Overcoming Denial (Svali Blog Post)

“You know you’re making all of this up, it isn’t true. I certainly don’t remember any of the things you are telling me.”The speaker was my mother, two years ago, and she was telling me in no uncertain terms that she did not believe me. Her amnesia is intact and strong, protecting her. I had confronted her about the fact that she and I had spent a lifetime in the cult, and that I loved her and wanted her to get out.I had told her specific names of people we both knew in this phone call, the first time I had spoken with her in a year. “Mom, you’re dissociative, that’s why you don’t remember,” I told her. “No I’m not, nothing happened”, she maintained.I decided to blast at her denial a little. She knew that I had never studied or heard German consciously in the daytime, although she had spoken it to me at night since I was very young. She did not consciously know or understand it at all.“Then why can I speak German now that I’ve integrated with my back people?” I asked her, in German. “I’ve never studied it, you know that, or heard it. I studied Spanish and Latin for my languages in school.” There was a pause. “Maybe you’re psychic, and learned it telepathically,” she answered. My mother had to maintain her denial, even then, and come up with some explanation for the unexplainable. But how did she understand my question, which was in German, to her?

My son is integrating quickly now. He had almost 100 inside people when he first came to live with me two and a half years ago at the age of 10 (the Illuminati fragment their children heavily from infancy on), and now he has only about 15. Lately, he has told me the real David, the core child, has been coming out and experiencing life. I am thankful to God that he is young enough that he could heal, and try not to feel jealous that it has been easier and faster for him than for me. His therapist told me why it is easier for him the other day: ”Your son feels safe now, and he has not one, but two parents validating him and saying they believe him when he comes to them. This means he doesn’t have to spend a lifetime overcoming parental denial, and that’s one reason he is healing so fast.”

I have never, ever told my son that he is making it up when he deals with memories. I pray with him, and ask God to heal the memories, and to bring security to my son, and to fill the painful areas with the knowledge of His love and mercy. I pray for blessing on both of my children. And God has been faithful to answer. My son no longer nightmares at night, has made good friends at school, is active in sports, has better grades than 2 years ago, and tells me he is happy (the last is the most important to me).

I believe that denial is a large barrier to healing. Often, when a survivor begins to recover memories, they will go to family members for validation, or to confront them. They are also frequently faced with invalidation, denial, or even verbal abuse from those same family members, who need to maintain their own denial to protect themselves from facing painful truths. “You’re crazy”, “You’re sick”, “You have a sick imagination,” “How can you make these things up,” “You need help”, and more cruel phrases are thrown at the person whose amnesia is beginning to break, from those who want them to maintain it. After all, if ONE person starts remembering, then OTHERS might, and the others in the family system might not be psychologically strong or healthy enough to remember. I think one of the saddest realities is that it takes more psychological integrity, honesty, and truth-seeking to remember something as painful as ritual abuse, yet the person who is remembering is told the opposite by family members unwilling to face their own pain.

The disapproval of family members is extremely painful, and is enough to cause some to doubt the reality of their own memories. “Maybe I am making this up, otherwise why don’t THEY remember?” the survivor thinks. Or, “I love my parents/siblings/cousins and I don’t want to hurt them. What if they’re right?” When memories are first recovered, they often come in flashes that last a second or two, are vague, and may seem unreal to the person remembering. Add the messages from others that is loud and clear: It is NOT okay to remember, and the survivor may shut down.

Denial may also come from within. It is a basic protective mechanism when a person is confronted with pain; how often do we CONSCIOUSLY deny our own faults (“It wasn’t my fault, I was having a bad day, and everyone was against me”) to protect our self image. The more painful the blow to the self concept (since people desperately want to maintain an image of themselves as “okay), the greater the need to deny.

If events that a person went through destroyed their ability to accept themselves as a worthwhile human being (and ritual abuse does this to the maximum), then they will need to deny that it occurred in order to function in daily life. This is one reason why once the denial is let go of, functionality may temporarily falter in the survivor, as they process the horrendous truths of a childhood filled with pain. It is also a reason why denial can serve a protective function, and should be let go of slowly, carefully, with the help and support of a competent therapist. Some protective denial in the early stages can be good, as long as the person does not recontact cult members, since it allows the memories to come forward slowly and in an amount that is easier to manage.

Denial may also be programmed in (denial programming). This is done from early childhood, when the child is taught methodically in a calculated manner to disbelieve what they are seeing in front of them, and to create alters who will deny, and punish severely if the person does not deny the ritual abuse. This may be linked to suicidal or flood programming as well.

I had an inside part who was known as “Forced Denial”, created when I was 2 ½ years old. Her only job was to ensure that I would deny that I had ever been abused, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence that it had happened (such as physical scars, court records that indicated abuse in early childhood, and validation from some family members.) I would go through a horrendous abreaction early in my healing process, after screaming, raging, and crying my eyes out from the pain, and then F.D. would come out and calmly announce, “Nothing happened, I am making this all up.” She believed she was protecting my life, since there was suicide programming that kicked in if she didn’t do her job, and well as violent protectors who would destroy her. She would be calm, but sweating heavily, as she denied, until the day she realized that her job was no longer needed, and that those who used to punish her (and me) no longer needed to act out.

Overcoming denial may mean overcoming a lifetime of training to deny, and the intense fear of punishment if the person doesn’t. Safety, no contact with cult members, and reasoning with these parts can all help the need to deny decrease.

Finally, denial may come from society. The survivor has it ground in from infancy by the cult that “No one will ever believe you, they will think you are crazy if you ever talk, and lock you up.” Our society today often looks the other way, or looks askance at the survivor. Groups such as the FMS were created to blitz the media with unfounded statements about memory retrieval, and to invalidate survivors who have the courage to speak out and say, “This is real, and it happens.” How many news stories are out there that make ritual abuse look as if it is a “modern hysteria” or attempt to denigrate therapists willing to work with and help survivors? I know that when I was in San Diego, leadership council was well aware of the power of the media, and the council had a saying, “Don’t attack your enemy, discredit him (in the media).” They found it much more effective, and reporters such as M. Sauer do an excellent job for them. I hope that he, and others that I knew in the group, will learn that they can get out.

The survivor who is able to overcome the denial of family, internal denial, and programmed denial, will still be met by blank looks, or worse, those who turn their backs on them, and say, “I don’t want to hear about this, “ or “I can’t hear about this.” Pastors will say this, social workers, CPS workers, and those whose comfort zone is crossed with the thought that ritual abuse really occurs. Those who tell the survivor, “I believe you”, at times may seem far and few between, and I applaud their willingness to look at realities which often make us feel uncomfortable. No one WANTS to think that human beings can do this to one another, or that such horrific abuse is possible.I am here to say loud and clear that ritual abuse occurs. It is real. It is not made up. The people who disclose their abuse are not crazy, they are not liars, they are not looking for attention or sympathy. They are some of the most courageous, intelligent, and psychologically honest people that I have ever known in my life, and many are facing some of the most tremendous emotional pain possible by the grace of God, and surviving it. My one hope is that someday, soon, our society will wake up and come out of its own denial, and be willing to help take action on behalf of those that have survived, and are working desperately to escape the reach of the cult and those associated with it. May God bless each person who takes the steps to leave and to walk in the truth and freedom, and to fight against a great evil in our land (and around the world).