So the TV show, “One Life to Live,” is doing it again. They are bringing the concepts of DID / MPD, dissociation, dissociative splitting, programming, and mind control into the story line.
I haven’t quite decided what I think about this yet – I’m waiting to see where they go with it – but I did want to start an area open for discussion in case any of the readers of this blog have anything to say about it.
So far the show is showing a few elements that could be quite triggering to people that have been abused in this fashion. There are several scenes involving Jessica (remember the Jess-Tess-Bess trio from last year?) and her alleged “cult leader” father. So far, the cult-type dynamics have not yet been impressive in the way they have been portrayed, but once the show started showing mind control scenes, I’ve been more concerned.
If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder and if you are sensitive to those kinds of issues, please know to be cautioned about watching these episodes or reading further down this blog.
On one hand, it’s good to raise the awareness in the general public that mind control happens. Yes, mind control abuse / programming trauma often involves a few of the elements portrayed – physical force, drugs, electrical shock, restraints, memory loss, emotional conflicts, creating of a new dissociated self – but, of course, being that this is daytime TV, the producers are making the scenarios much more watered-down than what is realistic.
However, they are still showing enough detail to get the point across.
Raising awareness and exposing that such atrocities happen in the first place is an important step in helping more and more trauma survivors have the courage to speak up about what has happened to them. Increased awareness of these kinds of abuses can help more survivors be willing to get help. More mental health professionals can become aware of the issues, and more treatment options can be created.
To the survivors of mind control abuse – please know you’re not crazy. You are not making it up. Mind control really does happen. It can wreak a lot of havoc in your life, but it does not have to have a permanent place in your life.
Mind control can be a very serious concern. It can have long-term effects on survivors, and it can completely affect your life. Mind control doesn’t have to be stronger than you as a person. Don’t be fooled into thinking it is bigger than you are. It is not.
Mind control can be beaten. Completely beaten.
It can be removed from your thinking. It can be busted into pieces. It can be eliminated from your life.
But that’s up to you. You might need some outside therapeutic assistance, but you absolutely can break any mind controls that exists within you.
Who you are as a person – your own human spirit, your own real self, your freedom of thought, your ability to think for yourself, your ability to evaluate and assess, your ability to learn new things, your ability to enjoy life, your ability to feel emotions, your ability to improvise, your creativity, your ability to reach out and connect to helpers, your spiritual strengths, your ability to love – all these things, and more, can beat all the best of mind control techniques.
Don’t ever believe that you have to stay stuck in programming.
You can be free from that.
You are a human person, not a robot or a machine, and your genuine human-ness can override any of your perpetrator’s efforts to dehumanize you.
Your real self can be so much stronger than your programmed self.
Have the courage to be who you really are. Have the courage to get away from any abusers that support or use mind control techniques. Have the courage to build a life of your own away from those who want to own you.
It’s your life – you can be in charge of that.
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2018 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
Theories of learning are used to instill programming, primarily negative reinforcement, with the constant threat of positive punishment looming in the background. All four quadrants are used, it’s just that the two mentioned above are heavily relied upon, as aversive learning is extremely durable and resistant to extinction. Behaviors learned under such conditions are highly susceptible to spontaneous recovery under stress, which is why we as survivors have to be so mindful of the types of stress we allow into our environments as we heal and for some time thereafter. Everyone has to find their own way out. Mine was to move TOWARD what I feared instead of using avoidance as I had been trained to do. I moved so far toward my fears that I ended up creating a career for myself that replicates my intended job in the group, except that the career is guided by ethics and protection rather than exploitation and victimization. There are triggers all around me in my work. Every day. I still remember the first time I saw a certain piece of equipment. It has benign uses, but not in my history. I forced myself to look at it every day until I could touch it, then use it for it’s intended purpose. I worked alongside it for years, and after the first two, I ceased to be highly triggered by it (although on occasion when I was vulnerable for some other reason, I would get some physiological symptoms just seeing it). I have done well in my career and have been recently promoted. I still struggle with the message “You will fail without us-you are nothing”. It causes me enormous anxiety and great suffering still that I must battle every day. I choose to face it. They will not own me. They must watch while I take all of the things they worked so hard to teach me, and use them in the opposite way from that which they intended. They cannot control me because I have learned the secrets of their trade (which are not secret at all if you study behavior theory) and I will not respond to their cues no matter the discomfort I may face by resisting. The pain gets better with each successive refusal (because I realize that the terrible things I was told would happen if I resisted do not happen). In a sense, I am reprogramming myself. I remember those I have left behind and wish them strength and freedom. Freedom is possible for those who believe that it is, and even for those who are at the place where they just want to believe in freedom but can’t quite get there yet.
Be safe.
Winter’s Keeper
Sally, as long as there is life/blood in your veins you are eligible for the possibility of change and improvement.
I do not see things like they were written by Wolfpac40 (NO offense intended). For me it took huge spiritual help to both keep me alive and to help me heal and survive. I am a survivor of intense mind control. As a child I had no power to resist any of their “programming/training”. They used extreme things to overwhelm my human will until they left me like a dirty rag doll on the floor. They held all the power and I did my damnedest to do whatever they wanted because I feared the pain and I feared death at their hands. If God had not helped me I’d never have survived.
To balance this perspective, how much power and programming does it take to twist a tiny child into whatever sick tool/servant??? I thought they were powerful beyond belief and they were sick perverts, evil cowards, rotten to the cores of their beings.
Sally I used to feel that it was impossible to get for me to get better. I thought I was damaged beyond all hope and healing. That wasn’t true of me then and it is NOT true of you know. I don’t deny your feelings; I suggest they are not the “truth”. Feelings vary by the hour for many people. Don’t let them crush you. There is hope for you and all of us working to get through the pain of our past.
I am going to become well and God will be the one who ultimately does that in my life. I used to be totally cynical and negative. Change is possible, even for you.
I don’t think that MC relates to me specifically but do think that
that some of the things written here can apply to lots of us, but
in different ways.
“Who you are as a person – your own human spirit, your own real self, your freedom of thought, your ability to think for yourself, your ability to evaluate and assess, your ability to learn new things, your ability to enjoy life, your ability to feel emotions, your ability to improvise, your creativity, your ability to reach out and connect to helpers, your spiritual strengths, your ability to love – all these things, and more, can beat all the best of mind control techniques.”
I think remembering all the above things exist, in all of us (no matter our background) is that little spark that keeps each of us going. We may not
see or feel that spark but it is there, its human nature. Its the will to live, the will to exist, to overcome.
If that wasn’t there, I don’t think most of us would be alive or at least wouldn’t be walking around half way sane.
The very fact that someone is a multiple, means that there will to overcome is a strong one. No matter their background.
Another well written blog post. Always food for thought.
I don’t know/undersatnd much of my background.. but I dont think mind control was involved… I could be very wrong… but just don’t understand it enough guess…. What I did want to say is this part –
” Who you are as a person – your own human spirit, your own real self, your freedom of thought, your ability to think for yourself, your ability to evaluate and assess, your ability to learn new things, your ability to enjoy life, your ability to feel emotions, your ability to improvise, your creativity, your ability to reach out and connect to helpers, your spiritual strengths, your ability to love – all these things, and more, can beat all the best of mind control techniques. ”
— These are just some of the reasons I don’t truly believe I’ll ever get better. Because only a couple are true for me. Reading that list was more like reading a list of the reasons I’m jealous of my friends that don’t understand how I feel. 🙁
sorry.
Sally
Many of us like Harry Potter lol because he’s very brave and strong and he understands the hurt and fear. lol You’re right Dumbledore did say that 🙂 that’s what we do when the scary stuff wants us to ‘stop talking’ we pretend we’re hugging safe good strong people we love and if it doesn’t work we call or e-mail them and say hi because the scary stuff doesnt want us to because they know we are right that its okay to trust some people.
us
“your ability to love – all these things, and more, can beat all the best of mind control techniques.”
That’s what Profesor Dumbledore told Harry Potter too – that was why Voldemort couldn’t keep hold on Harry’s mind – Harry thought of the people he loved and that was so powerful (and so painful to the controller) that Harry freed himself.
I just got an apartment – and am working now to get out from the trappings of the mom. She is strong – seems sometimes stronger than me. But we’re learning to walk away from her. “Do NOT engage”, T says. “Have NON-NEGOTIONAL boundaries”, T says. Sometimes seems so hard. But I am working on it, one day and one box at a time.
kiyacat
Everything about DID needs to be brought out into the real light of day, but anyone thinking a soap opera can be a venue for that has their own kind of problem. It’s sick that they are using the horrors of what victims experience as fodder for daytime tv.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to get out of the bondage of abuse. It has stolen or damaged all the good things in my life and left me struggling with nightmares that rob me of peace and serenity.
I’m really upset about this and it’s hard for me to say what I really want to say. When tv shows talk about the monstrous horrors ritual abuse survivors go through it is like going to a tabloid newspaper for the “truth” about something.
I wish the whole world knew the truth of what is happening to cult abuse victims. I wish there were harsh penalties for people who abuse anyone weaker than themselves. Most of all I wish there could be thousands of properly trained therapists to help the hurting, confused, struggling survivors.
I hear ya, multipixie….
And I completely agree.