The Sadness of Satanic Abuse

Of all the cases we work with as professionals, some of the hardest histories to understand are from clients who have suffered satanic or ritual abuse from their childhood. The atrocities that they have suffered, often from their own parents and relations can sometimes seem unreal and difficult to hear.

Satanic Ritual Abuse, also known as SRA includes many, but not all of the following types of abuse;

• Conditioning the child into believing that he/she is a child of the devil.
  This can stay with a person for life.
• Rejection by a belief in God – conditioning blame.
  Believing the self to be ultimately bad and deserving of any and all abuse against them.
• Normalising incest and sexual violation by members of the family.
  Conditioning and acceptance of the child growing up unaware of sexual acts being wrong.
• Emotional conditioning and abuse.
  Yoyo Emotional Being given toys at Christmas and Birthdays only to have them immediately taken away. To appear to be different at school – keeping the child socially isolated (so that he/she won’t tell).
• Physical abuse, beating, cutting and/or drawing blood
  Bloodletting – forcing children to kill animals to use their blood – sacrificing animals.

Keeping the child/children prisoner/s in their own home – isolating.
Speaking to the child in a particular language – familiar only within the family.

• Performing cult like rituals involving blood smearing and rape of children, perpetrator often dressed in various frightening costumes.
  Child/children terrified into silence unable to think for self and almost always completely unable to make a decision/s in later life.
• There are cases where children have been born specifically to be abused in this way.

I have included some true testimonies from clients who have given their written permission to allow publication in this blog and other written material, although I have changed their names, gender and all identity to protect them further.

Olive

‘My Auntie said ‘God will save you’ how shit is that? They make you naked in the church, they make you eat raw meat as a sacrifice and then they make you drink blood to reject the devil from you. I was terrified for all of my life, told I was a devil child and that to be so brutally abused in so many ways by so many men was the only way to force the devil out of me. I still think about the textures they put in my mouth, I cannot eat anything like it, even now.

Paul

‘My first memory is being led into a church, on reflection it was more like a sort of makeshift church in an old village hall, I can still smell the mustiness. In front of at least thirty others, two men dressed in robes undressed me and I will never forget the pain as they violated my scrawny six year old body. They made me drink blood, which they told me was the blood of Christ and that this treatment of me was the only way to keep the devil out of me.

I ran away many times and was always brought home, it was my father who took me to this place and each time the police or authorities brought me home he beat me to within an inch of my life after they had gone.
He told me I wasn’t worthy of attention and would lock me in my room for days on end without food. I had a dog’s bowl of water, I had no toys or anything. My room was filthy, I remember the brick walls showing under the plaster and old paper was hanging off the other walls. Sometimes he would come and get me to take me to the church place and other times he would send men up to my room to abuse me. It was always in the name of God though, always.

Nigel

‘I was owned by my uncle, he had ‘claimed’ me apparently when I was just three years old. I think I was lucky because I had a magical way of looking down on the abuse from above, the therapist calls it dissociation, but whatever it was, it helped me detach from the reality of what was happening.

My uncle was a teacher at our Sunday school choir, he would take me to their meetings after choir practice with three other boys. We were ritually subjected to sadistic assaults, physically, emotionally and sexually at every level of depravity that one human can bestow upon another. It was sick and twisted and we were all always terrified. Even now, that the abusers are dead and buried, I can’t be in the same location as where it happened, I’m far enough away geographically, but my mind is often back there and I still don’t sleep properly.

I have been sectioned eleven times and you know what, until now, I’ve never felt believed or understood. My experience was never validated, just covered up with drugs or people telling me what was best for me. So, no different to the abusers really, just in a different form. Now I am on a road of recovery of sorts. I’ve been able to connect with that little boy who was abused and tell him just how much he really is worth.

I may never recover fully, but with help I am starting to look forward instead of back. I see the new fresh road ahead and not the filthy path behind. I am looking forward yes, to a future I didn’t dare believe could be possible’.

Sarah

‘Church, church church, always the bloody church. My mother was obsessed with sending me there. She’s dead now and I will never know if she actually knew about what they did to me on a Sunday morning and a Tuesday evening after school, in that fucking church.

I must have been seven years old when it first started. They would strip me naked and the big priest would start by laying me out on a huge table and raping me. The are no words to describe the pain of the rape let alone the shame and humiliation. When he’d finished, he would pass me round while the others watched, sometimes they would make me do things to them and then after, they would beat me with a belt, for doing it, as if I’d had a choice!
The worst thing I could have done was to not cry because then they just carried on beating me until I did cry, but I had detached. I was numb to the pain, the humiliation, it really was as if I was watching from the side or up above’. The whole thing was horrific and I am only glad that I have finally found some kind of way of working through what happened’.

Any kind of sexual interaction with children, whether it is wrapped up in religion or as ritual, satanic, cult covered or whatever the abusers or media choose to call it, it is still child abuse, sadistic sexual assault and nothing more than an excuse for grown men and sometimes women, to get their kicks from forcing children to gratify their sexual perversions.

in fact, it seems, the more power they are able to exert over innocent children, the more terror they can instil, the better they like it. The children on the other hand, have no choice, no say and no voice at all. The repercussions for those affected can stay with them throughout their lives, triggered by almost anything in their day to day existence.

An excerpt from:
Working with the Trauma of Rape and Sexual Violence
A Guide for Professionals
ISBN – 978-1785921117

Sue J Daniels
MBACP & UKRC (Snr. Accred).
EMDR Practitioner
Professional Counsellor &
Trauma Specialist
http://www.traumaresources.co.uk 

Unsafe at home..

Laura lives in a cul-de-sac. Her property has a walled garden, and the back entrance is from the road via a wrought iron gate to the side. She loved her house, her garden, her two cats and had many friends and neighbours who she loved to visit.

One morning in June 2015, Laura let one of her cats out into the garden and left the back door slightly ajar in order for it to come back in.

On that morning, in those split seconds an intruder came into her kitchen and unleashed a savage attack on Laura before raping her and then kicking her continuously with such force that she lost consciousness. There she lay until a neighbour who had seen a man running out of the side gate, had gone in to see what was going on.

Laura spent twelve weeks in hospital, four of those in intensive care and underwent surgery with a further two months in convalescence. By the time she was referred to post trauma therapy eight months later, she had attempted suicide three times. She had turned to alcohol and drugs in an attempt to obliterate the reality of her experience, and several physiological symptoms such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and bouts of psoriasis had manifested her mental state.

After hearing her story, it was clear that Laura was suffering from emotional, physical and physiological trauma. Shock and trauma go right to the very core of our existence and to be able to remove this from a person’s psyche can be likened to taking a splinter from deep beneath the skin.

Doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, professionals, psychologists, psychotherapists all play their part in assisting a traumatised individual. However, sometimes they fail to see the splinter.

After six or seven counselling sessions, it became apparent that general counselling was not working for Laura, and that in order for her to benefit, she needed to somehow lessen the impact that the vicious attack had left her with.

After an explanation of the process of Psychological Debriefing, it was explained to Laura that it was not counselling but a processing intervention that would allow her to lessen the impact of what she had been through, she stated that she was prepared to try anything.

The following week the therapist carried out the Psychological Debrief, which took two and a quarter hours. A further appointment was booked for four weeks later, and Laura went home.

On that fourth week, the therapist opened the door to Laura who seemed to have changed her appearance somehow, when asked how she had been – a smile came over her face and lit up her eyes (something the therapist had not seen her do before). She said very excitedly:

‘I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but it’s worked.  I don’t want to die anymore, and I‘ve decided to start to make a new life for myself. I’ve already decided to do some voluntary work in one of the charity shops in the town. For the first time since the attack I put my own rubbish out last week. I now have extra security but I don’t think about dying anymore.’

Laura was left for dead in an unprovoked attack leaving her world in utter chaos for many months. Before the Psychological Debrief she had totally isolated herself in the newly secured safety of her own home, the very place where the attack had taken place. She had been unable to leave her house or have inter- personal relationships even with her own family.

As a direct result of the Psychological Debrief session Laura was able to slowly start to revive her life and carry out normal everyday tasks.

An excerpt from:
Working with the Trauma of Rape and Sexual Violence
A Guide for Professionals
ISBN – 978-1785921117

Sue J Daniels
MBACP & UKRC (Snr. Accred).
EMDR Practitioner
Professional Counsellor &
Trauma Specialist
http://www.traumaresources.co.uk 

 

 

Imprisoned in a Private Hell

Imprisoned in a Private Hell

     I remember the first client I ever saw, she was an ex-heroin addict, she had been sexually violated by her brother when she was eleven years old, that particular client session was twenty years ago now, and I still remember her to this day. The client told me that it wasn’t until she was fifteen that she realised what her brother did to her wasn’t normal, only that she had felt uncomfortable and that she didn’t like it but because she loved him she accepted it as normal. During a school biology lesson she had a light bulb moment that it was wrong, so very wrong. After many years of drug addiction and self-sabotage, it took a further twenty years for her to fully disclose what had happened, when she engaged in therapy for the first time.

     When a person has been raped or sexually violated in any way, they can often live in their own private hell, unable to speak or recall their experiences easily. Having a trained professional to listen, with both their ears and their heart, can be priceless to that individual and is the beginning of healing and restoration for that person.

     In the two decades that I’ve been privileged to work with each and every client, I’ve been continually surprised at the bravery and courage often shown. But long term working with people who have been traumatised by rape and sexual violence or those who have survived childhood sexual assault can be exhausting to say the least. It has certainly made me question humanity over and over again and why I didn’t choose an entirely different path.

     There are times when I think I’ve heard the very worst defilement that one person can bestow upon another, the shock of some content multiplies with disclosures such as fathers wearing animal masks as they raped their toddler daughters or recollections of mothers sexually assaulting their children under the guise of personal hygiene cleansing rituals.

     For those working on the front line, this work is demanding and requires professional boundaries of steel in order to assist those in need of release, recovery and restoration.

     Every week we get calls from counsellors, policing teams, support workers and other professionals asking for information and/or advice about working with rape and sexual violence, so I’ve put together the following information to answer some of the questions previously asked:

Top Twenty List of Do’s and Don’ts for Working with Survivors of Sexual Violence.

1. Do – listen, believe and acknowledge.
2. Do – undertake the correct training for working with trauma.
3. Do – always have a sincere, empathic response and complete client focus.
4. Do – have a robust signposting list for additional practical support.
5. Do – have regular line management or clinical supervision.
6. Do – always be aware of your own limits for working with this fragile subject.
7. Do – have a terms and conditions or contractual agreement in place.
8. Do – remember that every person is unique and reacts differently.
9. Do – provide a safe, confidential and boundaried space to allow disclosure.
10. Do – take good care of yourself, watch for burnout and vicarious trauma symptoms.
11. Don’t – engage with traumatic content that you are not trained to work with.
12. Don’t – impose your own beliefs or judgements on a client/patient/service user.
13. Don’t – blame, accuse or give your opinion about choices made.
14. Don’t – make promises that you cannot keep.
15. Don’t – leave a client/patient/service user emotionally unsafe.
16. Don’t – break confidentiality about what you have been told, without consent.
17. Don’t – expect one treatment approach to work for every individual.
18. Don’t – expect clients to work to your speed – let them set the pace.
19. Don’t – be inconsistent or impatient with a client’s progress.
20. Don’t – be disrespectful or abuse a client/patient/service user’s trust.

    Although working in this field undoubtedly has a shelf life, it is important to remember that it is also rewarding, joyous and often profoundly moving to see those who have been affected by sexual violation, move on with their lives. With new hope as the impact of the trauma safely lessened and for their futures to be finally available to them and to their families.
Sue J Daniels
BACP (Snr. Accred)
EMDR & BSP Practitioner
Professional Counselling &
Trauma Specialist

 

Having Access to Children….

Having worked with hundreds of adult clients who have been sexually abused as children, the common trait has always been that child sexual abuse is about having access to children, authorised or otherwise.

Sexual predators, who prey on children almost always put themselves in positions of authority, trust or are already family members, friends or relations.

The sexual predator of today does not wear the obligatory dirty old Mac, nor does he or she hide in alleyways or dark places, they seek their prey in everyday occupations and walks of life, from the unemployed to highly respected members of many organisations.

Underneath the masks of everyday people, sexual predators will groom, coerce, manipulate, dominate, blackmail, tease, ridicule, finance, threaten or isolate in an underlying and underhand manner in which to abuse, assault and psychologically disempower children, tearing away at their right to a childhood.

Before the abuse even takes place, the perpetrator will have told or threatened their victim in one of the ways mentioned above, into believing that not only might they be encouraging and causing the abuse to happen, but also that they won’t be believed and/or harm will come to them or those they love in some way if they tell. So, in a never-ending cycle of abuse the perpetrator fulfills their twisted fantasy by actually acting it out, this then magnifies its effect, seeking then, to further satisfy their depravation upon more vulnerable children, in keeping their victim/s silent they are able to ensure continued access, guaranteeing silence and the power to further abuse.

When a child who has been sexually violated moves on into adulthood, the fact that the physical/sexual touching and assaults have stopped can seem like the end. Unfortunately, this is not always the case; metaphorically, childhood sexual abuse can be likened to a deepening barbed splinter within the body, the more the ‘victim’ holds on to the ‘secret’ locked away inside – the deeper the splinter embeds and the sharper the barbs impale on their soul, leaving scars that, for many, seem impossible to heal.

On reflection, in later life, survivors look back at their abuse with the eyes of an adult and not the terror of a vulnerable child. It can often be too late to seek justice against the perpetrator/s but it is never too late to start to heal and with the right help, that metaphoric splinter can be slowly removed.

It takes a huge amount of guts and courage for survivors of paedophiles to finally find a voice and speak out against those who have molested them and the recent disclosures about Jimmy Savile have opened the floodgates, almost giving permission for others to do so in a safe and more accepted way, all of those affected by any form of sexual violation in childhood deserve the very best help they can get, even if for some, this is remaining safe within their silence.

Sue J Daniels
MBACP & UKRC (Snr. Accred).
EMDR Practitioner
Professional Counsellor &
Trauma Specialist