children are returned to the traumatic setting of pedophiles 24 hours a day because of not believing the child or a therapist who didn't recognize a sign of abuse, let alone know signs of dissociation if that had been part Tyler's symptoms.

The first time Tyler relayed other children were present and played the same games, he told me their names. When I conveyed the information to the bio father privately, he indicated the names went with his young cousin's names who couldn't possibly have been in the state where the child had been abused. After realizing "Franklin's mother" was a tactic, I was able to ask Tyler if the names he had given me for the other children made to play the games were the same "John and Mary" who were his cousins. He felt safe enough to tell me that they were not and described the differences. This is where knowledge of the perp mindset is critical. The bio father naturally would have questioned the veracity of his son's report of that incident. It made perfect sense following the court hearing.

Perps use whatever personal information they have on the child (or dissociated part of an adult targeted for abuse) to make the victims appear as liars.