Dissociative Identity Disorder is created from severe, chronic child abuse, but does that abuse automatically stop in childhood?
Unfortunately, no, it does not.
All too many survivors continue to be trapped in abusive environments long after their childhood has ended. Sometimes this abuse continues with the same family-related perpetrators that abused the survivor all throughout the childhood years. For example, far too many adult children of creepy-fathers are still being sexually abused into adulthood.
Creepy-fathers (or creepy-mothers, or creepy-uncles, or creepy-neighbors…) don’t necessarily stop being sex offenders just because the children within their reach get older. These lifelong predators already know how to manipulate your dissociative system, and they will continue to “call out” and dominate the child parts that they controlled for all the years previous. The child parts don’t necessarily realize that they are in an adult body, or that years of time have passed, so it still feels like more of the same to them.
Typically, in situations such as these, the dissociative walls that separate those abused child parts and the adult host can still be locked solidly in place, allowing no seepage of information to pass through. The adult DID survivor may not have any conscious awareness that they are still being abused in this way.
Scary.
And sad.
But true, far too often.
Sometimes, the ongoing abuse is more organized than in-home family abuse. The sex slave industries can use, own, control, sell, and exploit dissociative survivors for many years.
Slavery didn’t end with the Civil War – it just became more hidden.
One of the current ways that slavery still exists — even now, today — is through the entrapment of the dissociative population.
Various prostitution / pornography organizations can “own” and exploit survivors by using physical violence, emotional blackmail, drugs, mind control techniques, and dissociation as means to maintain their power and control.
Extricating these dissociative prisoners from these organized predators is a complicated and complex process, but possible nonetheless.
This powerful image found at http://shaylinjanelle.tumblr.com/page/2 .
Adult trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) have had years upon years of experience managing severe trauma while simultaneously blocking themselves off from the reality of that trauma.
Dissociative walls can provide an element of amnesia that both protects the person from the overwhelming crushing awareness of ongoing abuse, but also traps the survivor in an ongoing continuation of that abuse.
If dissociative survivors have current-day chunks of missing time blocked from their awareness, they cannot know what happened to them, but they also cannot remove themselves or protect themselves from the ongoing trauma and abuse.
Without effective therapy and treatment, they also cannot remember or control the fact that they could be handing over their children to be used in the same abusive ways by the very same perpetrator groups.
Unfortunately, we all know that the kiddie porn industry is alive and well.
Dissociative survivors that grew up being used and sold within the kiddie porn industry are at a higher risk of continuing to be owned by, and forced to work for that industry even as adults.
When DID survivors are involved in current day abuse, it is imperative to break down the amnesiac walls created through dissociative processes.
The survivors have to have the courage to look at what they are involved with, and then have even more courage to problem-solve their way out.
Dissociative survivors trapped in other kinds of family violence and domestic violence are vulnerable in these same ways.
Trauma therapists must be aware of these possibilities so they can actively work with the dissociative population in order to assist them to gain freedom from ongoing abuse. Therapy with a strong emphasis on increasing internal communication and lowering amnesiac barriers is essential.
Therapists need to use basic good trauma therapy while doing this work.
Listen closely to the inside parts, help sooth the pain, create both internal and external safety, reconnect the isolated parts with the rest of the system, address the concerns raised by those internal parts in all the normal ways, etc. Many of the very same processes that work to help heal “regular abuse” continue to be effective in addressing more extreme abuses.
*** To all dissociative survivors ***
You don’t have to stay stuck in the abuse cycles.
If you are able to read this post, you are able to do the work it takes to remove yourself from any ongoing abuse that you are tangled in.
Of course, your perpetrators won’t tell you that you can get out, but you can get out and away from them anyway. You are older, wiser, and stronger than you were when you were just a child. You can find ways that will work for you, you can find safe people to help you, and you can be safe.
Talk lots and lots to your inside people – it’s only as you work together as a team that you can beat the external controls. It takes a lot of hard work, but if you all really want to be free from abuse and safe from harm, you can be.
It can happen.
I wish you safety — lots and lots of SAFETY — in your healing journey.
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2022 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
If we dont make it stop and we are teenagers that means we are old enough and then it has got to still be our fault Im thinking. Because we let it happen. Because we shrink and disappear and our mouths freeze shut and we get trapped inside and then people can still do whatever they want.
We going there soon to there house
We gona try so hard to be good
And not do anything rong
And keep our selfs safe
So we can have a good trip
Hello Mindy! We just came back from a week at our Daddy-man’s house and we did OK! He actually praised the work we did there. We hope you stay OK, too and have a good trip!
MissyMing
11/06/20
So is this why I was still with out side Norman until he died? Please don’t tell me he. Got to my out side children because I had no control
Over what he was doing. This would break my heart. We have done nothing but try to protect them From the evils Of the world! I do not vent what to think of this has a possibility. This post his pulling. At me from every direction. Is this why he let me go to find another husband. So he could have access to more children
Kathy please say no that’s not how it happens a all!!!!!!
Hi Lisa,
I just want to jump in here and support what MultipleMe has said. You are very brave to be talking about this subject here and sharing your story. Healthy boundaries are really tricky to establish that is for sure. I realized a few years ago that I did not have boundaries. It was just easier not to have boundaries then to have them violated. Not a good thing.
Establishing safe boundaries is a healthy process for any relationship but especially when you have insiders in the mix. Each insider can have a different take on what boundaries that they want to set so a bit of negotiation and explanation may be in order. Ultimately, boundaries make relationships (internally and in the outside world) stronger, safer and healthier for everyone involved.
ME+WE
11/03/18
sometimes its a different person but you let them do similar things and cross boundaries because you are confused, and it feels familiar. this is our situation. we are putting up boundaries now though. its tricky. especially when its not a clear violation and its not the same bad people. and the new person isn’t a bad person, and doesn’t exactly know or didn’t at first that it wasn’t the adult they thought they were talking to and being with at the outset. that happened in our adult time. this is the first time we are telling it. Lisa.
Lisa,
Wow, super brave of you to share here for the first time. I’m glad you’re learning to establish healthy boundaries. It’s not easy. But I’m learning we can re-train our brains and before you know it, it becomes easier and easier to do. And recognize the abusive behavior. It sounds like that’s where you’re at. Doesn’t make it any easier or less scary, so I hope you’re safe. If you want, feel free to let us know how it goes.
MultipleMe
10/31/18
I had a place where host was aiming for we called it rainbow land . As each inside person was at peace and went their way we said that they had made their way to safety in rainbow land
Find a safe place in the world…..run run run till no one can find you. Till your legs cant run till your eyes are wowed with the sites around you, till the few souls that are breathing air nearby are as brokenly openly depratly seeking peace to. Bunker down. Find all the self help healing mantras affirmations whatever it takes to create, form whatever we can from the ashes weve always been……come back. Be here for the first time. One day, reather by God, rescuing us or we collect each other and fight them all ourselves!!!! We will win. We will live.
Beautiful comment, Chelle, thank you.
It’s definitely important to encourage people to find safety. I like your idea of going to where your eyes are “Wow’d” by the sights… and going till you find souls that are seeking peace too. What a beautiful picture that creates. And those places, and those kind, gentle souls ARE out there. It’s good to remember there really is good…. and you’ll find it when you get further away from the bad / painful / horrible stuff.
Thank you for sharing — I like your willingness to inspire others…
I wish you beautiful peace and safety in your healing journey.
Warmly,
Kathy
That picsher of the girl punching the mirrir- thats how i feel
Feel like the just be to much in side my brain and my hart
And i got to hit my self in the mirrir in my face to get it out
Becuz i dont like it all stuck in my hart
It hurts my insides to much
It make me want to screm and yell and hurt my selff till i be all gone
Rachel
PILGRAM I read your message and it ressonates with me so much. Who CAN you really trust? In my life my abusers and synomous with the only ones really helpimg me and being there. Even if they are sick. I reack out for help and reach out and try to trust and keep getting abmadoned burned and betrayed and let down usually. So I have no answer for you but I can totally relate to you and the struggle. It friggen sucks. 🙁
What if these supposedly creepy people are the only fucking people on the planet that are actually trustworthy. What the hell do you do then??? What the fuck do you do when the “abusers” are the only people you can count on? What then? Cuz goddammit i sure as hell dont know. What if they turn out to be right all along.
There is always someone. As an abused child I connected with a lady who was an abused child like me. We connected through poetry designed to be therapeutic . I was asked to help her escape her abusive environment and a year later she had her diagnosis . 20 alters appeared to me and they ranged from a teething baby to young and old teens to adults. Social services and even CPN and her therapist created problems with their ignorance of DID INCLUDING THE CRISIS TEAM. After 3 yrs all but two of them had gone a male protector and a 2 yr old girl. This lady had been seeking abusers since she was 18 yrs old and her alters called her a sex toy. Through my own experiences I was able to help the alters I calling them family. Client / host wore glasses but alters did not . It was a constant battle to ensure host did not seek those who would hurt host but child alters told me everything so I could protect
What do i do
What do i do
Hes in charje
He gts to make the disishins
I dont no what to do 🙁
And he is lots lots biger
is all my fallt 🙁
becase i dont make it stop
becase i dont talk
becase i dont be brave
🙁
becase i dont be a good girl
the bully be rite
he say part of me must like it
but i dont 🙁 i dont
i promiss i dont
🙁 i promiss i dont
i just be to scard 🙁
It’s not your fault…but they sure make us feel that way. I understand. I hope you find a way out of this coercive control. I don’t know when this comment was written, I hope you are already safe and free! Please don’t give up.