BECOMING YOURSELF Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Alison Miller KARNAC First published in 2014 by Karnac Books Ltd 118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT Copyright © 2014 to Alison Miller. The right of Alison Miller to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978 1 78220 076 5 Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltd www.publishingservicesuk.co.uk e-mail: [email protected] Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR FOREWORD by Kim Noble INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE Symptoms, memories, and evidence CHAPTER TWO The struggle for healing with a contribution by: Wendy Hoffman: “Creating a government robot” CHAPTER THREE Dissociation, multiplicity, and personality systems with a contribution by: Wendy Hoffman: “Discovering my multiplicity” CHAPTER FOUR Engineered multiplicity: personality systems created by mind control CHAPTER FIVE Indoctrination with a contribution by Stella Katz: “How non-human parts are made” CHAPTER SIX Sally from three perspectives contributed by: Sally and her insiders CHAPTER SEVEN Internal hierarchies with a contribution by: LisaBri: “Mistakes my therapist made” CHAPTER EIGHT Talking with the higher-ups CHAPTER NINE Keeping safe from the perpetrator group CHAPTER TEN Dealing with triggering with a contribution by: Jean Riseman: “Programming: taking the wind out of its sails” CHAPTER ELEVEN Building inner community with contributions by: Jen Callow: “How I created my inner community” Arauna Morgan: “Dismantling my inner structures” CHAPTER TWELVE Coping with daily life with contributions by: Wendy Hoffman: “Defrosting” Trish Fotheringham: “My fail-safe and discard programming” CHAPTER THIRTEEN Emotions with a contribution by: Wendy Hoffman: “Feelings” CHAPTER FOURTEEN What about the memories? with contributions by: Wendy Hoffman: “My memory process” Gaby Breitenbach: “Processing difficult experiences” CHAPTER FIFTEEN Putting together the traumatic memories with a contribution by: Jen Callow: “Memory work later in recovery” CHAPTER SIXTEEN Looking at your family with contributions by: LisaBri: “Paternal incest”; “Sibling incest”; “Maternal incest and emotional abandonment” CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Healing your sexuality with a contribution by: Meredith Sharman: “My sexual healing process” CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Succeeding in friendships and relationships CHAPTER NINETEEN Therapy and therapists with contributions by: Adriana Green: “Downfall” Wendy Hoffman: “My life as a therapy patient” Sally's higher-up insiders: “The new therapist” CHAPTER TWENTY Overcoming spiritual abuse with contributions by: Stella Katz: “For Miranda” Aurora Levins Morales: “Torturers” Heather Davediuk Gingrich: “A Christian therapist's perspective” CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Becoming yourself with contributions by: Steven Frankel: “Learning to blend” Stella Katz: “Reclaiming me” Jen Callow: “To integrate or not to integrate” Jen Callow: “Life after integration” REFERENCES INDEX This book is dedicated to those who have died as a result of mind control and/or ritual abuse, and those who have lived when they would rather have died. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I want to thank all the clients who, over the past twenty-three years, have shared with me their painful stories of mind control and ritual abuse. They have been my most important teachers, and without them I would not have been able even to conceive of writing such a book. Some of them will recognise themselves in these pages, and I know it will be important to them to know they have helped point the way to freedom for many other survivors who have had experiences similar to their own. Beyond that, words cannot express how grateful I am to those courageous survivors who have provided original contributions for this book: Jen Callow, Adriana Green, Wendy Hoffman, Sally, LisaBri, Arauna Morgan, and Meredith Sharman. Their bravery in facing their experiences, their hard-won internal co-operation and maturity, and their willingness to speak up constitute a unique contribution to our understanding of both these abuses and their healing process. Trish Fotheringham, Aurora Levins Morales, and Jean Riseman have also graciously allowed me to reprint their writings from elsewhere (in Jean's case, after her editing), and Stella Katz, before she died, gave me permission to use anything she had written or told me. One reason these survivors have had the courage and motivation to tell their stories is a desire to speak for those who cannot; another is to expose what the criminal groups do so that others may become free of those groups' control. Therapists Gaby Breitenbach, Heather Gingrich, and Steven Frankel have also contributed techniques they use to help survivors. We therapists who have not personally experienced mind control or ritual abuse have, nevertheless, been touched by these horrors, through caring for clients who have gone through them. We cannot turn our backs on those who come to us, or fail to hear their stories simply because there is no external verification of the cause of their suffering. (Of course, some therapists are also survivors.) I asked four survivors and three therapists to read this book chapter by chapter and provide feedback regarding whether each part would be helpful for survivors, and whether it could trigger programming. Survivor therapists Arauna Morgan and Wendy Hoffman, survivors LisaBri and Sally, and psychologist and lawyer Steve Frankel put in long hours reading the book chapter by chapter for conceptual clarity, accuracy, and safety, and I thank each of them from the bottom of my heart. You will see their own creative ideas in the book, not only in the longer pieces they wrote, but they are also quoted here and there in my text. All my readers put their hearts into this task because they want to help and empower survivors to overcome mind control. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alison Miller is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She worked for many years in child and youth mental health services, treating children and families. She is the original developer of the Living in Families Effectively (LIFE) Seminars (www.lifeseminars.com), and has co-authored two books on parenting with Dr Allison Rees. Since 1991, Dr Miller has been treating and learning from persons with dissociative disorders, in particular survivors of ritual abuse and mind control, and has developed a protocol for effective treatment. She is a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Her previous work on this subject is: Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (London, Karnac, 2011).