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Exorcism: Abusing the already abused
by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News
Feb. 17, 2006
Democratic process entails debate, persuasion, and compromise. These presuppose the trustworthiness of words. The moral dimension of severe trauma, the betrayal of "what's right," obliterates the capacity for trust. The customary meanings of words are exchanged for new ones; fair offers from opponents are scrutinized for traps; every smile conceals a dagger. Unhealed combat trauma -- and I suspect unhealed trauma from any source -- destroys the unnoticed substructure of democracy, the cognitive and social capacities that enable a group of people to freely construct a cohesive narrative of their own future. [The Persistence of War]
I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I have dissociated states that I go into that can appear
remarkably different from my usual demeanor. (Hey, it even freaks me out
sometimes.) I "change" because being tortured and abused has a tendency to
damage a person's personality and brain structure. Healing from trauma is
not easy to do.
Trauma and past trauma can cause a person to slip into trance states, to
cope with overwhelming emotional pain. I was a cutter. I could slice my
arms with razors and knives until I saw the muscle underneath and not
feel it at all. I was using physical pain to dull the far worse
emotional pain in a situation where I had no-one to express this
emotional pain to, no-one I could trust or who was capable of LISTENING to
me.
To a religious zealot, that kind of pain suppression could look saintly
or demonic, depending on the whim or beliefs of the congregation and
appearance of my state at the time. Ignorance and zeal can do a lot of
damage, and if you add a closed social institution with a shared belief system and
it can get dangerous.
Traumatic memory is stored in a different place than normal memory is
stored. It seems the brain has a defensive structure of memory to enhance
bodily survival, and this kicks in during trauma. It can make recall
of trauma later on difficult. This process temporarily protects
victims from the overwhelming soul-shattering experiences, but sadly, it also
protects perpetrators and keeps them out of jail later.
Sometimes a person gets re-traumatized as an attempt to access and heal
memories that hold parts of their life in a past time warp state, when
they trust the wrong sorts of people. And sometimes the traumatized
person's self defenses and ego states can appear demonic, literally ... when
threatened by predatory people they are forced to depend on.
I was hurt by a fundie pedophile, so Christians trigger the crap out of me.
Yet I am drawn from the past. So I struggle.
Exorcism and apocalypse were among the imagery and threats used on me.
And I fear, loath, and cannot trust neocons. It is like the abuser who
fucked up my life is now controlling the government. So this situation is
very hard for me to cope with.
Christianity is common in America. Christian churches have child abuse
scandals coming out pretty often. How do you think this affects the kids
involved when they grow up? These kids are confused, and if they can't
trust someone, a person who won't take advantage or harm them, they will grow
into messed up adults.
In the 80's Satanic ritual abuse became a
popular myth. I think it was a group projection of what has been going
on in SOME Christian churches for a long time.
Because for some ADULTS and PARENTS, a belief in Christianity is a
defense against the threat of eternal torture (hell, which can be like
life in a dysfunctional family with an abuser tyrant or alcoholic at
the head forever). To these people, Christianity offers a promise of relief from the struggles and stress
of existence and all the parts of life denied or
unattainable (heaven, goodness, childhood, idealized parents, etc.).
A lot of people cling to Christianity for psychological reasons. Just
like the nostalgia of the Family is a national fantasy that never was,
for some rightwing "family values types" it is 'real' because reality is
that painful.. It's a form of denial caused by cognitive dissonance, a
"faith based" perception so desired that it feels real.
In effect, it
becomes an alternative reality when a person can't trust real reality. A
fantasy faith-based reality is a place to trust in when you are living
in a predatory society you can't trust. When surrounded by bullies you
can invent imaginary friends to trust. God.
A person can do this to their
self from traumatic annihilation by a predatory culture. If that
fantasy is broken and there is no-one there to trust, suicide can be the
result. That's how coming out of the church affected me. I was dangerously
suicidal when I was abandoned for not playing along. I realized that I had
been abused by people who claimed such friendship and caring for me, but only as
long as I believed as the church did.
So in churches where abuse occurs and people are exiled, why do "good
Christians" decide to lie to themselves? Why do they lie about their compassion and
friendship? Don't they realize it HURTS? And what is good about a
belief that says DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH NON BELIEVERS -- even if they
trusted and befriended you? Isn't that just MEAN?
Because the public at large had psychological dependence and fear of
hell, they blamed a scapegoat -- the Satanists -- when people started to
realize the churches are not trustworthy or kind as they pretend to be.
It's easier to blame the weirdoes for social problems, rather
than admit most child abuse happens at the hands of people you are told
you MUST trust or else. Most abused kids are abused by their own parents, or by the most trusted adults or
institutions (church members, school counselors, etc.).
So by default, if Dad or Mom trusts someone, as a kid you must trust them too, or else.
Isn't this MEAN?
The guilt and shame of being that honest about the real dysfunctions in a
Judeo-Christian nuclear family-dominated culture would be
devastating to the two faced ego of this culture. It's a culture that really does not
do much action to protect kids from sexual abuse or belief induced
trauma or breaks in trust from parents or caretakers.
It would ruin the concept of family, the 'values' that our economic classist system
relies on to exploit every generation, if
trust, trauma, manipulation, coercion, fantasy, and the breaking of trust
was discussed in any deep way in the public sphere.
Child abuse has to stop for society's healing to
begin. Traumatized people have to relearn to trust, to heal. And if society
is not safe because of the bullies and their enablers and the game of
make-believe, how can we heal?
Our country talks a lot about protecting kids from abusive adults, but it
it is not doing much to stop child abuse, not when one in four girls are
still raped before age 18. Family services were underfunded, even in
the Clinton years, and it's worse now.
There are plenty of hypocrite control-freak parents who agree with
child abuse advocates like James Dobson, who see NOTHING WRONG with what he says. Dobson
implies that kids are evil and must be tamed into submission with the
stinging tip of a switch and the scars of a deep betrayal -- cognitive
dissonance that takes years to cope with.
He is advocating torture, humiliation. Dobson has an S/M mentality.
It's far easier for a "triggered" and in denial, dishonest adult to beat
a child for causing a ruckus, than to get out of their own defensive
head, stop, care, identify with the child, and try to understand their
helplessness. For some adults this is more frightening than the fear of
hurting their own kid. It's easier to slip into
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It is the end of days.
Get ready.
by Julia Glick, Associated Press
Feb. 16, 2006
McKINNEY, Texas -- A woman accused of chopping the arms off her 10-month-old daughter believed she was supposed to die along with her baby, a mental health counselor testified Thursday.
Jail counselor Sherry Wing's testimony provided the first glimpse into Dena Schlosser's thinking on the day she is accused of killing her baby with a kitchen knife.
Schlosser, 37, thought she was "to have gone to God and that something went horribly wrong the day of the tragedy," Wing said.
Schlosser has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the November 2004 death of her baby Margaret, known as Maggie.
Prosecutors contend that Schlosser knew what she was doing, while the defense argues that Schlosser did not know right from wrong in Maggie's death.
Wing said Schlosser described suffering from hallucinations, including images of words lifting off Bible pages and characters speaking to her from the television.
"She would see blood on the street," Wing testified. "The blood would turn into apostles. The apostles would tell her, 'It is the end of days. Get ready.'"
Schlosser was arrested after police responding to a 911 call found her in the living room, covered in blood, still holding a knife and listening to a church hymn.
If convicted, she would face life in prison. If found not guilty she would be hospitalized.
Before the slaying, Wing testified, Schlosser had refused anti-psychotic medications because her church considered them something "of the devil."
Schlosser, her husband and their three children went several times a week to the Water of Life Church. The pastor, Doyle Davidson, testified Wednesday that he believes mental illness is possession by demons and only God can cure it.
Schlosser's former stepfather, Bob Nicholas, testified that she suffered from a condition involving excess fluid on her brain when was 7 or 8 years old.
She had a tube inserted in her brain to drain the fluid and underwent multiple surgeries when problem persisted.
"There's no way that I feel that Dena, had she been in her right mind, would have done this, I can't reconcile it, " Nicholas said. "It was my opinion that with all the surgeries she had, there possibly could have been a long-term effect."
The prosecution continued Thursday to emphasize Schlosser's seemingly normal appearance before Maggie's death. Child Protective Services investigated her for neglect in early 2004 but closed the case after months of monitoring.
Susanne Arnold, one of the family's caseworkers, testified that Schlosser was a good mother and did not exhibit signs of psychosis.
After her arrest, Schlosser was diagnosed with manic depression and declared mentally incompetent to stand trial. But in May, after doctors treated her, a judge found she was competent.
As originally published
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Underground Panther in the Sky
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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master vs slave
mentality and beat the disobedient slave, to forget that your uppity slave is
a dependant vulnerable child, someone much smaller than, and totally
dependant upon, the parent.
To understand the child's situation, to honestly see the trauma and betrayal
of trust in something like a spanking, would mean the
adult on some level has to face their own less-than-perfect childhood and
their own helplessness. And this is PAINFUL.
A crying child reminds an adult who has denied and suppressed their own
childhood scars of abuse, reminds them how helpless it felt to be at the mercy
of their own control freak parents. Most people do not want to introspect
into painful things.
The brain compartmentalizes trauma memories, transferred what happened into another generation's
problem, with every adult who hurts, or takes advantage of a
child. Emotional debts from generations before cover the world -- like
government debt or environmental pollution, child abuse is left for the next generation
to fix.
We have to be there, emotionally, and try to trust for our collective
survival's sake. We need to stop hurting each other for hurting. And we
need also to be INTOLERANT of bullies and those who excuse
abusers, tolerate torture, coerce others, or engage in
humiliation, shaming, or domination.
A large segment of our society is sick, because our parents could not
heal trauma enough to realize how to stop the cycle of abuse, denial and
enabling in our culture. So to fix it without needing to trust, societies
turn to exorcists, religion, Sylvia Brown, channelers, drugs and
booze, food, cutting, and pop psych and S/M rituals. It's all an attempt to heal
trauma scars locked in areas of the brain that influence
and haunt us, areas that are partly inaccessible to normal conscious states. We
struggle with trust and abusers during life, we get hurt again and
traumatized, and it creates more scars and stress, until we find and
reinforce boundaries and become intolerant of bullies.
Trance tricks like exorcism do not remove the underlying problems trauma
creates in people. Trauma breaks trust, on a primal level. The brain
never rearranges its "memory files" in the correct order, magically, with
an exorcism. Healing is not taking place, because trust and boundaries
and the sanctity of a persons mind, consent and body are not respected in
exorcism. And if society fails to respect consent and body, the society is
sick and abusive and untrustworthy.
I was exorcised by fundies at Assemblies of God Church. It was
dramatic, and it was weird. It was a hellova ritual "show" and trance
game. The whole church was involved. It felt at first like such a caring
and compassionate community, but it was all a game, a show.
In reality
the church was very abusive to me. They abused my trust and
vulnerability. I was in denial about that because I was vulnerable and had
no-one to relate to.
When I reasoned through the belief system and found
it was not what I believed, I saw that their interpretation of the
unknown was making me sick inside, so I left Christianity. As the reality
of what I was doing there hit me, and I understood what I had been trusting in (predatory
exploiters) and I came to the realization that I had been conned and manipulated, it was painful. I was re-traumatized, and the church
abandoned me for being an unbeliever. I wanted to die.
Their compassion and friendship was all a lie. They would not care about
me as a human being unless I believed the theology too. And I couldn't
believe it. It is wrong to FAKE Compassion and friendship, so I will
NEVER trust Christianity again.
To me, the church system is abusive.
Christians who do not question certain tenets of their faith on moral
and human rights grounds are morally questionable people at best, and downright
evil at worst. Jesus is as perverse and two-faced as any other abuser. And it is MY RIGHT to not trust any belief or any person, until I
choose to do it myself on my terms.
I am not sure I can ever trust the world or humans again.
So many humans are bullies, and say mean shit as if it was "funny."
And enablers play along blithely. Over and over, abuse patterns pop up in
conversations. It makes me sick. Its on Democratic Underground, where I frequently participate, and it's everyfuckingwhere.
If I say "it hurts to be teased" someone will say it's MY fault I am hurt. This is
ABUSE.
One cannot choose to not be hurt because some ass says so. That's
denial and it can make you sick. But one can choose to stop saying shit that
will hurt other people for kicks, stop pretending it's funny, stop shaming the
hurt person for not pretending along with the verbal abuse game.
My brain is fried enough from others' abuses. My identity is as
fragmented as my brain is. And despite this, I have to be responsible for
my own reactions maintaining my boundaries, and how it effects others,
because I do not want to cause MORE pain. I am not who I was taught to
believe I am. And I do not trust the world to reflect back to me
anything honestly.
I know have to trust someone again before I can heal, but that takes time.
Trauma destroys trust. It's a horrible catch 22. It's CRAZYMAKING.
Listening is uncomfortable, for people hearing about others' trauma. And
their defenses makes me feel they are not worth my trust.
Listeners grow impatient, as I stumble over words they get defensive or
ask me to minimize my own pain or hurry it up -- or worse they pull out
"the pain worthiness yardstick" and make comparisons. This kind of game
breaks trust. It's a sad situation.
Exorcism is bad for trauma victims because it short circuits trauma
healing on all sides. It's destructive and abusive. People have died
being exorcised. If exorcists are so "compassionate" why are victims so often
hurt MORE by them?
With exorcism there is no need for trust, or for listening with empathy
to the voice of someone in pain, someone who sounds like a demon because of what's
happened to them. It is a selfish practice, to short circuit trauma healing
for the convenience of those who are made uncomfortable by the reality, the fact that this world is violent and sick, and bullies who choose to make
it worse.
Beating up a small kid may make the kid tougher-skinned and able to endure
more abuse and hardship, but it does not make them a warmer, more
genuine, healthier, more compassionate, more whole, happier, or more wise
person.
* * *
A number of authors have discussed potential negative effects of
trauma-focus therapy, if patients aren't carefully selected.
Re-traumatization can occur if patients are unprepared to engage memories
or if the process occurs too rapidly (16). Re-traumatized patients simply
"re-live" the event in therapy, feeling isolated and emotionally
overwhelmed, re-experiencing a loss of control. Dramatic forms of
dissociation may occur (1) and for some patients there is a risk of
substance abuse relapse (17) or "flight from treatment." Judith Herman
(16) has suggested that premature trauma focus therapy may result from a
common fantasy of a violent, cathartic, rapid "cure," a fantasy
sometimes shared by both patient and clinician, and also reflected in
the exorcism myths of many cultures. Dr. Herman has suggested that the
first stage of recovery from trauma involves establishing safety on
several levels ...
For more information on this sort of stuff read the links below.
The healing process
Retraumatizing the Victim
The persistence of war
"Marlboro Man" Marine is home
and suffering from PTSD
The Institute for Psychohistory
© by the author.
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ABUSE
CHRISTIANITY
EXORCISM
FUNDAMENTALISM
POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
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