(Continued from https://johndenugent.com/unshackled-5/)
Catalina – Teenaged Part
Catalina didn’t like to be in charge of the body. She preferred to stay
inside and mentally buffer younger alter-states from stress and traumas.
She’d occasionally taken control of my body in the past, away from
handlers’ control, to protect me when she’d sensed danger. Her name
came from a German rhyme that my paternal grandmother had recited to
me as a child-something about going to the bathroom.
Visualizing herself as male, Catalina felt no compunction about
assaulting anyone who might attempt to hurt “the body.” Sometimes her
rage translated into a need to self-mutilate. One Saturday, alone in the
bedroom, she removed a metal number plate attached to my closet door
and used its sharp corner to scratch an upside-down cross on my belly as
she wept. A grey-haired nurse was making rounds and saw the metal
object in Catalina’s hand. After she obtained the object, she gently talked
Catalina through a surfacing ritual memory that the etched cross repre-
sented.
In my sketch book, Catalina drew a picture of herself as a pressure
cooker full of tiny cut-up bodies and blood, red steam swirling out
through the hole in the lid at a dangerous rate. She seemed to keep a lid
on the rage that younger parts couldn’t control.
Little Kathy- Age 4
My most dangerous experience at Bethesda was when Little Kathy
emerged. Her plan was to set my bed on fire while sitting on the middle
of it. She believed she would feel no pain when she burned to death.
After stealing a cigarette lighter from an unsuspecting female patient in
the day room, Little Kathy shut the bedroom door.
Catalina was able to emerge part way, but because Kathy fought so
hard for control, Catalina wasn’t able to get off the bed. As Kathy tried
to regain control of the body, Catalina screamed for help. When several
staff members ran into the room, they found Catalina shaking and
weeping. She handed the lighter to a stunned nurse and told her what
Little Kathy had intended to do.
The nurse commended Catalina, and then ” knowing that Little Kathy
feared being punished ” she gave a verbal message to Little Kathy
242
Unshackled
through Catalina. The grey-haired woman said she believed that Little
Kathy might be very angry at someone, and if she ever wanted to come
out, the nurse would love to sit and talk with her.
Later that day, Little Kathy re-emerged and shared several memories
with the nurse. She explained that she’d tried to kill herself out of rage at
my parents and other cult members. The rage came from one experience
in particular: at the age of four, she’d been forcibly penetrated from
behind by a large yellow dog as Dad, Mom, and other Reading cult mem-
bers had sat at a kitchenette table and watched. The adults had laughed
as Little Kathy had screamed and shaken in terror, unable to break free
from the dog’s penis. (The child alter-states that had compartmentalized
memories of having been penetrated by dog penises hadn’t known that
because of their unique anatomy, the poor dogs couldn’t remove their
penises until the swelling went back down.)
The nurse and other staff members taught Little Kathy and Catalina to
vent their shared rage in constructive ways: through physical anger work,
poetry, artwork, and sharing their experiences with the staff.
Renee – Age 8
During Friday night rituals, Dad had created Renee and then triggered
her out by name. Each time, he had commanded her to sit naked on a
wooden altar. The guilt of not being harmed, while being forced to watch
Dad hurt other children and adults, had been unbearable. Renee still felt
partly responsible for what was done to them because she was, after all,
Dad’s daughter. She had also been conscious during a part of the New
York City ritual. She provided more details about that event. Softhearted,
Renee wept every time she emerged. She was so full of grief that she had
great difficulty speaking.
Kate – Adult Part
Like Catalina, Kate preferred to stay inside. Her “job” was to internally
comfort younger alter-states that felt upset or frightened. Kate had
compartmentalized the nurturing I’d received from my maternal
grandmother. Not only did Kate grieve past traumas; she also mourned the
Alter-States
243
current loss of Grandma M’s mind and memory to the ravages of
Alzheimer’s disease.
Home Alters
After my discharge from my month-and-a-half stay at Bethesda, I fer-
vently hoped I wouldn’t find many more alter-states. Encountering and
adjusting to emerging parts was hard. At home, I didn’t have supportive
people to help me cope and negotiate with them.
I still had great difficulty accepting the validity of many of these new
memories, because I couldn’t accept that Dad and his criminal associates
had perpetrated such seemingly unbelievable crimes against me and
other helpless victims. How had they gotten away with these crimes for
so many years? Why hadn’t the law caught up with them?
At home, I constantly went in and out of denial. I would try to make
it all go away ” at least for a couple of hours ” but whenever I started to
feel “normal” again, another set of flashbacks started.
Bill was unhappy with my new personality shifts and changes. When
I had dissociated in the past, he’d blamed it on my moodiness and hor-
mone fluctuations. What he encountered now was more drastic. These
new alter-states had unique belief systems, personalities, and experiences.
They even spoke and carried themselves differently. Those that emerged
for the first time at home didn’t know how to vacuum, use a dishwasher,
cook, or drive. From one moment to the next, I went from loving and
gentle, to rigid and distant, to hysterical or hopeless, to childlike.
Some parts were very young ” they needed parents instead of a husband.
Some of them didn’t trust Bill at all, and refused to be in the same room
with him. Quite a few of my newly emerging alter-states were either too
young for a sexual relationship or were male ” which meant no sex at all!
Many times, when we did try to have sex, I had bizarre flashbacks.
Most were from decades of porn shoots that I’d been forced to partici-
pate in. One night, I saw a pig instead of Bill (I decided not to tell him
about that one). When the flashbacks got ridiculous, as porn often is,
I started poking fun at the grotesque memories instead of letting them
re-traumatize me.
Another problem developed when child alter-states emerged that
had been sexually tortured in the past. These parts still paired pain with
244
Unshackled
pleasure. They’d been conditioned to want rough and painful interactions
and had never experienced the gentle give-and-take of making love.
Although he was already monitoring me to make sure he didn’t inad-
vertently have sex with a child part, now he also had to ensure that he did-
n’t fall into the trap of being too rough at my request! This was making
our relationship very complicated ” he was more miserable every day.
Bill was especially alarmed by the parts that still compartmentalized
occult beliefs. He was afraid that they, like Dolly, would reject
Christianity and blaspheme God. Still overbearing about his fundamental-
ist Christian beliefs, Bill insisted that every part believe as he did. His
open hostility and rejection of my cult-conditioned alter-states made some
of the older ones want to go back to the Cobb County Aryan network,
where they believed they’d be accepted just as they were. Fortunately,
these urges were curbed by the intervention of wiser parts like Catalina,
Andreia, and Kate.
From the time my alter-states first emerged in late spring, 1990 until
the following March ” a period of ten months ” I documented a total of
fifty-seven parts. Each held unique beliefs, experiences, and personality
traits. And each part either journaled, drew pictures, and/or communicated
to me in writing through more mature alter-states I was co-conscious
with. Many of them were angry at me for not having accepted their exis-
tence before now. They were also angry that they’d suffered terribly,
while “host alter-state me” had escaped the traumatic experiences.
Some of them were so angry, they tried to torture me in ways that didn’t
leave noticeable scars. One of their favorite methods was to relentlessly
tweeze my hairs in hidden places until I bled or the wounds became
infected. Another was to use several vibrators on my genitals at one time
(torture/sex reenactment), leaving me in constant pain. 8
These parts were careful not to leave lasting scars, because Dad had
thoroughly conditioned them to believe if they were ever noticeably
wounded, they’d be put to death. 9
Even though Dad was dead, his threats still held great power over my
mind and life. Because of his past influence, I remained terrified of
surgery. I was certain that if I ever went under the knife, I’d be murdered.
Some of the alter-states that had emerged in Bethesda continued to
communicate with me at home. I was surprised to learn that some of
them had also found a way to repress traumatic memories. Their own
repressed memories were triggered by the most innocuous events. One
Alter-States
245
saw a flickering candle on television and immediately re-experienced
another horrifying ritual!
Dolly/Dreia remembered where part of her name came from. She
wrote that as a child, some of the occultists had repeatedly told her that
ritually murdered babies were “just dollies.” Later, while watching a
video about the Holocaust, I was stunned to learn that some Nazi war
criminals had called their murdered victims, “figuren” (dolls, in
German). 10
Little Kathy re-emerged and told me that as a very small child,
she’d been terrified of Dad’s staring eyes, and of his hands as they’d
poked through the wooden bars of the crib. She described what
I’d dreamed all my life: Dad often threw me up into the air, then lowered
his hands just above the floor to convince me that my body was about to
hit it full-force. That method bonded me closer to him. Although he was
the one who initially endangered me, in the end he was also the one who
rescued me from mortal danger-again and again.
Catalina shared that she had been my mental protector during “brain-
washing sessions” conducted by Dad in experimental settings. She wrote
that he’d closely watch her, “like playing chess. He would do something
over and over and over again (mental or physical torture) until I learned
not to show any reaction whatsoever, not even a muscle twitch. Then he
would use another technique.” She also recalled having been forced to sit
in a chair with a floor- length metal lamp shining strongly in her face.
“Could see nothing else. The room was black. I remember the light flash-
ing and accessing the very insides of me.”
Renee wrote that she’d watched Dad commit several daytime murders
of adult cult members in Pennsylvania. They were so gory and inhumane
that Renee was convinced nobody could save her from Dad. He was all-
powerful, not just at home, but even within the cult! Because he first
accused each victim of having told outsiders about cult activities, Renee
also believed she must never talk about what she’d witnessed.
Glenda, a teenaged part, wrote that she’d compartmentalized the
hopeless, depressed part of Renee. Glenda communicated that she didn’t
want to come out of the dark ” she wanted to stay there forever.
Younger Kathleen, age eight, wrote about a dungeon in a stone-
walled mansion that had been built on the side of Schuylkill mountain.
She described a sloped hallway beyond a hidden entryway in the wall of
an elegant old library with wooden, red leather-upholstered chairs. She
246
Unshackled
recalled the underground circular dungeon. Lit candles had been placed
in recessed hollows in the rough-hewn stone wall.
She wrote that the house was above an old cemetery, at a distance from
the other houses on the road. I’d had recurring nightmares about that
mansion, but when Younger Kathleen wrote about her vivid memories,
the full horror of it came to life.
Heather, a young adult alter-state, wrote that she’d helped Dad “and
a retired pediatrician and several others” to prepare several young boys
to be filmed in child porn at a high school in north Atlanta, at night. As
usual, Dad had a key to the building. She said Dad would summon her
there each time, over the phone. She wrote that on another occasion, he
placed a “huge wet Q-tip next to my nose and left me paralyzed on the
floor.” She watched helplessly, unable to intervene, as he raped a beloved
child on the floor next to her. Later he told her, smiling, that the
child would believe she hadn’t cared that the child had been raped. He
was right.
Ashley, age eight, had compartmentalized an unusual quantity of cult
memories. Dad had given her that name after triggering her out and forc-
ing her to watch him burn some of the cult victims’ bodies into ashes. 11
She held the memories of ritual events that had especially marked
my soul. She wrote about a “cave with a stone tunnel leading to it in
Pennsylvania.” In it, Dad had forced Ashley to get down on her hands
and knees, totally naked, setting a dog’s water dish in front of her. Dad
had placed a dog collar around her neck, with a chain attached to it that
went back into the cave. Ashley was allowed to look out the mouth of the
cave, but couldn’t leave ” the chain kept pulling her back. Dad had told
her that if she tried to leave, she would choke. Sure enough, when she
fought the chain, she choked as it cut into her neck. Dad said the chain
would always “tie her to the cult.”
In that same cave, Dad had forced Ashley to lie on her back on a low,
stone altar. She must have been drugged, because she felt no desire to get
up when she came into consciousness in that position. Her abdomen was
covered with blood. Dad told her that he’d performed surgery on her
stomach while she was asleep. He told her that a koala bear with
very sharp claws and a snow owl with a sharp beak and talons were now
inside it.
He said if the animals ever sensed that Ashley was thinking about
telling cult secrets to anyone, the animals would claw at her insides and
Alter-States
247
make her bleed to death. Dad convinced Ashley that even if someone
believed her, they wouldn’t be able to save her in time. Years later, dur-
ing phone calls, he often said the words “wet paint” ” symbolizing
human blood ” to reinforce Ashley’s secrecy.
On another occasion, Dad had told Ashley that a big, green, ugly, squat
“frog demon” lived inside her, and that the demon held her rage. Then
he had conditioned her to “let the demon out” by giving her a baby doll
and telling her to stab it with a knife. In an uncontrollable rage, Ashley
had stabbed it over and over. Although the killing wasn’t real, the
induced guilt was; she believed there was no hope for her, and was
convinced that she was irretrievably guilty.
Marisha, an adolescent alter- state, had also been forced to lie naked
on a stone altar. Dad and other cult members had ritualistically bound
her to it with ropes that he claimed were “magick” because they were
made from dried human intestines of other victims. He told Marisha
that, because the bonds had magical powers, she could never be released.
When she first emerged at home, because she still felt tied to the altar,
I had difficulty moving my hands and arms.
Cindy wrote about a “television or radio station” in downtown
Reading where Dad, Mom and other cult members had gathered on
Sunday afternoons for more trauma-based mind control sessions. She
wrote that, on one occasion, she had been bound and placed on the floor
while Dad had dumped a wicker basket of wriggling snakes onto her
torso. Cindy had thought she was going to be bitten and die from the
poison.
Tiger was an animal alter-state that I’d developed on my own. He
helped me to survive my fear of being bitten by snakes. I must have seen
on television that a tiger could kill a snake. Tiger embodied most of my
dignity and self-esteem, as well as great emotional pain. He was one of
the few alter-states that had felt powerful in Dad’s presence, although
Tiger hadn’t let Dad know of his existence. He had a flashback of Dad
holding out a very large snake, with the markings of a copperhead, issu-
ing me a direct order to hold it. Tiger had emerged, looking Dad in the
eye, and had staunchly refused to take the snake.
In some of the rituals near Reading, Dad had ordered me to kill babies
on a granite or marble stone altar, using an extremely sharp knife to cut
their carotid arteries. He’d then handed me an ornate silver chalice, into
which I was to drain their precious blood. Mixing their fresh blood with
248
Unshackled
opium powder and red wine, he’d ordered me and every other cult mem-
ber drink from the chalice.
Because I couldn’t stand what he was forcing me to do, I created an
alter-state named Blood that experienced and compartmentalized those
traumas. Blood’s heart broke every time she watched a baby’s eyes go
black, knowing that she was the last human the baby would see as it died.
Blood’s overwhelming sense of guilt made her dangerously suicidal
when she emerged at home. Full of pain and grief from having watched
so many precious infants die, she remained suicidal. Blood was never
allowed full control of the body outside of therapy, and was in too much
pain to try to fight for it. Hers was a living death.
Because adults had read nursery rhymes to me as a child, I developed
two alter- states based on the rhyme about the butcher, the baker, and the
candlestick maker. I created those parts after Blood. No one part of me
could cope with the full horror of killing babies, seeing their blood, and
being forced to dismember their sweet, soulless bodies.
Butcher emerged after Blood. Using Dad’s large knife, Butcher
learned to dismember the dead babies’ bodies, and eventually was able to
cut between their joints with ease. 13
Blood and Butcher were forced to witness and perform what no
human, let alone a child, should. (When I became an adult, these parts
were occasionally triggered out by professional handlers, to disfigure or
dismember a “target’s” body. These alter-states again protected me from
going insane from the horror.) 14
After Butcher finished his job, Candlestick Maker emerged and
watched as Dad and other adults rendered body parts that they’d thrown
into boiling water in a large black cauldron that hung inside a round-
topped, stone fireplace. After the liquid cooled, Dad removed the top
layer of fat and mixed it with melted wax to create a new batch of white
ritual candles. Candlestick Maker believed if he gave Dad too much
trouble, he might be the next dead candle donor. He also watched as the
victims’ bones were given to cult members’ dogs to chew on.
Not all alter-states developed during rituals. Melissa began in a large
stone public building in downtown Reading. The building had at least
one large wooden stage with big, heavy, dark colored drapes. I was taken
there in the daytime, on Saturdays. I was eight years old.
Each time, Dad instructed several male Caucasians to stand inside the
exits. Then he ordered a male street dweller, who he called a “bum,” to
Alter-States
249
stand on wooden stairs that led down from the stage. I stood above the
“bum” on the stage with Dad and other men from the cult as they silently
donned their black, hooded robes, which triggered tremendous rage
inside me-not only because of what they’d done to me in rituals, but also
because of what I’d seen them do to other children.
Triggered by the robes, I developed a new part, Melissa, that was able
to remember both the rituals and portions of my experiences in this big
building. 15
Knowing that Melissa couldn’t express her rage directly at the black-
robed men, Dad pointed at the “bum” and said, “Kill the bad man.” After
he told the man to “start running,” Dad then handed Melissa either a large
knife or a loaded handgun. He never ordered Melissa to go after more
than one “bad man” per training session.
Because I loved reading Sunday morning comic strips, I created a new
alter-state that split off from Melissa. Dick Tracy visualized himself
wearing a black fedora and overcoat as he chased after each man, fully
intending to end the bad man’s life. Each time he cornered the man, he
brutally killed him. (I think this happened because: the rage made me
unusually strong; the street people that Dad chose were probably weak-
ened by malnutrition and debilitating alcoholism; and the shock of being
attacked by an eight-year-old girl may have kept them from fighting back
until it was too late. Knowing Dad’s bag of tricks, he may also have
drugged them.) My Dick Tracey alter-state felt completely justified
because Dad had said they were bad men. This alter-state didn’t under-
stand that he probably, by proxy, was expressing Dad’s hidden rage
towards his own alcoholic father.
After Dick Tracey finished each “assignment,” he submerged into my
subconscious. After that, Dad-who always took off his black robe before
searching for me-found me on my knees, bent over the dead man’s
bloody body, not wanting to believe I’d just killed the poor soul.
Ever alert for the tiniest changes in my body, voice, and behaviors,
Dad recognized that I’d created a third new alter-state, a young child
part that grieved each victim’s death. He pointed to the spreading red
blotches on the victim’s clothing and said, “Look at the pretty red
flower.” The hypnotic suggestion worked because seeing a pretty flower
was preferable to seeing human blood.
(Several professional handlers used this same technique when I was an
adult. They would tell me to “look at the pretty red flower” after a black
250
Unshackled
op alter-state had obeyed instructions to shoot a man. I suspect if they
hadn’t said it, I might have turned the gun on myself.)
Teenaged Gloria held my grief over a fetus that Dad had forced me
to abort and then ingest during a ritual, when I was a teenager. She
held other memories, too. She was the female I had seen in the bath-
room mirror in recurring childhood nightmares. During each of those
dreams, I was unable to cover my ears or turn away as she screamed.
I’ve never forgotten waking up from these nightmares, drenched with
sweat, praying that I wouldn’t see the screaming lady again in my
sleep.
When Gloria drew pictures of her experiences in my sketch pad, I
finally learned why she had screamed in the nightmares. Dad had bound
her to a wooden cross and had vaginally tortured her with a cattle prod.
Gloria seemed to compartmentalize my blackest rage and my strongest
memories of physical pain.
A child part that Dad had named Margaret was my only fully anal-
gesic alter-state. Because she’d been created through torture paired with
hypnosis, she was able to block out all physical pain. Margaret had
stopped developing, mentally and emotionally, at the age of nine.
One day at home, Margaret proved to me that she could feel no pain if
injured. She took control of the body while I watched (at those times,
I visualized my body as a vehicle; the dominant alter-state “drove” while
I observed from the “back seat”). She pushed a fairly large sewing needle
through the web of skin between my left thumb and index finger. As long
as she had control of the body and I just watched, I felt no pain at all;
neither did she. When she receded and I regained full control of the body,
however, I felt the pain. I was in awe.
Margaret drew several pictures of childhood torture sessions. She
wrote about a gray-haired man she’d known as a “pain giver.” He had
spoken kindly to her while he’d done the most awful things. His gentle
voice and demeanor had been crucial in helping Margaret to dissociate
completely from the pain he’d inflicted. By focusing on his voice, she
totally blocked out what he did to the body.
In one picture, Margaret drew a picture of him holding the flame of a lit
candle under my left arm’s soft flesh. She wrote, “Old Man Gray har [sic]
likes me.” The cognitive dissonance created by what he was doing, as
opposed to his presenting himself as a caring person, was mind- splitting.
Suppressing her fear and horror, Margaret emotionally attached to the
Alter-States
251
torturer. He was much kinder in his face and voice than Dad had
ever been.
During another “test,” Margaret noted that Dad seemed fascinated as
he stood silently, watching. First, the older man threw a live cat on a bed
of nails that were affixed to a large wooden board that had been set on
the floor, the points of the long nails sticking straight up. The cat
screeched loudly as it scrambled off, bleeding. Then the older man told
Margaret to lie on her back. When she obeyed, she felt no pain. As he
examined her back afterwards, he said, “Very impressive,” and com-
mented on the absence of blood. Dad seemed pleased, which added to
Margaret’s sense of pride.
The older sadist’s final act was to dislocate all the fingers on one of my
hands. Again, Margaret felt nothing. The torturer popped each digit back
into place, telling Margaret that she had “passed the test.” Again she felt
proud.
The ability to block out pain when injured, and to trance so that I
didn’t bleed, was crucial when I was sent into dangerous situations as an
adult. I was made to believe that if I was disabled by any injury, my han-
dlers would kill me. Since I wanted to stay alive, I tranced to stop any
bleeding. I didn’t want them to notice an injury and kill me! 16
A sweet-tempered teenaged part that Dad had perversely named Evil
had been forced to participate in the most depraved rituals. Dad had con-
vinced her that she belonged in a cage because she was too evil to ever come
out. Evil had great difficulty relating to other humans. I saved both of us
from her hopelessness by reversing her name and giving her a new
purpose: “Live.”
Tonya had compartmentalized most of Mom’s sexual abuse at home
and at rituals. She also remembered that she’d been orally raped,
twice, by my only close childhood friend’s oldest sister in their home.
Although Tonya had felt guilty because of the physical pleasure, she’d
refused to let the older girl do it a third time. Forlorn Tonya journaled
that she’d “just wanted to be left alone to play” with my Ken and
Barbie dolls.
Maria, an adult alter-state, wrote that when she was young, she’d
been sent to “special classes” to learn how to dismember bodies. She
wrote about a black liquid that had been poured into the stomach cavities
by an adult male trainer. She’d been given black gloves with a red border
around the wrists, and had used a special set of surgical tools kept in a
252
Unshackled
black velvet-lined case. She wrote that she’d only emerged to dismember
bodies after the victims were dead. She’d used “precise, scientific think-
ing and over-awareness of colors and artistic patterns of the bodies as
coping mechanisms.” She had no noticeable emotions.
Roddy, a male adult alter-state, also emerged with no emotions. Like
Maria, he was very logical and scientific-minded. (I suspect these parts
internalized some of Dad’s personality traits.)
In my journal, Roddy wrote that Dad had ordered him to help with
the disposal of the remains of murdered infants in Atlanta. He wrote
that some of their body parts had been “pickled” in formaldehyde
in glass jars, to be sold on the local black market to “med students
from Emory University.” He wrote that he and Dad had put other remains
in garbage bags, then in large, white plastic paint buckets filled with
moth balls, before dropping them off on the way home in dumpsters
behind commercial buildings. They used a different dumpster for each
drop-off. Dad made Roddy wear surgical gloves to avoid leaving any
fingerprints.
After Roddy shared these ghoulish memories with me, the guilt hit
hard. He was in such anguish, he might have suicided, had not other adult
alter- states prevented him from taking full control of the body.
I was happier to discover a core alter-state named Kathleen Ann. She
wanted to talk about how Dad had tried, at home, to touch her and do
things to her that she knew weren’t right. She had hidden from him as
much as she could, while playing with her dolls.
She remembered when two strange boys had lived with us in our rental
home in Laureldale, although she couldn’t remember how long they were
there. She told my therapist that the older boy had blond hair and was
“old enough” to have a box that contained “pencils and pins.” She liked
that boy, but noticed he was reluctant to talk about his parents. She wrote
that she didn’t know why the boys had stayed with us, and added that no
one talked about them after they left.
She shared another memory, again in therapy. One day, in the kitchen
in Laureldale, she’d tried to reach for a cup perched atop a rack of dishes
on the kitchen counter. She was terrified when the rack unexpectedly
teeter- tottered on the edge of the countertop. She tried to hold it up
with her little arms, but it was too heavy. As her shaking arms gave
way, the dishes crashed to the floor. Mom entered the kitchen, saw the
Alter-States
253
mess, and grabbed a broom to sweep it up. Surprised that Mom didn’t hit
her with it, a wave of relief washed over the small child. That wasn’t the
end, though:
Then Dad came in there and told me to go to my room. I had my
very own bedroom. It was dark. I sat on the bed and waited.
When I heard his big feet coming up the steps I peed on the
bed. When he walked in the room and saw the dark wet on my
bed, he got really angry and grabbed my arm and threw me
against the far wall across the room. Then he grabbed all the
sheets and pulled them off the bed. He told me to go in the
closet. I was very upset because my panties were wet and cold.
I sat in the closet and he shut the door. Then I heard Mom come
into the room. She said something and I heard a slap. It
sounded like she slapped him. I got real scared for her. I opened
the door a peek to see if there was anything maybe I could do
to help her fight him. I saw him throw her down on the floor.
Her head hit it real hard. Then I saw him [rape] her. She got
real soft after he did that and she didn ‘t fight him anymore. He
told her to make the bed and she did. They both forgot about
me. I sat probably a couple of hours until suppertime. I made
TV shows on the door. Lots of Captain Kangaroo. Finally
mommy came to the closet and opened the door and asked what
I was doing in there, silly, and why were my pants wet. She took
me into the bathroom and washed me and changed my clothes
like I was wrong and nothing had ever happened.
Kathleen Ann communicated in a separate drawing that she had gone
completely “under” at the age of four. A new host alter- state named
Kathleen had split off from her that day, as Kathleen Ann had walked up
a large dirt hill to a daytime pagan family ritual where she knew-from past
experience-“bad things” were going to happen. 17 That particular day, she’d
decided that she just couldn’t take any more. For the next thirty-two years,
she’d remained hidden inside, encased and protected by other alter-states.
A child part called Baby was one of a cluster of “home” alter-states
that I seemed to create on my own. Baby had stopped developing,
mentally and emotionally, at the age of ten. She explained that Dad
254
Unshackled
had often called her a “cry-baby.” She was terribly afraid of sudden
noises and movements, and anything else that seemed inexplicable. She
was petrified with fear when she turned a light switch to the “on” posi-
tion at night, but the light didn’t come on. She was the alter-state that had
sleepwalked at night. She’d enjoyed spending time with my cat, Snoopy,
and our family dog, Lassie, although she’d hated it when the pets fought.
Fatty, an adolescent part, had internalized that name because Dad had
often called me “Fatty.” This part almost always hid in our house in Reiffton
with a good book and a paper napkin full of food. Mom had abused her, ver-
bally and physically, when Dad was away at work. She wrote: “Mom would
drink and get into a rage. I tried to win her approval and affection by clean-
ing the house and ironing. It never worked. I was afraid of her when she
pulled out her bottle from one of the top kitchen cabinets. I remember
having to iron all of the family’s bed sheets.” This is the only alter-state,
to-date, that reported seeing Mom secretively drink liquor at home while
Dad was away. She also reported that Mom often forced me to put my hand
on the ironing board, and then Mom touched it with the scalding hot iron,
telling Dad later (if he asked) that I’d done it to myself. 18
Jennifer’s mental and emotional development had been arrested at
age 14. She’d compartmentalized a memory of having been brutally
sodomized by Dad after we’d moved to Maryland. Showing rare spirit,
she’d physically fought against him. She had desperately wanted to live
a normal life and enjoy normal relationships with kids her own age.
Marcey, a child alter-state, usually emerged when I was sick and
needed to rest. She visualized herself wearing a white nurse’s uniform
and cap. She tried to protect me by taking the brunt of the abuse
whenever people took advantage of my illnesses and temporary lack of
strength. When she emerged at home this time, I had the flu. She
mentally “stood guard” and wouldn’t allow Bill to talk to me until after
I’d slept soundly.
Andreia remembered another terrible childhood memory and drew
four sequential pictures of it. I was about six years old. It was a warm
day; the grass was green and Andreia was clad in blue shorts and a red,
short-sleeved T-shirt. At first, she stood near Dad and several other male
cult members in a cemetery. She clearly felt helpless because in the first
picture, in which she stood next to a deep dirt hole holding an unearthed
coffin, she didn’t draw her legs or feet. She wrote, “They made me stand
beside the coffin they put the dirt on the black cloth.”
Alter-States
255
In the second picture, she was lying on her back inside the open
coffin, down in the hole. She drew her legs, but her hands and feet were
still missing-signifying that she’d been unable to run or fight against
the men.
She wrote, “They take the lady [fresh corpse] out and make me lay in the
coffin and shut it. I pretend I am dead then they open it and put her back in
on top of me. I will not draw that she has no head. This is just a bad dream.
I will wake up soon. She has juices come out of her neck, they get on my
face and hair and top. Bad Bad Bad. I am dead. No more bad things.”
The memory of the “juices” was, by far, the most gruesome part of the
entire memory. It was beyond any horror I’d previously relived. Because
I couldn’t stand the physical sensations and visual flashbacks, I called
Bethesda and asked one of the nurses for help. She talked to Andreia and
asked her to draw a closed coffin. On that page, Andreia wrote: “The lady
told me to close my memory until I can see the doctor. Coffin U R Locked
until I say so!”
Exactly one week after the memory first emerged, Andreia met with
the therapist in his office. Having a supportive listener helped Andreia,
tears and snot flowing, to survive the memory of the decapitated woman
lying atop her, crashing her to where she could barely breathe.
At home that night, she drew a picture of the open coffin, with Andreia
lying beneath the decapitated body that still wore a dress. Because young
child Andreia was now blending and sharing information with me, and
me with her, she now used grown-up words to explain the logic that had
kept her sane: “Her body was there but her soul was gone. My body was
there and my soul was still there too. She was dead but I was alive. Not
the same! Who was she? Was she somebody important to them? What
was the purpose in them doing this?”
Underneath the picture, she wrote: “I got gooey stuff-slimy-on my
face and hair and shirt. They took me to [a female cult member’s] house.
She made me take a shower and she washed my clothes so no one would
ever know.” 19
In this journal entry, Andreia seemed to be describing the trauma that
had initially created her. Because her personality was like mine, and
because she didn’t identify herself by a new name during that horror, Dad
hadn’t realized that she wasn’t the host alter-state. I believe this is why
Andreia was able to stay hidden from Dad for decades, conserving my
sense of innate goodness and my ability to love.
256
Unshackled
I was most surprised by the emergence of an alter-state named Lisa.
Mentally and emotionally, she was more than thirty years old. She
explained that she’d usually been conscious and in control at home as an
adult, rarely allowing me to emerge away from work. She’d protected me
from what she still perceived as Albert’s “insanity.” She’d also taken on
the responsibility of enduring abusive and demeaning sex with him that
no part of me had enjoyed.
Since 1981, many more alter-states and personality fragments-hun-
dreds upon hundreds-shared their unique experiences with me. For a
while, I tried to document each one, but after several years, I grew
overwhelmed. There were so many, I didn’t think I could ever experience
integration! I realized if I was going to stay positive about my recovery,
I needed to stop counting them.
Internal Cooperation
Although my personality and soul had been brutally splintered into
many “pieces,” I’d nevertheless started out as one person with one body
and one mind like everyone else. Now, I prefer to visualize each alter-
state as having been a glob of experience that was stored in one or more
areas of my brain. I was not those alter-states before I became co-conscious
with them; nor were they me. I did not yet have access to these parts of
my brain.
That’s why, when they did certain activities, I did not consciously
participate; nor did the majority of them experience my life at home, at
church, and at work. “My” experiences as the primary host alter-state had
been stored in areas of my brain that were not yet accessible to them. And
those alter-states had been stored in parts of my brain that were not yet
accessible to me.
As pieces and fragments of my shattered personality emerged and
communicated to me through diaries, drawings and more, new neuron
and chemical paths bridged the gaps between where they were stored in
my brain, and where “I” was stored. Many times, when I connected with
an emerging part for the first time, I had a strong headache behind my
forehead. Sometimes it went all through my head and down into the back
of my neck.
Alter-States
257
Although some scientists claim that we are unable to feel our brains,
I disagree. When I participated in therapeutic EEG biofeedback sessions,
I was able to feel changes in pressure in different sections of my brain
as I shifted from my Beta brainwaves to Alpha, and so on. That experi-
ence explained why, when some alter-states emerged, they described
themselves as being up or to the right or left, or down a little. I believe
those alter-states were describing where, in my brain, they could be
found.
As I became more familiar with my emerging alter-states, and they
with me, we became co-conscious and shared our information and
knowledge with each other. Over time, I realized I was only one part of
the original whole-a large piece, but just a part, nonetheless. I didn’t
have sufficient strength to take on all their traumas, but I could lend my
knowledge and blend with them so that, as a more cohesive whole, we’d
amass enough strength and understanding to successfully cope with
future memories and attached emotions.
Notes
1. Although the codependency group helped me to be more assertive and to set and
maintain stronger and healthier boundaries with others, I eventually terminated my
membership in it and several other support groups. Even in groups designed for
survivors of child abuse, I felt lonely and disconnected because my memories were
too horrific to share.
2. Later, I experienced audio flashbacks. Like visual flashbacks, they were always
unexpected. As an example, I might be working outside in the garden and suddenly
hear one or two words. It wasn’t as if they’d necessarily been addressed to me in the
past; it was more like I had been in the same room when I’d heard that person speak.
3. I wasn’t yet aware that not knowing the time frame or physical location of a
remembered event is common among dissociated trauma survivors. At the time,
I felt pressured to give a date for the event, even though I wasn’t certain of that
date. Now, I feel comfortable in stating that it must have occurred in either 1963 or
1964, because that’s when the World’s Fair was in New York City.
4. Being suicidal and committing suicide are two different things for me, although
they can get way too close together when the emotional pain is at its worst.
Because I’ve seen people killed via faked suicides, suicide is not an option for me.
If a memory is absolutely unbearable and I have no safe way to get through it
258
Unshackled
at home, I will call my psychiatrist and ask to check into a hospital so that I can
survive it.
5. At that time, many therapists believed that a person was capable of having more
than one full personality (hence, multiple personalities). In 1994, the APA pub-
lished a more accurate diagnosis, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in its
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSMIV).
The symptoms of DID are:
¢ The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states;
¢ At least two . . . recurrently take control of the person’s behavior;
¢ Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be
explained by ordinary forgetfulness;
¢ The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effect of a
substance … or a general medical condition. (“Psych Central 1”)
6. One might wonder if I’d inadvertently internalized other patients’ traumatic
memories. In reality, most hospitalized trauma survivors are so discomfited by
their memories, they prefer not to discuss them-not even in group therapy. In
group therapy sessions, I spent most of my time learning how to cope with my
alter-states and unfamiliar emotions. Reliving horrific memories in individual
therapy was exhausting and very painful. For that reason, when we socialized,
we talked about light subjects and were careful not to trigger each other’s
memories. I have found this to be equally true at other specialized hospital units
for trauma survivors.
7. I’ve been amazed by the number of recovering ritual abuse and mind-control
survivors who have contacted me, who had either grown up in that part of
Pennsylvania or had moved there as active victims when they became adults.
8. They finally stopped when a therapist explained to them that if they continued to
do this, they might damage the nerves in my genitals, and then no one would be
able to enjoy sex anymore!
9. This was a problem for me when my torture and op memories emerged, because
I had no noticeable marks or scars to verify those memories. I envied survivors who
had proofs on their bodies. I believe that Dad preferred using electricity, drowning,
sensory deprivation, mental torture, and similar methods to split my mind because
they left little to no evidence. Not having scars doesn’t mean that one wasn’t
tortured. Graessner, et al wrote:
Altogether, there are several forms of torture that are either hard to
prove or can only be established based on a patient’s complete
presentation. One should not, however, make the error of dismissing a
particular form of torture and its consequences simply because one has
not heard of it before or has run into extreme difficulty explaining it.
Torturers vary their methods, and our proofs inevitably lag behind. This
Alter-States
259
is especially true for those states that are increasingly replacing physi-
cal torture with refined forms of psychological torture, (pp. 195-196)
10. After I’d begun to remember Dad’s Nazi affiliations, I was deeply shaken when, on
the Internet, I found a set of notes about the Holocaust film, Shoah. Claude
Lanzmann wrote: “Itzhak Dugin-another survivor of Vilna-told of being forced to dig
up the buried bodies with just his hands in order to burn them. When the last mass
grave was opened he recognized his whole family. Was forced to refer to the corpses
as ‘puppets’ or ‘dolls’ (Figuren) or ‘rags’ (Schmattes)” (Shoah 1)
11. Dad sometimes jokingly called the resulting sound, “snap, crackle and pop.”
He would reinforce the horror the next morning at our breakfast table by
pouring milk on our bowls of Rice Krispies cereal, grinning as he watched me lis-
ten to the too-familiar sounds, so tranced, I couldn’t lift my spoon from
the table.
12. Even when I was an adult, Dad sent me items, such as stuffed animals, that
represented snow owls and koala bears.
13. Every week, for years, I had a powerful compulsion-to buy a whole chicken at the
grocery store and cut it into pieces. I couldn’t buy already-cut chicken; I had to
cut it apart myself. When I realized it was a ritual reenactment, I didn’t have the
compulsion anymore.
14. When the ritual memories emerged, my biggest question was, how could my
father and his cult associates have done such gory and horrifying things to other
humans without having nightmares and flashbacks? Why was I so traumatized that
I tranced and split off the memories, but they didn’t? Anna C. Salter, Ph.D.
explained why:
The rest of us blink when we’re startled in the middle of viewing some-
thing unpleasant. Why is that? Who knows? But maybe the aversive-
ness of something unpleasant puts our nervous system on red alert.
Being tense already, it reacts more when startled. Nothing like that
happens to psychopaths. Landscapes. Burn victims. There’s not much
difference from their point of view. (pg. 9)
15. In April, 1998 a contact near Reading, PA did some investigatory work for me. She
wrote:
I wanted to see if the old abandoned movie theatre in Reading on
Sixth St. was still standing so I took a drive over there and found that
it is. It’s a very large building and it sits right up close against the
sidewalk. Sixth St. is right in the middle of town.
I believe this may have been the building where I was forced to endure my kill
training as a child. Unfortunately, because I have remembered many traumas that
260
Unshackled
I suffered at the hands of criminals living in or near Reading, I choose not to return
to that area.
16. When I first became co-conscious with Margaret, I had great difficulty accepting
her memories. How was it possible that she had felt no pain, when tortured? And
how could she have lain on a bed of sharp nails and not bled, although the cat did?
Carla Emery explained this phenomenon:
Pain can be blocked by suggestion. Hypnosis enables people to endure
more pain than otherwise would be possible. The deeper the trance, the
more pain can be endured. Because hypnotic anesthesia is of psycho-
logical origin, numbing patterns induced by suggestion are what the
subject thinks they should be, rather than correct nerve anatomy . . .
Persons I have known, whose dental work was done under hypnosis, were
pleased with how well suggestion overcame fear, pain, and bleeding,
(pp. 217-218)
17. Although Dad chose to practice a combined form of Nazi Teutonic Paganism (as
will be discussed in a later chapter) mixed with British and American Satanism and
Luciferian practices, several of his older relatives, who publicly attended Christian
churches, adhered to their family-generational Druid religion. For this reason, I-as
the oldest child on both sides of my family-was expected not only to learn and par-
ticipate in Dad’s form of occultism; I was also expected to learn and perpetuate the
family’s old-world Pagan practices. This terrible burden increased my
dissociation.
18. Fatty and other parts shared that, like with Dad, being alone in the house with Mom
usually meant being sexually assaulted, tortured, or both. Another of Mom’s
favorite ways of torturing me was to wound me with straight pins and needles from
her sewing kits because they left tiny, hard-to-notice marks. For this reason, I still
have great difficulty motivating myself to mend our clothes.
19. When I remembered the coffin trauma, I hadn’t yet read any occult literature.
(I avoided such materials, so that my ritual memories would be untainted.) Because
this was straight memory, I really thought Dad had ritually traumatized me out
of his insanity. Then I received information from a researcher who indicated
that the “occult tradition of initiation involving the ritual passage through death
had occurred as far back as the Egyptian Book of the Dead.” The researcher
wrote:
The German Brotherhood of Death Society that Hitler belonged to was
the Thule Society. Their coffin rituals are very similar to those Ron
Rosenbaum describes in his article, “The Last Secrets of Skull and
Bones.” In the initiation ceremonies of this highly secretive occult
organization that boasts several United States Presidents, including
Alter-States
261
George Bush Sr., new members “lay [sic] naked in coffins and tell their
deepest and darkest sexual secrets as part of their initiation.” (pg. 85)
Aleister Crowley, in The Ritual of Passing Through the Tuat, described
the initiation ceremony into the Order of Thelema: “The candidate then
undresses; and is clad in the shroud of a corpse. His feet and hands are
wrapped closely, his mouth is stopped, and his eyes are blindfolded.
He is then placed in the coffin. The officer approaches, now that the
coffin has been carried into the darkened temple. He stops with a
napkin dipped in the consecrated water the nostrils of the candidate,
much distressing him.” Anton LaVey wrote in The Satanic Rituals:
Companion To The Satanic Bible: “The ceremony of rebirth takes
place in a large coffin. This is similar to the coffin symbolism that . . .
is found in most lodge rituals.” (pg. 57)
X d.v,-|- 4-* tiu** (< ¢*« ANDREIA - CONTEMPLATING SUICIDE, 6/27/90 CATALINA-CHANNELING LITTLE KATHY'S RAGE, 6/28/90 "1>»M W*./ MH^iy,
*â– > ¢>- “talk i’| ”xtk..
i
CATALINA AND ANDREIA – DAD BEAT MAN TO DEATH, 6/28/90
ANDREIA – MY RAINBOW PROGRAMMING, 7/2/90
to < a k / ^0 fRu.««i DOLLY/DREIA - RITUALISTIC "ENERGY TRANSFERS", 7/2/90. GROUP OF CHILD ALTER-STATES AS DIAGRAMMED BY A CHILD PART, SUMMER 1990 RENEE - HER PART OF THE MEMORY OF DAD RITUALLY MURDERING A FEMALE CULT MEMBER, 7/90 (SEE 4/31/90) GLORIA - RECURRING CHILDHOOD NIGHTMARE, 8/17/90 V\i«^ OV% .V MA W>C«wj louA Cry
T t*w – ” WW W#W * J” 1 *^ *”
^ a.A ‘ 1 ~* *
MARGARET – BED OF NAILS, 8/23/9
TORTURED BY FIRE, 8/23/90
KATHY – AGE 4, SPLIT OFF NEW PART (KATHLEEN), 1/4/91
MELISSA – AGE 8, SPLIT-OFF DICK TRACEY ALTER-STATE, 8/12/90
MARLA – WAS TAUGHT HOW TO CUT A BODY AND REMOVE ORGANS;
ANNIE SHARED CONSCIOUSNESS
Traumatic Memories
Dr. R
Because alter-states and memories continued to emerge after I’d
returned from Denver, Dr. T referred me to an associate in Atlanta who had
some understanding of MPD. I first consulted with Dr. R in June, 1990.
The psychiatrist was intelligent and surprisingly gentle. I was impressed by
the many framed, black and white photos that he’d hung on the walls of his
large, ornate room where he conducted our therapy sessions.
Although we met three times a week, there was never enough time for
all of my emerging alter-states to share their experiences with him. I con-
tinued to process most of my memories at home, letting the parts draw
pictures or write their memories in my journals.
After I’d met with Dr. R for about six months, he asked if it were
possible that my memories were fantasy. At home that night, a child part
that had opened up to him felt so painfully betrayed that she prepared to
swallow all the pills in the house. As usual, Catalina took temporary
control of the body and called Dr. R to explain the situation. Dr. R apol-
ogized to both alter-states, and said he’d work harder on listening to them
without judging. 1
Although I felt frightened and angry when I learned that I could have
died that night, I now believe that what I’d told Dr. R about my past had
probably been so horrific, his gentle soul couldn’t deal with it.
Dr.X
In the late spring of 1991, several black op parts emerged. Full of
emotional pain, they were dangerously suicidal. To stay alive, I needed
to remain in a locked hospital unit while working with them. A contact
told me about Dr. X, a psychiatrist who practiced in Dallas, Texas. She
said that Dr. X was familiar with my mental programming, and advised
me to check into his dissociative disorders psychiatric unit at Bedford
Meadows Hospital, where she said I would receive specialized help.
277
278
Unshackled
When I told Dr. R that I wanted to go to that hospital, he said I should
remain in Atlanta to work through my memories with Dr. R on an outpatient
basis. When I disagreed, we had a falling-out. I never talked to him again.
Unhappy about traveling to Texas to enter another locked psych ward
for God only knew how long, I kept reminding myself of a saying I’d
learned at Crossroads: “The truth shall set you free, but first it shall make
you miserable.” 2
When I checked into Bedford Meadows, Dr. X was away on vacation.
His unit was tiny, and there wasn’t enough staff to meet clients’ basic
needs. When some of the female clients tried to kill themselves, I and other
clients had to protect them from self-injury with pillows, our bodies, and
whatever else was available.
One young female constantly banged large dents in the corridor walls
with her forehead. Anytime we heard thuds, we rushed to her and placed
our pillows between her head and the wall. An older female repeatedly
wrapped a telephone wire tightly around her neck, grinning. Her face
turned gray-purple and her eyes bulged each time she fought our
attempts to loosen it-still grinning. A thin, elderly female nearly died
when she hung herself in her shared bedroom.
I was traumatized from witnessing one suicide attempt after another.
I still joke that I should have been paid for the work I did that first week
as a “staff member.” Because I felt unsafe, I wasn’t able to start working
on my own reasons for being there.
Exhausted one day, I lay on my back on a sofa in the tiny lounge
beyond the locked nurses’ station. Suddenly and without warning, I
experienced a powerful, full-body abreaction. My body tensed all over
and I screamed involuntarily. Every muscle seemed to either tense or
lengthen-it was hard to tell-and I couldn’t stop the convulsions.
Each time another abreaction started, I pushed my face into a pillow
to mute my screams. A soft-spoken, older female patient sat on the sofa
and stayed with me through two days of convulsions. She stroked my
hair and spoke soothingly until each abreaction ended. The seemingly
unending onslaught frightened me, and yet neither of the unit’s two
nurses ever asked if I needed help. I was frightened because I didn’t
understand what these abreactions were about, and I didn’t know if
they’d recur (after the second day, they didn’t). 3
After a week, Dr. X returned to the unit. The psychiatrist’s presence
was like oil on troubled waters. He reminded me of a tall, thin Svengali.
Traumatic Memories
279
His dark, commanding eyes and voice put clients into an immediate
trance; they instantly stopped acting out. That amazed me.
Because the small unit and insufficient personnel didn’t meet our
needs, Dr. X convinced all of us to transfer to Charter-Grapevine, a
nearby hospital. I decided that if Dr. X moved to the other hospital, I
would go with him.
As we boarded several white Charter-Grapevine vans in
Bedford-Meadows’ parking lot, Dr. X excitedly boasted that the incident
would be reported in professional journals. He said it was the first time
in history that an entire psychiatric unit had transferred in protest from
one hospital to another. I felt empowered by the idea that I had participated
in such an event.
Charter-Grapevine
During one of our first group therapy sessions in the new dissociative
disorders unit at Charter-Grapevine, Dr. X said that he’d secretly set it
up during his vacation. Then he told us to map our internal systems of
alter-states on large pieces of paper and bring our maps to the next
session. He didn’t suggest any specifics.
Alone in my shared bedroom, I put myself into a trance so knowledge-
able alter-states could emerge and draw the map. Within hours, they’d used
pastel pens to create a fairly elaborate, large diagram of different groups of
alter-states that had specific programmed functions. The primary groups,
or systems, were code-named Alpha, Beta, Delta, Theta and Omicron.
When I compared my diagram to others’ at the next group session, I was
disappointed. I found no similarities in their maps, and didn’t under-
stand-yet-that my map was encoded. I feared that it was pure gibberish.
After the session, I went back to the bedroom, relaxed, and ceded con-
trol to the parts that had drawn it, asking them to please explain it to me.
When I regained consciousness, I learned that an unfamiliar adult male
alter-state had emerged. Emotionless, he had told a nurse sitting behind
a large counter that he could scan the nurse’s station and quickly identify
twelve items to kill the staff with.
The nurse had handled the situation well by listening without showing
any fear or anger. She later told me that she’d recognized that the alter-
state had tried to communicate, in an awkward way, what he’d been
trained to do.
280
Unshackled
The next day, another male adult part emerged. He believed that he must
kill “the body” because other parts were close to telling secrets to the staff.
He was frustrated when he couldn’t find a television antenna to pierce
my heart-the unit had cable hookup. Since he’d been programmed to
suicide in only that way, he was then free to talk to the staff and to share
his memories with me.
Lee, a tall, young blond technician, was especially gentle and helpful
during my stay. He and another male technician spent a lot of time talking
and bonding with my male, black op trained alter-states. They helped those
parts to accept my brand of morality, and to discover new reasons to live.
Lee made a deal with several of them: if they sensed that a new part
was emerging that could be dangerous to “the body” or to others, coop-
erative alter-states would alert the staff, walk willingly into the quiet
room, and be put in leather restraints on a padded table. That way, the
staff could talk to potentially violent alter-states in safety. Most of my
op-trained alter-states first emerged in those restraints.
Being put in restraints had a downside, however. It re-traumatized
alter-states that had previously been put in restraints by perpetrators to be
drugged, electro- shocked, and more.
I’m glad that none of my alter-states attacked staff members.
I watched as other patients, especially females, physically assaulted and
injured some of the workers-especially males. Too many times, staff
members came to work with casts on their arms, or limping, or with
broken fingers.
Dr. X’s hand-picked, personally trained staff had been careful to
search all my belongings. They’d removed all metal and glass
objects-“sharps”-that I could have used to harm myself or others. Even
spiral bound notebooks were not allowed.
Several emerging alter-states searched for light bulbs they could break
and use to cut my veins, but the bulbs were encased in metal cages.
Because no bars had been installed in the clothes closets, they couldn’t
hang themselves. Even the mirror in my vanity case had been removed.
The search continued.
One day, a female child alter- state emerged in the bedroom while my
roommates socialized in the day room down the hall. Sensing she was in
a place where secrets might be told, she believed she must kill the body.
She dismantled my wind-up alarm clock and prepared to slice my wrists
by using one of the clock’s metal hands.
Traumatic Memories
281
Susan, my young female therapist, unexpectedly entered the bedroom.
As the black-haired woman introduced herself to the child part, who
refused to speak, she asked what the child part was hiding in her hand.
Unable to lie, she showed Susan the metal objects. Susan praised the
child part for being so clever, and obtained the clock and metal pieces
without a struggle.
Several days later, another child part emerged and discovered she
could cut my flesh with the sharp point of folded foil from containers of
orange juice in the unit’s refrigerator. She tried to cut my exposed veins
in my wrists and inner elbows. Fortunately, the foil wasn’t sharp or
strong enough. When the child part realized she wouldn’t succeed, she
receded. Catalina took over and cried from pain and emotional shock as
she showed a nurse the throbbing gouges. The nurse murmured sooth-
ingly as she applied small bandages; she was used to seeing self-injuries.
When I emerged after that incident, I realized that some of my alter-
states seriously wanted to successfully suicide. I feared for my life and
deeply resented their existence.
About a week later, an adult female op-trained alter- state gained
full control. For some reason, she believed that an airline ticket waited
for her at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, across the expressway from the
hospital. At dusk, she stood on the unit’s open-air, concrete patio until the
other clients had all gone inside to watch television. When she silently
ascended the wooden fence that surrounded the patio, the flimsy lattice-
work atop it cracked loudly. She receded and I emerged to find myself
flopped over the top of the fence, unable to move in either direction with-
out making a lot of noise.
Lee sprinted outside to the opposite side of the fence to prevent me
from running away. Several nurses came out onto the patio and gently
coaxed me down, then escorted me inside as I cried and shook. I was so
embarrassed-what else were these parts capable of? And what might
have happened to me at that airport?
Witch Hunt
Dr. X and his staff made a crucial mistake that slowed down my recov-
ery process for several years. They constantly encouraged me and other
patients to focus on “demons” and “demonic ties” that they said lurked
282
Unshackled
within our bodies. They instructed us to mentally review every occult
ritual that we could remember. They told us to pray and break every
demonic tie imaginable, including any ties from our past that were cre-
ated during sexual interactions-even from being raped!
Trusting they had information I didn’t, I obeyed. Some of my newly
emerging adult parts grew alarmed. They had risked death to divulge
important information about how they had been programmed to per-
form black ops-especially for the CIA. And yet, I was now being told
to focus on invisible ties from occult rituals and sexual interactions !
Because I was a member of a Pentecostal church, I believed Dr. X
when he repeatedly insisted that most of our alter-states were demonic
introjects (spiritual invaders). He gave each of us a paperback book writ-
ten by his colleague, Dr. James Friesen, who seemed to believe the same.
One evening, we sat in the day room as Dr. X played a videotape about
trauma survivor Truddi Chase, author of When Rabbit Howls. Dr. X told
us Ms. Chase had “failed to integrate” because she hadn’t prayed away
her hundreds of demons that, he said, were still posing as alter-states. 4
In individual sessions and in group therapy, we were encouraged to
visualize ourselves pouring the “blood of Jesus” on internal child alter-
states to chase away lurking demons. This definitely was not good for
me, mentally. Dr. X also told us to visualize placing alter-states in cages
or soundproof rooms, so that the few remaining “true” alter-states
couldn’t hear the lies of the “demons,” or their screams, in our minds.
Again this wasn’t good for me, but I did it, believing that Dr. X knew
what was best.
In group therapy, he told us to prayerfully ask Jesus and angels to enter
our bodies to oust the remaining demons. This especially bothered me
because as a child, I’d been raped during a porn shoot by a bearded man
dressed in a white robe-he’d played the role of Jesus Christ. (Some
pornographers are really twisted.)
Although uncomfortable with most of Dr. X’s instructions, I still
complied. Because no one else openly complained, I assumed I must be
wrong for feeling uncomfortable and for daring to consider that my
“demons” might be human.
My assigned hospital psychiatrist, who saw patients in several differ-
ent units, formally complained that members of Dr. X’s staff were con-
stantly putting me and other clients in restraints in the quiet room, then
praying over us ” rather like exorcists. In response, I filed a handwritten
complaint against that psychiatrist, reminding the hospital administrators
Traumatic Memories
283
of my right to practice my religion. Dr. X expressed his appreciation for
my doing this.
By the end of my two-month hospital stay, I’d used visualization
techniques to internally lock up, cage, and exorcise all of my “demons.”
I’d also created a new host personality named Grace. During a phone
call, I told Bill to address me as Grace from then on. Dr. X seemed
pleased, and told me that I was fully integrated. I believed him. He said
he would add me to his list of success stories that he shared with other
mental health professionals.
In the beginning of October, I was discharged. When Bill came to the
hospital to take me home, I cried and didn’t want to leave. He was deeply
hurt and didn’t understand that I feared I’d be killed for having told
people about what I’d done for the CIA. I now believed that Dr. X’s
hospital unit was my only safe refuge.
After leaving the hospital, Bill took me to Dr. X’s nearby office for a
private meeting. There, the psychiatrist instructed me to send him copies
of all of my future journals. He said he would use my information to help
other clients to deprogram. Flattered, I agreed to do so.
At home in Atlanta, I typed my daily journals and sent copies to the
psychiatrist, once a week. Later, I recorded some of them on cassette
tapes to send to him. For some bizarre reason, I believed that as long as
Dr. X had copies of all of my journals, no one would hurt me. I also
believed that as long as I communicated my alter-states’ emerging mem-
ories to him, I didn’t need a local therapist.
Because I’d developed strong emotional bonds with several staff
members and some of the patients at Charter-Grapevine, Atlanta was a
lonely place. I had no one to talk to about my still-emerging memories.
I slipped back into denial, insisted I was fully integrated, and did my best
to ignore new flashbacks.
After about a month, a friend called to confront me. She said she was tired
of my bullshit; no one could integrate hundreds of alter-states in just two
months! Happy to hear her voice, several child alter-states popped out and
told her that “Grace” was a smokescreen I’d unconsciously created to hide
the existence of my unintegrated “demonic” alter-states. They asked, what
else could I have done? If I’d refused to say I had cast the “demons” out, I
would have been accused of not cooperating with Dr. X or with Jesus Christ!
When I came back into consciousness, I remembered what those parts
told my friend. Terribly embarrassed, I apologized to her and to Bill and
asked them to please call me Kathleen from then on.
284
Unshackled
Therese
For the next six months, I tried to cope without a therapist. I gave up
when my flashbacks were too severe to handle on my own. After
several weeks of asking around, I learned about Therese, a local psychol-
ogist who had successfully worked with Vietnam Veterans and with
several severely dissociated ritual abuse survivors. During my first
consultation with her, I sensed she was what I needed. She was upbeat,
intelligent, and a fighter.
We decided I would meet with her twice a week. I noticed that her
office was full of unusual knick-knacks that she said clients had given
her over the years. Several were similar to paraphernalia I’d seen in
Pagan rituals. When I mentioned that, she explained that their real mean-
ings had nothing to do with Paganism. She helped me to understand that
because I was sensitive to hundreds of triggers, I would inevitably
encounter some of them in regular life.
With her help, I accepted the reality that not all candles and Halloween
items in store windows represented occult rituals, and not all people who
used triggering phrases were bad guys. Coincidences happened. I prac-
ticed desensitizing myself to such items and phrases by giving them
nicer, non-perp meanings. As I did, I started to gain power over many of
my trauma-induced triggers.
Because Therese was familiar with multiplicity, alter-states
and personality fragments emerged in her presence. Each was eager to
share information and experiences with her. She was careful not to sug-
gest anything, and explained that her job was to listen and to help me
adjust to the information that those parts compartmentalized.
Therese recognized that I still suffered from heavy guilt and grief
because of what I’d been forced to do in the past. In a gentle voice, she
often repeated a phrase: “Less judgment and more curiosity.” Her serene
acceptance of what seemed abhorrent in me saved my life when the bulk
of my sociopathic assassin alter-states emerged.
Black Op Alter-States
Most of my black op alter-states saw themselves as adult males.
They complained to Therese that life at home was painfully dull. They
were accustomed to working within extremely dangerous parameters,
Traumatic Memories
285
adrenaline pumping, making split-second decisions, enjoying the rush,
facing death again and again, and winning. They didn’t want to live a
normal life. They wanted to go back to their handlers; they didn’t want to
be freed. As I interacted with the alter-states in therapy sessions, journals,
and internal dialogue, I discovered deeper and more troubling reasons for
their insistence in going back to the perpetrators.
First-if a local handler were to call me at home to instruct an
alter- state to meet with him or her, and if the alter- state were to refuse,
retribution could be swift and painful. Because these alter-states had
been created through severe torture, they were terrified of pain and would
do anything to avoid being “punished” for disobedience.
Second-they were convinced that if they did not obey, someone
else-possibly my daughter-would also be tortured, raped, and possibly
killed. Although some of these parts didn’t want to do illegal activities
again, they also couldn’t bear for any child to be hurt or killed in their stead.
Third-these parts felt hopeless and believed they had no choice but to
obey the handlers.
Finally-in the past, if they had been instructed to participate in a mur-
der, they had cooperated because they’d believed the targeted individual
would be killed regardless of who was sent in to do the job. They’d been
programmed to believe it was better to kill one person than to disobey
and be killed along with the target. In each situation, they’d been forced
to choose between a lesser or greater evil.
The mental and emotional toll from performing black ops had been
intense. Each time these parts had killed human targets, they’d felt more
emotionless and bestial. They carried the greatest pain and horror of all:
believing they were irretrievably evil.
Most of my black-op alter states had wanted to commit suicide at
some time in the past. One had tried while in captivity, after she’d been
forced to sign a legal document given to her by an alleged CIA handler.
Afterwards, while left alone in a bathroom, she’d punched a glass mirror
in a medicine cabinet and prepared to slash my wrists with a shard of
glass. Fortunately, a black ops partner named Peter had entered and inter-
vened, gently coaxing her into giving him the shard. That had made the
alter-state feel more hopeless-she couldn’t even suicide to stop the
killing!
Some of my alter-states had emotionally bonded with op handlers,
programmers, and with men who had claimed to be my owners. Some
alter-states believed they were still owned by the men who had paid
286
Unshackled
to use their services. These parts were so lacking in everyday knowledge,
they didn’t even know that slavery was illegal!
Some of the emotional bonding had occurred during sexual encoun-
ters. And some of my parts had identified with and molded themselves
after the perceived personalities of programmers and “masters.” An espe-
cially powerful type of bonding had occurred when these alter-states had
witnessed the “good side” of the tormentors. Even the worst perpetrators
had good qualities. Some of them were deliberately kind to
the alter-states, pretending to treat them as equals. Those perp-loyal
alter-states didn’t know that other parts of my shattered personality had
been betrayed, tortured, and sometimes sexually assaulted by the very
same criminals!
I felt helpless and frightened when I couldn’t stop my perp-loyal parts
from reporting back. I had to wait until they became co-conscious with
other alter-states that held memories of having been hurt or brutally
betrayed by the same perpetrators. Only then were they willing to break
their allegiances and cooperate with me.
I made sure these parts had sufficient time to grieve the loss of their
unhealthy relationships with the perpetrators. Once they realized they’d
been betrayed and duped, they became my fiercest fighter and self-
protector alter-states.
Part of breaking away meant choosing not to respond to late-night,
encoded phone calls from a succession of young children. They
inevitably called just before a major occult holiday, asking to speak to an
alter-state, by name, that I’d already identified and documented. The
children sounded emotionally blank, as if they were reciting what they’d
been told to say. Those phone calls were especially upsetting, because I
believed the children were still being hurt at Aryan rituals.
Refraining
Each time I found another part that was still active, I felt devastated.
Sometimes I wondered if maybe I should just give up and go back to the
perpetrators. During that phase of recovery, I learned that I am a fighter.
When facing overwhelming odds, I have a spark inside that just won’t
quit. I’m lucky that my fight instinct had been powerfully reinforced
during brutal black ops training, and then by real op experiences.
Traumatic Memories
287
Even if the entire world were to burn down around me, I was determined
to be the one human still standing with a heartbeat.
Therese helped me to forgive myself when some parts did report
back-usually by phone. Instead of berating myself, I reframed each
discovery. Each time I successfully enlisted another reporting part’s
loyalty, I was a step closer to full freedom.
After a year of working with Therese, I uncovered another secret that ter-
rified me: Bill also had spook-loyal alter-states. I hadn’t remembered ear-
lier, because I hadn’t felt strong or supported enough by people outside our
marriage. Now, however, I was ready to face the hard, cold truth. Not only
had he recently done work with the ASA; he had also, in the past, occasion-
ally handled me for the CIA during covert ops. As I remembered this, I
feared that his CIA-loyal alter-states could be activated to betray me again.
Therese taught me to set up contingency plans in case of an emer-
gency. My stepmother agreed I could stay at her house if needed.
I insisted that my car be put in my name only. I opened a safety deposit
box in my name, where I put my passport and other important papers that
Bill couldn’t access.
Only then did I confront him about his own multiplicity and insist that
he also see a therapist. I explained if he didn’t start getting co-conscious
with his own alter-states, our marriage was over. As much as I loved him,
I couldn’t put myself at that kind of risk anymore.
Bill decided to consult with Bob since I’d done fairly well with him in
the past. As Bill allowed alter-states to emerge in Bob’s office, several of
Bill’s adult parts related details of covert ops that Bill, as the host alter-
state, had completely blocked out. Because he’d never worked with a
client like Bill before, Bob wasn’t quite sure how to respond. 5 Therese
explained to Bob that the best he could do was to simply listen in a non-
judgmental way.
After Bill’s alter-states emerged in therapy with Bob, they came home
to meet me. Having so many alter-states popping out at the same time put
an additional strain on our marriage. We often regressed and flashbacked
at the same time. Sometimes, we both morphed into op trained assassins
that were edgy, hyper-vigilant, and distrustful. (Play wrestling was not a
good idea at those times.)
As we continued to remember, independently of each other, we both
realized that we definitely had known each other long before I’d first met
Bill’s “William” alter-state in 1985. 6
288
Unshackled
Bill’s verification of our previous connections worried me.
I questioned why we had chosen to marry each other. Was it because of
our strong trauma bond from past ops? Was I Stockholming with Bill,
marrying him and drawing close to him so that his CIA-loyal parts
wouldn’t hurt me? How much of our marriage was healthy? Any of it?
Could it still be salvaged after we’d each remembered enough to take
charge of our own lives?
I chose not to make any hasty decisions. After a number of
heart-to-heart talks with Therese and other people in my support
network, I decided I would focus on recovering, integrating, and grow-
ing stronger and more independent. I developed a stronger support
network outside of our marriage so if I did have to leave Bill to stay safe, I
wouldn’t crumble. Having the freedom to leave also gave me the freedom
to stay.
Return to Texas
In August 1992, two new child alter-states emerged. They both
threatened to self-destruct-one, by fire. I returned to Texas to consult pri-
vately with Dr. X at his new unit at Cedars Hospital. As I met with him
during our initial consultation, I told him that hundreds upon hundreds of
alter-states had come out since I’d discharged from Charter-Grapevine.
He said this meant I had “polyfragmented MPD” (poly = many). This fit,
because some of my alter-states had journaled that Mom had told them
I was a “thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.” 7
I consulted with Dr. X almost every day for the next two weeks.
During one private session, a male alter-state, code-named Lucifer,
emerged. At the next session, Dr. X said this alter-state was the real
Lucifer, which he’d met in another client a week earlier in Florida.
Certain that Dr. X was wrong (the alter-state was definitely human),
I realized that going back to Texas was a mistake. For the remainder of
my hospitalization, I pretended to believe whatever Dr. X said so that
I could leave as soon as possible.
After my discharge, I ceased all contact with the psychiatrist. After
working so hard for years to accept and blend with my alter-states,
I had-at his advice-rejected and accused them of being deceitful
demons ! And by rejecting and harshly judging them, I’d really rejected
Traumatic Memories
289
my own self-thereby increasing my amnesia and personality
fragmentation! I decided that would never happen again.
Exploring the Dark Side
Because I’ve had many struggles about accepting the misnomered
“evil” or “demonic” side of my personality, I understand why some
severely dissociated survivors don’t want to believe that their seemingly
malevolent or “dark” alter-states are not split-off parts of their original
whole personalities.
Acceptance of our fully human “dark side” requires great courage and a
willingness to self-forgive. 8 Too many of our religious leaders have
difficulty accepting the primal and wounded parts of their own humanity,
which is why they often use excessive religion to avoid knowing
themselves. Some of them treat their past selves as something that can be
cut off or discarded, instead of being forgiven and embraced as part of
the whole. If they’re afraid to accept all of their own humanity, is it any
wonder that some of them try their best to discourage us from accepting all
of our selves?
I did things during ops that were absolutely bestial. I believe this
is why I’d tried so hard to be spiritual and holy, before the memories
came. My personality was polarized between overly “good” and overly
“bad,” keeping me from being able to blend and integrate into one
entity. 9
Before I started working with Therese, I’d had a hard time forgiving
myself for what my assassin programmed parts had done. With her
skilled help and support, I learned that I was no exception to the rule: any
reasonably intelligent person can be brutally manipulated and conned
into committing crimes against their conscious will-especially if the
conditioning and torture begin in early childhood.
It was time for me to grieve the knowledge that I had experienced a
soul- shattering crossover from rational humanity to primal brutality that,
if I were God, no person would experience.
One of my difficulties in forgiving myself was that I was a female
living in the Southeast. One of our Southern society’s moral codes is that
females are supposed to be gentle, passive caregivers. When assaulted,
they are supposed to stay victims. They are not supposed to be physically
290
Unshackled
aggressive, and they are expected to cry instead of expressing anger. I’d
broken all of these rules to the nth degree.
During this crucial phase of my recovery, my depression and alien-
ation from humanity were especially dangerous. So many times, I had to
go to extraordinary measures to survive one more day, one more night.
Part of my survival kit was information. The more I learned about what
humans are capable of under extreme pressure and duress, the more I was
able to accept my faults and limitations as well as the primal side of my
human personality.
Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman wrote a ground-breaking book
that examines the motivations and effects of killing others. Although the
study was based mostly on his findings within the military, I could relate
to much of what he wrote. His book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost
of Learning to Kill in War and Society helped me to make great strides
in understanding and accepting my “dark” side.
Grossman explained that the primal parts of the human brain that take
over during danger do not need to function during safe times. This
explains why my black op parts were so feral, a state in which I didn’t
find myself at any other time. I learned that my black op alter-states
couldn’t have rationalized and thought about the consequences of
their actions (even if they’d had access to my store of knowledge)
because they’d been in danger, and therefore had tunnel vision and
tunnel thinking. All they’d been able to think about was carrying out their
orders and surviving-one more time.
When my more empathic parts had first learned about the assassinations,
they’d felt powerful remorse, regret, and guilt. They’d also felt anger and
hatred towards the black op parts for not having cared about the targeted
victims. Grossman’s book helped bridge the schism between these two
polarized sets of alter-states. Gradually, they met in the middle and began
to blend.
Would I attack someone now, if provoked? Only if absolutely necessary.
Although my “kill or be killed” primal reflex will always be in the
background, I’ve developed other responses that are more helpful in
stressful situations.
With emerging rage comes strong physical energy. During the early
part of my recovery, I occasionally needed physical outlets to safely exert
my volcanic energy in ways that would harm no one. This was the rage
that had deliberately been reinforced and compartmentalized in my mind
Traumatic Memories
291
for decades, to be triggered and used by handlers to hurt and kill others.
I had to learn new ways to express that energy. Although many abuse
survivors turn their anger onto themselves by self-harming, I was condi-
tioned to express it outwardly-albeit in controlled settings.
If I feel angry now, I might physically remove myself from the
situation until I can think and respond calmly. I might call a support
person to help me think things through. And instead of freezing, trancing,
and obeying when approached by former handlers, I can now enlist help
from others, or walk away and laugh, knowing that the handlers are still
trapped and I am free.
In earlier stages of my recovery, I expressed my anger in many
unmailed letters to perpetrators and complicit family members. The rage
and pain were so intense, my clothes were often soaked with sweat by
the time I’d finished writing.
I expressed some of my rage’s immense physical energy by walking
fast on my treadmill or by visualizing faces on a punching bag and slam-
ming it. When I grew exhausted, I knew that particular “pocket” of rage
had been sufficiently expelled.
If I felt fury, which was stronger than rage, I used a sledgehammer to
break old slabs of concrete, or a pickaxe to remove rocks and thick roots
from the ground in my garden, imagining the roots to be rapists’ penises.
(That was highly satisfying.)
In the house, I used a wooden dowel or a plastic bat to hit a mattress
while I screamed at visualized perpetrators. (I wore a pair of sports
gloves to avoid blisters.)
For a period of several days, one child alter-state that had been condi-
tioned to kill had so much fury at anything living and breathing-including
me-I nearly didn’t survive. She wanted to pull up and destroy every plant
on our property. She wanted to go to a mall and kill many people, indis-
criminately. She wanted to drive my car at a high speed into an oncoming
cement or dump truck.
Her unique solution was to find dead animals on the road and drive
over the carcasses, back up, and drive over them again. This sounds
extreme, but her rage was so extreme that nothing else worked. After
about two days, the need to harm others was gone, and she never had to
run over carcasses again.
So much rage emerged during my first decade of memory recovery,
I felt like a walking volcano. That terrified me, because I didn’t want to
292
Unshackled
hurt innocents! I gradually realized that, regardless of my emotional
state, I’d always worked hard not to hurt others-when I had a choice.
When the rage had surfaced in my “regular” life, I’d chosen to isolate,
power walk, or turn the rage into tears to protect those around me.
My support network has helped me to understand that I was not and
am not a perpetrator, because perpetrators commit crimes by choice.
I was a good person who was repeatedly forced into the most awful
situations. I did what was necessary to survive and remain sane.
Working with my rage-filled parts, I also learned that no matter how
much anger they had, they would never take it out on anyone who gave
them caring and kindness. Perhaps this is because they had become rage-
ful through torture and abuse, and therefore were starved for positive
attention.
Therese encouraged me to take the acceptance of my primal side one
step further. She explained that I needed to honor the parts of my human-
ity that had preserved my life. That concept was uncomfortable at
first-how could I honor parts that had killed other humans? As I came to
understand that the victims would have been killed regardless, and that
I was a human tool and not a murderer, I allowed myself the right to feel
gratitude for having survived.
Verifications
As memories continued to emerge, I scanned books at a local library
for information that might verify some of them. Because my covert expe-
riences had been so unusual, however, I had little luck. I was still careful
to follow advice from a male staff member at Bethesda PsycHealth:
I avoided reading books by survivors who claimed to have similar
histories. When using reference books, I only looked at pages that con-
tained specific information about names and organizations that I’d
already remembered and journaled. I decided I’d rather not have enough
information to verify a memory, than to subconsciously take in informa-
tion from written materiel that could taint my memories.
Accepting my memories and making peace with them was hard work.
The attached emotions were especially difficult to process, because they
were new and unfamiliar. I needed time to learn how to feel and express
them without being overwhelmed. Even joy was difficult to feel.
Traumatic Memories
293
Although I processed some of my emerging memories with Therese,
I worked through most of them at home by myself. So much information
emerged after three decades of repression, no therapist could have
possibly helped me to process it all.
Phobias
One of the ways I’ve been able to accept my memories is by recognizing
that many of my irrational behaviors and phobias had actually originated
from traumas I’d been blocking out. After I’d worked through the traumatic
materials and integrated them as part of my conscious past, the resulting
phobias usually faded away.
In May of 1994, a private consultant asked me to list my phobias. In
one day, I listed 176. Since I’ve worked through almost all of their under-
lying traumas, nearly all of the phobias have dissipated. Having cogni-
tive awareness of the underlying causes of those fears helped me to
lessen their power over my mind and life. For example:
Before recovery, if the tiniest bit of a male dog’s pink penis poked out,
I couldn’t stand for it to come anywhere near me. 10 Then I remembered
the bestiality porn and worked through how it had affected me. After that,
I adopted a male dog. The phobia is gone. I’ve emotionally bonded with
him and don’t see him as a sexual threat.
I felt nauseous if I was given any meat that was touched by sweet
sauce-this phobia came from having been forced to suck on Dad’s penis
after he’d put honey or maple syrup on it. Since I have remembered and
worked through the traumatic memories of having gagged and feared I’d
die from suffocation, I can now eat meats with sweet sauces without
flashbacking.
For decades, I was obsessed with looking for every stray hair in my
bathroom – on the floor, in the tub, or wherever-and placing it in the trash
receptacle. I “had to” brush off our bed every morning so not a single hair
would be on it when I went to bed again. I couldn’t stand to eat any food in
which I’d found a hair. This phobia resulted from Dad’s forcing me to eat
victims’ hair that he’d cut into bite-sized pieces with scissors. I’ll admit that
I’m still working on this phobia-but at least I know what it’s about.
For decades, another phobia was about being in a room with a gun.
This fear had developed, in part, because my mental programmers had
294
Unshackled
implanted hypnotic suggestions to ensure that I would never allow a gun in
my home, and would only handle one when professional handlers and train-
ers had direct control of me. I suspect they did this to keep me from acci-
dentally reliving a training session or op at home and shooting someone.
After I remembered the black ops, the phobia was replaced by a new
obsession: several of my alter-states had to have a “baby blue Beretta.”
They stated this was one of the guns that I’d used on ops. When Bill
asked why I’d used such a small-caliber handgun, those parts explained
that because they’d been conditioned to have excellent aim, the caliber
hadn’t mattered much. And of course, such a small gun is much easier to
hide from human targets-until it’s too late.
One day, I decided to face my fear by purchasing a small Beretta. I was
so relieved when no one came to our home to arrest me for buying it! The
first time I went to a local underground shooting range for target prac-
tice, I let several op-trained parts come out. Although their aim was still
surprisingly accurate, they were uncomfortable because Bill insisted they
hold it with both hands. Later, they explained to him that professional
trainers had taught them to hold the handgun in just the right hand, so
they could always keep the left hand free to self-defend and attack in
other ways. (I probably couldn’t have done this with larger handguns.)
At home, I practiced holding the Beretta in just my right hand. On a
primal level, it was a completely natural sensation. I recalled what some
of the spook trainers had told me about “my” gun: that it was my “baby,”
the most important thing in my universe. As I continued to use and feel
the Beretta at the shooting range and at home, I realized another reason
for my phobia towards guns was that I feared they would trigger visual
flashbacks of the gory results of some of the black ops. Fortunately, that
has not happened.
Whenever I feel a new fear that is irrational, I remind myself that this
is probably a signal that another memory is emerging. This knowledge,
paired with positive self-talk and relaxation techniques, keeps the fear
from taking over.
Notes
1. One of the FMSF’s claims is that mental health professionals should discourage
their clients from accept emerging memories without proof of their veracity.
I believe this irrational demand is a violation of survivors’ basic rights. Why?
Traumatic Memories
295
¢ Most repressed memories are of traumas that were perpetrated against the
victims, in secret, by adults who had a clear and vested interest in hiding all
evidence (to avoid societal disapproval, prison sentences, and more). Therefore,
verifications are often unavailable to the recovering victims.
¢ If therapists tell clients they shouldn’t accept their emerging memories without
external proofs, the clients will not feel safe in baring their souls to the
therapists. Perhaps this is what the FMSF wants-if we cannot talk to mental
health professionals about what was done to us, we are effectively silenced.
¢ If trauma survivors are not supported in accepting their memories, this can
reinforce their amnesia and dissociation, thereby keeping them vulnerable to
certain types of predators.
¢ If the FMSF is successful within the legal system in forcing mental health
professionals to discourage clients from accepting memories that the clients
cannot initially prove, thereby silencing the clients during therapy, the FMSF
will have effectively sabotaged clients’ right to free speech!
2. Rick Stahlhut, M.D., M.S. is the originator.
3. A decade later, I remembered enough to know that the convulsions had been my
body’s way of reliving memories of forced electro-shock applications that I had
endured as an adult, along with being forcibly drugged, in a government-run repro-
gramming ward in a psychiatric hospital not far from Atlanta. I believe this was
intended to erase my memories of the most recent black op. In Bluebird, Dr. Colin
Ross cited information from a CIA ARTICHOKE (pre-MKULTRA) document that
may explain why ECT (electroconvulsive “therapy”) can be used to create amne-
sia in victims of mind control:
The use of electric shock to the brain for the creation of amnesia, and
amplification of the amnesia with hypnosis were discussed by the
author of an ARTICHOKE document dated 3 December 1951:
. . . One setting of this machine produced the normal
electric-shock treatment (including convulsion) with
amnesia after a number of treatments . . .[the experi-
menter] felt he could guarantee amnesia for certain
periods of time and particularly he could guarantee
amnesia for any knowledge of use of the convulsive shock.
(pg- 43)
4. Truddi Chase was one of the first severely dissociated trauma survivors to have
their autobiography published. It helped an untold number of trauma survivors with
MPD/DID to understand dissociation and the recovery process.
5. Although Bill’s spook alter-states did share limited information about some
military and/or covert ops with his therapist, they refused to divulge any details that
would violate whatever oaths they or Bill had made during his 30-year career in the
Army. I was equally careful not to share specific details of covert ops with any of
296
Unshackled
my therapists-not because I was worried about violating oaths (I’d taken none by
choice), but because I didn’t want to endanger them by telling them too much-my
handlers had repeatedly told me that if I shared the memories with anyone, that
person would be killed.
6. Because we had the potential to contaminate each other’s emerging memories,
I didn’t discuss my op memories with Bill, other than a few specific details that
I needed to verify (for example, the names of certain weaponry). I also insisted that
he not tell me his op memories. Instead, we relied heavily on our therapists for
primary support. They, in turn, didn’t share our memories with each other. After
about six years, Bill and I realized that our training and experiences, in general,
were markedly different. After that, we occasionally shared op memories with each
other-but only after we’d independently journaled and processed them.
7. Mom was aware that my mind had been so badly shattered by Dad and others
that I had many hundreds of alter-states and personality fragments. This was delib-
erate on their part; Dad constantly told me he wanted to see how much of my brain
he could activate and use, one piece at a time. Dad was careful, however, not to let
Mom know my programming. I’ve met other mind-control survivors who were
encouraged by perpetrators (as Mom encouraged me) to constantly assemble jig-
saw puzzles. Doing that reinforced our false, implanted belief that we were in so
many pieces that we would never fully come together. Dr. Colin Ross described
polyfragmentation in The Osiris Complex:
It is impossible to have hundreds of fully formed personality states in
one person because there isn’t enough lifespace in one lifetime. In a
polyfragmented patient, there will usually be a relatively small number
of more fully formed personality states that have been responsible for
the bulk of the person’s experience. Often the personality fragments
will hold a single memory or feeling, and many may never take exec-
utive control of the body . . . [the process of creating fragments] seems
more like a memory-filing device in which memories are broken down
into small pieces and stored under filing labels consisting of names and
ages. (pg. 55)
8. Dr. Ross described one of the biggest problems that trauma survivors encounter
when they choose to believe that their alter-states and personality fragments are
negative spirit entities: “Defining demonic alter personalities as actual demons
reinforces the dissociation, and perpetuates the problem, even if the alters are
temporarily suppressed by an exorcism.” (Osiris pg. 131)
9. I believe this is one reason why so many religious leaders have gotten into serious
trouble. What happened to Jimmy Swaggart, a Pentecostal evangelist, was a good
example. (More than once, he was caught interacting with prostitutes.) Some reli-
gious leaders try too hard to be holy and perfect in public. Secretly, they may feel
fake and ashamed. To compensate for their excessive morality (as Bill Bennett did
Traumatic Memories
297
by gambling), they may unconsciously allow their misnomered “dark side” to
emerge and have control for a while, in an attempt to bring a temporary balance
between the two poles of their personality.
10. Sometimes, as I remembered the bestiality, I felt angry at certain types of animals.
When I did, I reminded myself, as many times as needed, that the animals had been
trained and conditioned to do what was unnatural to them, as had I. They were not
responsible for what they had done to me-their human trainers were.
Witness
Suicide?
Some of my emerging memories were so painful, I continued to push
them away-including my memories of what I’d been forced to witness
when Dad died.
After his funeral in 1990, I’d grown comfortable with the idea that
he’d committed suicide. It made sense to me for two main reasons: first,
two months earlier, he’d deeply cut his wrists, necessitating treatment in
a psychiatric hospital. Second, his body had been found the same way his
father’s had-in his car, with carbon monoxide poisoning documented as
the cause of death.
Several years after his death, two male relatives sent me letters in
which they accused me of having killed Dad. Each man insinuated that
because I’d gone to the authorities about Dad, he’d suicided. By the time
I’d received their letters, however, I’d healed enough to know that he
alone had been responsible for his suicide. And his being arrested for
child molestation had equally been his fault … if he hadn’t sexually
assaulted me and other children, he wouldn’t have been arrested!
Although I felt sad to have lost him prematurely, I also felt peace in
knowing I had done all that I could while he was alive. I hadn’t stopped
loving him in a pure way, despite what he’d tried to do to distort that love.
I had confronted him in several letters while reminding him that I still
loved him. Because I had no regrets, I was able to grieve in a healthy way.
My peace was shattered in late 1992 when a new series of alter-states
emerged. Each part gave me new pieces of memory about his death. At first
I was shocked by what they told me. As the shock wore off, I was pum-
meled by waves of terror, guilt, grief, and rage. I expressed the emotions
at home and in therapy. I realized that I’d pushed the memories com-
pletely away because I was severely traumatized by what I’d witnessed
the night of Dad’s death. On a scale of one to ten, based on all the
traumas I’d ever experienced, his demise was definitely a ten.
With each revelation from these alter-states, I was more certain that
Dad had been murdered.
298
Witness
299
In November of 1992, a sociopathic, op-trained alter-state emerged
that had been conscious that night. She journaled:
/ was with some adults at night. I had been given folded-up
clothes that I was supposed to wear. They really upset me.
There was a thick, black spandex, short-sleeved leotard with a
sad-looking hound-dog applique on front. It had a nasty
saying about “Joe ‘s Bar and Grill. ” And then there was a
blue, short-type spandex outfit that went over it with straps. It
looked awful on me! It made me look like a lady mud wrestler
or something!
An older man was present. He was balding with curly, thinning,
gray hair. We were using his facilities to change clothes. I had
to pee, bad! We were in a hurry and the guy who was letting us
use his place seemed really nervous. He had several bathroom
stalls in a row that we were using to change in. Not very
impressive looking. The doors and walls of the stalls seemed to
be made of plywood.
I was making everybody late by going back one more time to
pee. The man was even more nervous, now. I was told that we
were going to do a “hit job. ” I felt really offended and embar-
rassed that they had picked out this particular outfit for me to
wear, but I also accepted the fact that if anyone tried to
describe me, it would be the outfit they’d remember most,
instead of my physical description.
I remember too, that there was a plump-faced lady in one of the
stalls to my left. Her hair was curly, black, and short. She was
begging everybody not to flush the toilets, because if we do,
then her toilet will start to overflow while she ‘s still in there,
changing her clothes. The plumbing was really screwed-up.
Later that day, the alter-state recalled more: She’d been transported in
a van to Dad’s apartment complex and had seen him being assaulted in
his rented garage while sitting inside his Pontiac Gran Prix. She didn’t
write that part of the memory because she knew I wasn’t ready to know
300
Unshackled
about it. It stayed hidden with her until January of 1993 when the mem-
ory tried to break through again, this time in a vivid dream:
It was the night Dad died. In the dream, I finally got up the nerve to
go to his apartment, to see what it looked like. I had no conscious
memory of ever going to that apartment. Yet, in the dream I had alters
that swore they had watched Dad die in his rented garage, and that they
had obeyed orders to clean out his apartment of all incriminating
evidence connecting him to the Aryan cult network and the CIA.
Though I noted the dream in my journal, I blocked it out of my mind
again. I wasn’t ready to consider its significance.
Memories of Dad’s Murder
Several days later, I got up the nerve to call my stepmother. When she
answered the phone, I told her I’d recently remembered details that made
me think Dad’s death might not have been a suicide.
I’d been afraid to tell her, partly because I feared she would blame me
for his death (she didn’t) and partly because I didn’t want to cause her
more pain. Like me, she had begun to heal. I didn’t want to cause her to
feel the same raw grief I was experiencing. And yet, when she insisted
that I tell her what I remembered, I felt obligated to do so. After all, she
was an adult and his widow; she had a right to know.
When I told her what I’d remembered, I feared she would think I was
making it up. Instead, she indicated that murder was a possibility. She
said she had a copy of the coroner’s autopsy report, and asked me if
I wanted to know what was in it. I declined, explaining that if I’d really
witnessed what had been done to him, I needed to ensure that the rest of
the memory, when it emerged, would be uncontaminated.
The next day, more pieces of memory emerged, starting with emotions
I’d still been suppressing. I journaled:
/ am in bad shape today. Not suicidal ” everything but. Major
depression. Want to cry, but can’t. Feel frantic inside, like I want
to scream and scream, deeply. Primal emotions. Raw pain, anger,
grief. Can ‘t eat worth a flip, again. My stepmother called yester-
day to talk some more about what I had told her about my
fathers “suicide” actually being a snuff job. She said that the
Witness
301
Sunday night before Dad died, he went out of his way, during a
quick visit to her and the kids after church, to hug and kiss each
of his children and say goodbye. She had wondered why he said
goodbye. He’d handed her the support check, which was also
unusual for him. She also told me that three coils of rope had
been found in the trunk of the car in which he was found dead,
and the coroners showed her pictures of his body, with blood run-
ning out of his mouth. Also, she thinks it is very strange that they
decided not to do any tests on his blood samples.
Suddenly, I found myself co-conscious with an alter-state that had
compartmentalized another piece of memory. As that part emerged,
I fully relived the memory-visual, audible, tactile, everything. Devastating.
As I journaled, its impact hit me like a hard punch in my stomach.
The night of my father’s death, his spook associates had told
him, in front of me, that he was being taken underground, to
live somewhere else with a brand-new identity. That’s why Dad
was sitting in the front passenger seat of his car inside the
small garage when I saw one of the goons, a professional
assassin I knew as “Fred, ” put his arm around Dad’s neck to
kill him (I thought) from the back seat of the car. This is also
why he didn ‘t struggle or fight as we went into his rented
garage. He honestly thought he was home, free! 1
I was puzzled by what I wrote. My stepmother had told me that the
coroners had found his body on the back seat of his Gran Prix. But I had
watched the man’s arm go around his throat as he sat on the front seat.
Another puzzle: my stepmother had asked me why I thought his killers
had wanted me there at all. When she’d asked, I hadn’t been able to
answer. When they had taken me to his garage, I’d believed they were
probably going to interrogate him and maybe search his apartment, but
I hadn’t been prepared for seeing them kill him. Then I realized that I’d
been forced to watch, to frighten me into silence. And more.
As I sat on my bed, pondering these new revelations, the same adult
alter-state 2 wrote a scalding critique:
These assholes knew my psychological profile. They knew
that I tended to blame myself, personally, any time someone
302
Unshackled
died in a room with me, even if I had nothing to do with it.
That, plus being a witness of [an execution] was meant
to blackmail/frighten me into silence. After all, if they could
do it to him, it only was a logical conclusion that they could
do it to me next, if I didn ‘t cooperate and keep my mouth
shut . . . It worked very nicely (for them), at least until
today.
After the shock started to wear off, I felt sheer terror. I couldn’t
stop shaking and crying. If I’d been a witness, then I was an active
liability to the killer and his accomplices because I could still identify
them! All the fear I’d felt towards Dad, I now felt towards those
men because they’d proven they were stronger and more powerful
than he.
Several months later, my stepmother and I visited the Senior Forensic
Investigator at the Office of the Medical Examiner in Decatur, Georgia.
He had performed Dad’s autopsy. I agreed to let him tape-record
my statement about what I’d remembered. I wish now that I had made a
second tape for myself because I remember very little of what I told him.
I do remember that he offered to show me Dad’s autopsy report, and
that I declined. And I remember he did say, after I told him I remembered
“Fred’s” arm around Dad’s neck, that no bones had been broken-
therefore, that hadn’t been the cause of death.
After I returned home that day, I wondered: although it would be nice
to document what had been done to Dad, would taking further action
help or hurt me? After talking to several people in my support network,
I came to the conclusion that I’d be hurting myself if I pursued it further.
I’d done my duty as a citizen by telling them what I’d remembered. I
needed to leave it at that.
I wrote a five -page letter to the investigator, explaining that I was not
willing to share more memories if they emerged, and was not willing to
testify if Dad’s connections to the CIA could be proven.
My stepmother had been concerned that the investigators might think
I’d made up the story so she could get additional life insurance payments
for my father’s death (she didn’t). In the letter to the examiner, I explained
that I hadn’t known about that possibility until after I’d told her what I’d
remembered. I ended the letter: “Dad is dead. He can’t be brought back.
We who survived need to go on living.”
Witness
303
(Continued at