#Cult and ritual trauma disorde

[stopchildabuse]

Cult and Ritual Abuse

Copied from https://childabusewiki.org/index.php/Cult_and_Ritual_Abuse with permission.

Cult and Ritual Abuse

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Cult and ritual abuse discusses the idea that ritual abuse is an age-old phenomenon and it is found in many cultures throughout the world. It explores the many specific psychiatric symptoms caused by ritual abuse, including dissociative identity disorder. The book gives suggestions for effective ways to deal with the legal and social problems that can result from this severe form of abuse. A new diagnosis “Cult and ritual trauma disorder” is proposed in this edition. Cult and ritual abuse was first published in 1995 with a revised edition in 2000. [1]  

The book was co-authored by James Randall Noblitt, a clinical psychologist and the executive director of a professional organization dedicated to treating survivors of cult and ritual abuse.[1] Noblitt is a professor and Director of the Psychology program at Alliant International University.

Contents

1 Comments and critiques

2 References

3 Related Pages

4 Articles and Books

5 External links

Comments and critiques

Kenneth E. Fletcher in a Psychiatric services review, discusses evidence of ritual abuse from the book and states that parts of the book are interesting and intriguing with uneven writing at times. Fletcher concludes that those interested in the topic of cult and ritual abuse will find it a worthwhile read.[2]

An article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy stated that “Whether or not one believes in MPD and/or Ritual Abuse, this book provides one with what is probably the most comprehensive and reasonable review of the subject that has appeared up to now.” [3]

References

Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P.  Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (2000) Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 269 ISBN 027596664X http://books.google.com/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C

Fletcher, K., July 2001 Cult and ritual abuse: Its history, anthropology, and recent discovery in contemporary America, revised edition Psychiatric services Volume 52 p. 978-979 http://www.psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/52/7/978

Coomaraswamy, R. Summer 1996  Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America  American Journal of Psychotherapy 50, 3 p. 383 http://www.ajp.org/

Related Pages

Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse

Extreme Abuse Surveys

Ritual Abuse

Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century

Ritual Abuse Torture

Satanic Ritual Abuse Evidence and Journal Articles

Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse

Articles and Books

Noblitt, J.R. (1995). “Psychometric measures of trauma among psychiatric patients reporting ritual abuse”. Psychological Reports 77(3):743-747. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559911

Noblitt, R.; Perskin, P. Ritual abuse in the Twenty First Century (2008) Reed Publishers, Bandon, OR p. 552  ISBN 1-934759-12-0 http://www.rdrpublishers.com/catalog/item/6339393/5820690.htm

External links

An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy

Ritual Abuse articles

Ritual Abuse Cases

Extreme Abuse Survey

http://nonstatetorture.org/

http://www.ra-info.org

http://www.survivorship.org

http://web.archive.org/web/20071218103952/http://www.aches-mc.org/

http://web.archive.org/web/20080116175648/http://theawarenesscenter.org/ritualabuse.html

[leaving-samsara]

stop fetishizing trauma 😐

[creature-wizard]

Anyway. So. A list of some things that were considered signs of satanic ritual abuse and/or satanic cult involvement in the 1980s and 1990s:

Owning or liking literally anything that conservative Christians would consider occult or satanic; for example, rock music, tabletop roleplaying games, fantasy media, horror films, artwork or home decor that looked a little too esoteric or mystical, divination tools or books, books about witchcraft, etc.

Owning anything that could be interpreted an occult ritual item, including candles, masks, mirrors, face paint, stones, etc.

Engaging in occult communities on the Internet.

Rebelling against Christianity.

Basically any behavior or symptom indistinguishable from symptoms of Christian religious trauma.

Pretty much any behavior or symptom indistinguishable from symptoms of trauma from familial abuse and non-ritualized sexual abuse.

Symptoms and behaviors indistinguishable from ADHD and/or autism.

Symptoms and behaviors associated with anxiety disorders, depression, OCD, and other mental illnesses that don't require trauma to develop.

And the thing was? Allegations of satanic ritual abuse were basically unfalsifiable to the believers. Denying being a victim of SRA was considered a symptom of SRA because supposedly, you'd just repressed the memories. If no real evidence for an alleged satanic crime could be found, people just claimed that the perpetrators had destroyed it all. Once somebody decided SRA was happening, there was literally no way to disprove it.

[theinfernalcollective]

RAMCOA and SRA

This is a very long post so we apologize in advance.

Do we believe in RAMCOA? no. And no this is not saying we don't believe that the people saying they went through RAMCOA is lying. We simply do not believe in it because of how suddenly is had just shown up. The title satanic and ritual abuse has been around since the 80s. However it was also satanic panic. And while even SRA is very exaggerated. RAMCOA is the rebranded name for SRA.

RAMCOA stands for ritual abuse, mind control, and organized abuse. However the name RAMCOA doesn't get used in clinical settings. And after discussing this with both our therapist and psychiatrist neither have even heard of it, or RSA.

Cults and trafficking are most definitely real, and those affected by their actions are also real. We're not invalidating victims by saying this but none of the cults that SRA/RAMCOA were believed to come from in the 80s and 90s even existed. They were fears and conspiracy theories. Otherwise meaning not real. unfounded conspiracy theories of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) as a cause of mental illness – particularly dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD).

The problem

Satanic Panic — broadly, the fear that devil-worshiping Satanists engage in criminal, antisocial acts on a massive scale – exploded in the 1980s, primarily in the United States. During this time, a fear that Satanists were sexually abusing and sacrificing children in bizarre rituals gripped the nation. For many, skepticism regarding these invisible crimes was tantamount to complicity, fostering a situation in which even the most improbable of claims went unquestioned by jurors and the public at large. Individuals were imprisoned for crimes stemming from unsubstantiated SRA allegations – often the product of recovered memory therapy techniques. Families were torn apart by gruesome and impossible accusations. Some were repaired after supposed victims learned they were suffering from false memories; others remain destroyed to this day. This moral panic over nonexistent Satanic cults arose out of an unholy alliance between well-meaning but misguided mental health professionals, law enforcement, prominent feminists, and Christian leaders. And it was catapulted into living rooms across the country by credulous television hosts – such as Geraldo Rivera and Oprah – who platformed self-proclaimed survivors, opportunistic “ex-Satanists” who asserted past involvement in Satanic crime, and reckless therapists who demanded the public believe these strange accounts.

Although Satanic Panic began to dwindle by the mid-1990s, the mental health field has not entirely rid itself of this plague. In fact, many of the same licensed therapists who contributed to Satanic Panic during that time continue to do so today, including as members of respected professional societies – such as the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). These professional organizations sponsor conferences – eligible for continuing education credit – featuring presentations that promote pseudoscientific recovered memory therapy and SRA. We refer to licensed mental health professionals who practice recovered memory therapy and/or promote Satanic Panic conspiracy theories as “conspiracy therapists.”

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) is a mental health organization for professionals and students. The organization focuses on psychological trauma and the dissociative disorders, including dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). The ISSTD has held annual international and regional conferences since its founding in 1984, with most presentations rewarding attendees with continuing education credits required to maintain clinical licensure. The organization promotes pseudoscientific recovered memory therapy, other dangerous treatment techniques, and fictitious conspiracy theories including ritual sacrifice, cannibalism, and widespread, abusive, Satanic cults. ISSTD members, speakers, researchers, staff, and board members continue to promote the long-disproven notion that these Satanic conspiracies have caused mental illness in thousands or even millions of people. As such, the ISSTD is the primary structure around which conspiracy therapists organize. But contrary to their assertions that they are healing the abused and traumatized, many prominent ISSTD members – including its founders and presidents – have been the subject of disturbing misconduct allegations and lawsuits from former patients.

Two issues after the publication of the Goodwin and Hill article, Dissociation printed a scathing letter to the editor from Richard Noll, a psychologist and historian of science. Noll charged that the Goodwin and Hill article relied on weak sources, ignored important context, and evaded the fact that their examples were almost invariably hoaxes, rumors, and forgeries. ”The truth of the matter is this: distinguished historians of witchcraft and of ritual magic… do not find evidence that satanic cults practicing the Black Mass, with cannibalism, ritual murder, worship of Satan, etc., have ever existed.”

bipolar disorder. Objectives of the presentation include being able to identify “at least five presentation clues that indicate a possible diagnosis of ritual abuse, mind control, or organized abuse” and “describe some hallmark features of Monarch mind control.” Danylchuk’s lecture covered how to recognize patient “patterns” that indicate ritual abuse victimization and how to identify “the most common role reenactments that emerge during therapy.” Salter’s lecture explained how “dissociative symptoms and traumatic attachments can be manipulated by perpetrators to coerce vulnerable people into organised abuse.” Though Salter’s presentation denounces “simple dichotomies of ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ abuse,” his constant references to perpetrators and survivors lay bare his allegiance to believing alleged victims no matter how self-falsifying the narrative.

- Vayu

Source and half of the post is directly from greyfaction.org

[sparkplgggrrrrrrr]

Affogato Cookie Headcanons 🤤

WARNING: religious trauma, religious abuse, cults ________________________________

⭑.ᐟ Affogato has long pointed nails that he has a disciple maintain for him

⭑.ᐟ His skin tone is less saturated, not because he doesn’t moisturize but because the moisturizer he is able to get is too weak for the cold climate in the cacao kingdom’s environment.

⭑.ᐟ Affogato’s canonical apathy towards other people is apart of a predisposed mental disorder that he has from his genes that increased in intensity as his trauma progressed, I headcanon specifically that he has ASPD [Antisocial personality disorder] (NOTE: I do NOT view people with ASPD as villains just because I see ASPD criteria in a character that happens to be a villain. People with ASPD are HUMAN, treat them like humans.) because he fits three or more of the DSM-5 criteria:

• Impulsivity or failure to plan.

• Deceitfulness, repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for pleasure or personal profit.

• Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others.

• Lack of remorse, indifference to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.

• The individual is at least age 18.

• The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

⭑.ᐟ Affogato’s actions are not to be forgiven, excused, or pardoned just because he shows signs of a vulnerability and a complex disorder. He is not this way because he hates himself, he is this way because he’s fucked up beyond saving, acting the way he does is his defense from being broken down.

⭑.ᐟ Affogato uses eating as a coping mechanism for stress, boredom, depression, and anxiety. He does this as he did not have this method of coping as a younger person, so now that he has this opportunity, he’ll take it to the fullest extent.

⭑.ᐟ I also headcanon that Affogato experiences manic episodes, not related to bipolar disorder’s hypomania, or schizophrenic mania., but manic episodes regardless, as impulsivity is a core component of ASPD.

⭑.ᐟ Affogato DOES NOT have NPD OR bipolar disorder., a trait of NPD is lying to avoid shame, a trait of ASPD is lying without remorse and/or for gain. There’s a misconception I’ve seen where people tend to view Affogato as a person with NPD, but, NPD is often confused for ASPD.

⭑.ᐟ Affogato makes his disciples pray by way of altars in their individual chambers, by which they offer expensive materialistic items or food they made from the citadel’s ovens to Fortuna. Affogato checks at the end of every week to see if they’ve offered, and then he takes the items from the altar, saying that they will be burned to send off to Fortuna, but in reality, are kept for himself.

⭑.ᐟ Affogato makes his disciples speak in tongues and chants during group rituals,, but the chaos is amped up by exotic Choconilla Swirl birds (a species I made up.) that are kept in cages, as the loud speaking in chanting tongues increases in chaos, the birds are spooked. The birds in cages create loud noise, which overstimulates the disciples, distressing them as they chant to the point of breaking down, these breakdowns lead them to believe that they are being acknowledged by Fortuna. Affogato watches this, occasionally yelling at them to do something more or to direct them in prayer. They do this chanting around a purple fire pit with a hanging idol painting above it on the ceiling, and they’re not allowed to look down from its gaze. Fire is the room’s only light, so disciples are only able to see the flame and the idol painting.

My inspiration for this headcanon was this song by Reverend Kristin Micheal Hayter

[IF YOU HAVE RELIGIOUS TRAUMA LISTEN WITH CAUTION!]

⭑.ᐟ Affogato trains his priests in heavy self discipline, by writing their prayers in the air with smoke from an incense stick for HOURS, until their arms are numb and pained. He does this for his own entertainment, because he knows that he is leading them down a path of undivided devotion and self destruction. And if a priest in training is to not finish a prayer in the time it takes to burn an incense stick down to its last end, he makes them start over.

_____________________________________________

These headcanons were made by both me and my girlfriend 🤤

@magical-fudge-berry

[donnerpartyofone]

I saw this post a few weeks ago that was like a chart from a psychology text that described how different sorts of childhood trauma can produce different dysfunctions, one of which was (I *think*) Emotional Neglect -> Magical Thinking. I was so intrigued by that. Magical thinking is sort of an umbrella term for the belief in a causal relationship between two unrelated factors; it can include wishing on a birthday cake candle; the feeling that The Universe is telling you to call your ex because something reminded you of them; OCD-type rituals that you believe will ward off misfortune; the deeper meanings mis-assigned to mundane events that can be produced by schizo-affective disorders; and also religious convictions to some degree, although those are rarely considered a clinical problem as with anything that helps or doesn't seem to hurt the participants. There seem to be as many potential causes of magical thinking as there are forms of the thought pattern itself, and trauma is an interesting one.

It might be better to think of "trauma" as "helplessness" here. Magical thinking can help impose a feeling of organization where there is chaos and loss of any sense of significance. There was a lot of magical thinking going around in the gritty, depressed town where I'm from, and I often thought it was because of the persistent economic pressure. It's relatively normal for kids to be susceptible to spooky ideas, but many of the adults were also full of ghost stories and superstitions. I have one very sensible friend who is smarter than I am, who grew up there too, and we often reflect on this, which helps me know that this isn't strictly an idea I have due to my own social choices. My friend doesn't live in that town anymore either, but she's always digging up interesting stuff related to it, and one day she showed me the website of someone there offering his services as a paranormal investigator. He was in his 20s, and the site included a lot of unconvincing photos and a long, vigorous testimonial by the guy's mom. Part of me was dying to put it on tumblr, but it would only have resulted in unnecessary cruelty. I was as much a victim of magical thinking as anybody, and I think even when I was pretty young I was aware of what motivated me to be so naive and gullible: that a world full of ghosts and vampires and UFOs and such was preferable to what I normally experienced, which was a consistent sense of boredom and meaninglessness and drudgery and embarrassment and pain and suffocation in an ugly, flavorless universe whose nicer side was not going to be available to me. I had a lot of really damaging friendships with manipulative assholes and pathological liars because I was so very willing to believe the crazy things they told me, just in case any of them were true, because such a truth could change my whole life.

Sometimes I think it's amazing that I never wound up in a cult, although I guess those relationships were sort of like little one- or two-person cults. Once in a while I read about some crime involving young people who think they're vampires or something, and I have a deep feeling of pity, because I think I know what they were going through (except for the part where they think they can do whatever they want to other people). The sad story of Shanda Sharer involves a whole group of badly abused and underprivileged teens, some of whom thought they were witches or vampires, and it just makes so much sense to me that they would be overtaken by these fantasies of secret meaning and power. Recently I watched Bad Vegan on Netflix, something that I avoided at first because I thought it was just about rich douchebags humiliating each other--which is like, what else is new--and to some degree it is, but actually it's way more disturbing than that. Ambitious young raw food entrepreneur Sarma Melngailis was manipulated, isolated, and ultimately kidnapped by this sadistic freak who preyed first on her loneliness and financial fears by pretending to be a rich suitor who could solve all of her problems; then he preyed upon her feelings of personal insignificance and failure by convincing her that he and she had been selected by a cabal of extraterrestrial illuminati who would make them immortal. Sarma seemed completely broken down to me, and I was amazed by her courage in describing the scam she fell for, that she must have known would invite derision. Part of the documentary explores her youth as a kid who always believed she could become something special, and then mundane tragedies like her parents' divorce brought her back down to earth in a painful way, and it seemed like she spent the rest of her life haunted by the idea that she might just be an ordinary failure of a person. I think that's part of what made her so vulnerable to this psychopath, that he was able to access her secret dream of having a special destiny. I got one of my friends to watch the show and she was very frustrated by it because she just couldn't figure out what Sarma's problem was that would cause her to ever believe the things she was told. I tried to reiterate what I've said here, but it didn't seem to mean anything. Ironically this friend is a practicing witch with formal beliefs in the supernatural, including that people can awaken special powers within themselves, but I guess one man's magical thinking is just um not another man's magical thinking.

I still have a lot of magical thinking going, but it doesn't have the same character it once did. I tend to think of it more as "symbolic thinking"; I have a hard time accessing senses of meaning and hope, let alone any kind of self-belief, and sometimes symbolic gestures and concepts can provide that access better than my own direct, practical attempts ever could. It helps that I have a basic agnosticism about the invisible structures of the world, like it's easy for me to believe that there is more to life than what comes in through the five senses, even if I don't pretend to know entirely what that "more" is. That may help me believe that "anything is possible" and I shouldn't give up, even if I direly want to and I know I'm being kind of irrational. Magical thinking can be a double-edged sword, but maybe it's better than nothing.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Just saw someone say that RAMCOA "isn't real and is an antisemitic conspiracy theory" which... I don't know. I think that's dismissive of the pervasiveness of Xian abuse and the actual context of RAMCOA. A lot of Xians are involved in organized cults and traffic/abuse people through various means. At the very least I think there is nuance here. I'd like to hear your take though

For those who don't know the acronym, it stands for Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse, and was coined by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), and organization with a history of past and present abuse and corruption.

It's not real. It's a conspiracy that began in the 1980s and 1990s with the Satanic Panic. Some corrupt psychologists practiced "repressed memory recovery", where they convinced their patients that they were ritually abused by satanic cults as children, but forgot about it due to trauma. In reality, it's actually very easy to convince someone that they remember something, even when it didn't actually happen. There is no nuance. While cults absolutely do exist, there is no underground network of cults (Christian or otherwise) engaging in occult ritual sacrifices and abuses. To assert that there is leans deeply into antisemitic and xenophobic conspiracy.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that certain dissociative disorders aren't real. They've existed before the Satanic Panic and before the epidemic of false memory implanting by psychologists. However, people with trauma disorders are very susceptible to manipulation, especially by mental healthcare professionals. Someone can genuinely believe they were kidnapped by a network of occultists, that doesn't mean it actually happened to them. It also doesn't mean that they're malicious liars- false memories can feel very real, and as we've learned, it's quite easy to convince someone of a memory that didn't happen. People who believe they were victims of these things deserve our compassion- the bad-faith actors are the doctors and therapists who manipulated them, not the people suffering from mental illness.

More reading:

Evidence Against Dr. Colin A. Ross

Dangerous Therapy: The Story of Patricia Burgus and Multiple Personality Disorder

Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend

Martha Ann Tyo v Ross

Satanic Cults, Ritual Abuse, and Moral Panic: Deconstructing a Modern Witch-Hunt

Dutch Investigators Find No Evidence Of Ritual Child Abuse

Supernatural Support Groups: Who Are the UFO Abductees and Ritual-Abuse Survivors?

[thescreamcorner]

RAMCOA - Unpacking The History

Trigger Warning for this post, as it will include mentions of various types of trauma and abuse, religious ideology and dogma, medical malpractice, death, and bigotry. Many links provided may go in depth on these subjects, so please be wary of clicking them if you are in a sensitive state.

Forward: Please note that the following analysis is about the term/acronym "RAMCOA" itself. There is a wide array of experiences that are said to fit under the RAMCOA umbrella, and while talking about the toxic history and usage of RAMCOA, these points are not meant to directly apply to every individual experience and trauma that it applies to. Cult and religious abuse exists, institutional and ritualistic abuse exists, trafficking rings exist. I am not attempting to debunk the experiences of survivors of these abuses for using and attaching to the term RAMCOA. This is simply a post I'm putting together while I study, and an encouragement for those who use the acronym to consider other terms given what I've learned and shared.

This is a very long post, so please consider setting it to the side and taking it in in pieces if needed, to make sure you get an accurate understanding.

Where Did This All Start?

Our dive begins with the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, which is commonly shorthanded to ISSTD and will be referred to this way for the entirety of the post going forward. The ISSTD is a nonprofit organization that began in the 1980s under the name "The International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation" (ISSMP&D). The organization featured clinicians and researchers that focused study onto Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).

Over time, more was understood about the disorder, and MPD was renamed to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as doctors became aware that the experiences of the disorder were linked to trauma and dissociation, not purely the concept of "multiple personalities". As such, the organization went through two rebrands, settling on the ISSTD acronym in 2006 and remaining under that name to this day.

As far back as the 1980s, the ISSTD was the subject of controversy due to the actions of healthcare professionals that operated within the organization. Some providers were found to be using hypnosis and other forms of RMT (link), a highly controversial practice in medicine, in order to help patients recognize and recover traumatic memories. However, it was exemplified through this lawsuit (link) and its 10.6 million dollar settlement that the power of suggestion could easily lead to memories that were inaccurate, modified, or even entirely fabricated, whether or not directly encouraged by the provider.

The lawsuit from Patricia Burgus also exemplifies another piece of controversy regarding the ISSTD, being their contributions to the Satanic Panic (link) and claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse, or SRA, in the 1980s. Providers like Dr. Braun, who co-founded the ISSTD (link), were found to be implanting memories specifically tied to conspiracy theories of mass satanic cults, such as human sacrifices and forced cannibalism.

Further still is the antisemitic ties and roots of these conspiracies, believed to have stemmed from Blood Libel (link) -- A well-contested conspiracy that Jewish people would kidnap and murder innocent Christians (particularly children) in order to use their blood for religious rituals. A conspiracy that, somehow, has still lived on in fringe groups like QAnon (link) and further cemented its links to the Satanic Panic through them.

Another facet of controversy within the ISSTD came from the conspiracy beliefs that not only were held by members, but were often the subject of conferences. These of course featured more on SRA, but also extended to subjects like that of the 1989 annual conference, "Manchurian Candidates" -- a disproven conspiracy that stemmed from a work of political fiction (link) where the protagonist is brainwashed into becoming a sleeper agent for the Soviet Union. While brainwashing is still believed to be potentially real, given the correct circumstances, part of what helped contest the ISSTDs conference subject was the leak of the USA's attempt to replicate this, MKULTRA (link).

The biggest controversy to point to, of course, is the treatment of patients by providers who associated with the ISSTD. Many of the links I've provided already address the many cases of emotional, physical and sexual abuse that took place with clients being treated for dissociative and trauma disorders, so I will not dive further into it here, but know that the details are distressing and the list is much longer than it should be for an organization dedicated to helping traumatized people heal.

How Does All This Connect to RAMCOA?

The ISSTD was responsible for coining the term in 2008 when creating the Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organized Abuse Special Interest Group (or, RAMCOA SIG for short), which quickly became their largest and most active special interest group. Multiple members of its Executive have faced controversy, both individually and as representatives for RAMCOA SIG (link), for continuing to spread conspiracies of satanic ritual abuse (some even adding paganism to the list of targets), making presentations that featured debunked allegations of an "underground network of tunnels below a preschool used for a sex trafficking ring" in the 80s (link), and discouraging fellow practitioners from considering misdiagnosis of DID (link).

Because of all this, RAMCOA as a term is inextricably linked to SRA, the Satanic Panic, medical malpractice, and to a degree, antisemitic conspiracy theories. Its creation as an acronym stemmed from theories and conspiracies that are predominantly held by fringe extremist groups, instead of any legitimate medical documentation around trauma and institutional abuse. Many of those who created it have been noted actively and purposely triggering paranoia and delusion in both their clients and fellows of the SIG, still continuing to spread their personal beliefs in lieu of medical advice.

The term has steeped itself in so much controversy, in fact, that the RAMCOA SIG was rebranded (link) to the Organized and Extreme Abuse (OEA) SIG in order to maintain their stance as an educational special interest group.

But What About The Content Creators?

I will again state that in this post, I am not making any attempt to attack or debunk any particular person or survivor, or pick apart the legitimacy of their conditions, traumas, etcetera. However, it is important to the discussion of RAMCOA, the problems of its usage, and its toxic history, to address its current usage -- which is predominantly featured on social media.

There is a startling trend of excessive, even dangerous levels of trauma dumping that can be found when searching through tags and spaces for RAMCOA survivors. This is unfortunately not unique to RAMCOA, as oversharing and lack-of-privacy is something that often gets encouraged in some "mental health" online spaces, but often the RAMCOA tags are most notorious to having graphic abuse details - sometimes without appropriate content warning, oversharing of symptoms/alters, and participants in the "trauma olympics" - a phenomenon of individuals sharing visceral content of their lives for the sake of either attention, or a sense of validation for "having it worse" than other people.

These bouts of extensive oversharing can be harmful in a multitude of ways, the most obvious being the distress that reading it causes. There also exists a possibility of people internalizing the graphic details and developing false and/or altered memories of their own abuse. The consequences of this include interpersonal strains and inaccurate medical care, as doctors may come to a false negative diagnosis if exaggeration is present.

The further risks of this extend past those not affected by these traumas as well, as these extremely personal details can be used against the person sharing them. Depending on the extent of what is shared, the results can be incredibly dangerous and put the person back into a cycle of victimization, potentially with the same abuser(s). And without encouragement of proper anonymity or privacy to protect them, these posts then serve to push more victims to give out dangerous amounts of private information under the guise of "sharing their story." Victims should not feel pressured into silence, but encouraging them to speak on their experiences before they're in a safe environment to do so, and not addressing how much information is "too much" for a public platform, is dangerous.

These issues are something that some facets of the "RAMCOA community" refuse to acknowledge. Others will only address them as a strawman to argue that any criticism of the term RAMCOA (or the behaviors of some individuals that use it) is nothing more than an effort to "silence victims, fakeclaim systems and cover up for abusers." Some twist the argument to say that by noting RAMCOA's historical roots in antisemitism, you're accusing everyone who fits under the umbrella of also being antisemitic.

But these issues aren't something to just ignore or throw away. This isn't a case of "separate the art from the artist"; you can't just pretend the history, meaning and intentions behind the term don't matter, or never existed to begin with.

I think it's time for the "RAMCOA community" to reflect on these things, and for the survivors of extreme cases of abuse to create their own term to gather under, rather than continue to cling to the term coined by an organization that has repeatedly fostered the very same types of abuse they claim to educate about and treat.

[ramcoa-safe-space]

Hi there people, welcome to the RAMCOA safe space. Some clarification, this is not a place for people who are pro-RAMCOA causers, it's for survivors of it. There are some trigger warnings below the cut, specifically for discussing of RAMCOA, cult mention, syscourse mention

We do know that the term OEA is also used frequently and we are both a RAMCOA safe space and an OEA safe space. For the questions and answers below, RAMCOA will be used but OEA applies as well.

What is RAMCOA?

RAMCOA stands for Ritual Abuse Mind Control Organized Abuse. When people hear that, they tend to think of cults first and foremost which is what many (Not all but some) survivors went through. There is debate on if ritualistic should count with ritual, on this and any other blog we run it does. If you do not, please do not come and try to debate us. We will delete any comments and block anyone who's trying to be offensive, we don't care. There is another commonly used term, OEA which stands for Organized Extreme Abuse. It is seen as more accepting.

Is RAMCOA just the satanic panic?

Good question, no it is not. RAMCOA also is not anti-sematic, it's people who went through extreme trauma

Is it even real?

Yes, Yes RAMCOA is. RAMCOA survivors are not just systems, they can be a non-system. Some systems (people with DID/OSDD 1) prefer to use HC-DID if they have been through RAMCOA/OEA.

I want to follow you but I don't know your syscourse stand

We want to keep syscourse out of this blog however, if you need to know, we identify as a mix between anti-endo and endo apathetic. We do not wish to talk about syscourse, if you want to then we are @anti-endo-safe-space and welcome communication there

Can I interact if I'm just curious about RAMCOA?

Yes! We do want to provide a safe space for RAMCOA survivors but at the same time, we want to give any information we can. We do not have the best answers. Another good blog for RAMCOA survivors is @crystaledhearts. However, if we find anyone has harassed them we will rapidly block. Harassment is never allowed.

Who we are

You can call us Spidey. We also run two other blogs, @anti-endo-safe-space and @npd-safe-space. We have a CDD (our therapist is still up in the air on which type), PTSD, MDD with PF, and NPD (we have other disorders but that is all we are comfortable telling).

We have decided to make this blog as there aren't nearly enough blogs for RAMCOA survivors.

DNI/BYF (Before You Follow):

Do not bring syscourse onto this account

MAPs/Pro contact paraphillia

TransID's/believers

AspenFrosten followers/her

Fake claimers

Racists, homophobes, anti-good faith

TERF's

Radqueers

FDC/SC reddit viewers/believers (fake disorder cringe/systemscringe)

Anti-RAMCOA. You are not welcome here

What can you do here?

Vent, rant, info dump, ask questions (might not answer everything or be able to), talk about hyperfixatoins, talk about experiences with RAMCOA, submit posts, just chat

Please make sure to use proper trigger warnings

Something final we want to add. To those on places like FDC or SC, do not post things from here. I know that's just encouraging all of you but this is for trauma survivors. Rather or not you believe in RAMCOA, would you want people mocking you for daring to find a space you were welcome in? And we will give this as our official do not post. We know what is the definition of cyber bullying/cyber harassment. We don't want anything to do with you, leave us and everyone here alone. It is not a hard request. We won't harass you or bother you, don't harass or bother us, including posting our blog. Any of them.

[the80srewinders]

We were looking at r/fakedisordercringe and r/systemscringe (bad idea) and we found a lot of misinformation. We're going to correct the myths in this post, and this will be a team effort by a few other sysmates. They will be credited at the end of the post.

Trigger warnings for abuse, RAMCOA and denial apply.

This person is trying to invalidate RAMCOA. And they're using an inaccurate study to prove it.

We have, in fact, read this study. It seems largely stereotype driven instead of a true unbiased study because people with other, often traumagenic mental disorders (like cluster b personality disorders) often are open about the trauma they truly experienced if these disorders affect them to have attention seeking behavior. And this study failed to mention that. For the "having told persons other than close confidants" part, its often unsafe for people with DID, much less people who developed it from RAMCOA to be open about it in person to people they know. They feel safer venting or sharing their experience online because theres the optional anonymity you can choose and you're safe from anyone who abused you. Its not attention seeking- its seeking support.

I do agree with the telling of alleged abuse without accompanying shame, guilt or suffering" part to an extent. If you're talking about trauma you claim you remember and have no distress, that's a sign you're either faking or really detached from your memories. But most of the "alleged" abuse these people are talking about they don't remember because thats how childhood trauma and DID work. Many singlets with childhood trauma don't remember majority or any of it because the brain "forgets" different aspects of trauma. And DID is a posttraumatic dissociative disorder entirely based on amnesia of trauma to survive. So if the person is being open about abuse with no distress, it could also be because they don't remember it but know it happened because of clues. Can't feel distress of remembering something you don't remember.

While RAMCOA has strayed away from its original meaning, that's because of misuse (and we blame both the ISSTD and misinformed mental health "professionals" for that along with media presentations.) RAMCOA stands for ritual abuse, mind control and organized abuse. The hyped satanic panic and gory sacrifices are only a small part of the acronym. Mind control doesn't have to be done by a cult. Ever been brainwashed by anyone? Thats a form of mind control. Organized abuse is more common than the satanic, stereotyped ritual abuse. OEA is a simple and inclusive term, and can encompass all forms of RAMCOA but also isn't widely recognized or used yet. And as far as the "HC-DID" term, DID is already highly complex even in people who aren't OEA survivors- DID and OSDD-1 are considered complex dissociative disorders. The term is basically just a fancy way of saying "hey I'm polyfrag because of RAMCOA!" All you need to say is that you're polyfrag because of RAMCOA, you don't need a fancy label for everything.

And yes, introjects are common in neurodivergent systems. Lets go ahead and do autism as an example: being autistic causes distress from hypersensitivity, its a common and documented autistic trait to hyperfixate, people with autism deal with rejection and social anxiety because of how autism works, and people with autism are more likely to be abused. Being autistic is traumatizing itself and this is why neurodivergent systems have plenty of introjects. Especially fictives; people with autism often seek comfort in fiction. And if alters in DID only develop during or after trauma, then this whole theory is solid.

This person is truly uneducated in how abuse survivors brains work especially RAMCOA. These survivors don't label the organization, cult or not, out of fear; when they were programmed, the idea anyone they told - especially if they shared the organizations name- would be in danger or die, or the survivors themselves would be in danger or die was programmed in them. If they're talking about it for awareness, just sharing their lived experiences is all that's needed. Sharing the name of the organization paints a target on the backs of the survivors and their close family and friends. And not every cult is going to present itself in an obvious way especially if they involve RAMCOA. They're going to make it seem like some new religious or pagan movement instead of a traumatizing cult. And yes, they do remain hidden.

This is ableist. If this person is referring to DID/OSDD, that's permanent and even if all alters fuse the ability to split them off again is still there. DID/OSDD are not disorders that can be fixed. Its a permanent rewiring of the brain due to frequent and overwhelming trauma. This involves a missed neurodevelopmental stage (the ego states fusing into one cohesive sense of self before the age of 6-10) and a posttraumatic survival response. Basically, DID/OSDD can't be "fixed" because our brains missed that developmental stage and this is how our brains are permanently. The "you get therapy to fix what went wrong so you can be one whole person as you were meant to be" is ableist and outdated. Its based on the old view of DID/OSDD treatment back when it was called multiple personality disorder: work on the trauma then force the system to fuse into one identity against their will so they'll be "cured."

Don't believe anything you see on r/fakedisordercringe or r/systemscringe. These are the most ableist, hateful subreddits on there and these subreddits set our recovery back when we were in the vulnerable, most important stage of treatment- the diagnostic process and trauma processing. We wouldn't have near the denial or alters that developed from the distress of the host thinking they're faking and much more.

Sysmates who contributed to this post- Finley (host) Everly (gatekeeper) and Marcia (trauma holder)

[cccat-in-a-meat-sack]

Masterlist of information and resources for dissociative disorders, including dissociative amnesia, depersonalization-derealization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder (+ subtypes)

**THESE RESOURCES AND INFORMATION ARE NOT TO BE USED TO SELF-DX YOURSELF. THESE ARE MEANT TO BE A STARTING POINT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DISORDERS. IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU MIGHT HAVE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING, DO MORE RESEARCH ON YOUR OWN. AND IF YOU CAN, SEE AND TALK TO A PROFESSIONAL. FURTHERMORE, I CAN BE WRONG! THESE ARTICLES CAN BE WRONG! YOU CAN SEND US ARTICLES/PAPERS ON ANYTHING HERE TO CORRECT US, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT A CARRD OR SOMETHING ALONG THOSE LINES. THIS IS A STARTING POINT, A LAUNCHPAD IF YOU WILL, NOT THE FINISH LINE. **

I would also like to remind you that all systems are different. Systemhood is a spectrum, and you will see this in multiple articles on this masterlist.

Many of these articles come from did-research.org. If anyone has any other articles or papers for any of the following topics, please either dm me or send an ask. Do not reblog/comment with the article/paper.

**Some links may contain mentions of cult abuse and/or ritual abuse. This will be mostly in the polyfragmented area of this masterlist.

An overview of dissociative disorders

Resources for dissociative disorders

Expert questions and answers (the switching one in this is not very accurate, I touched on it more in the DID portion of this masterlist)

What causes dissociation (focuses more on DID but still important. please note that it's very long and wordy.)

6 DID myths (another long and wordy one. touches on the following: the belief that DID is a “fad”, the belief that DID is primarily diagnosed in North America by DID experts who overdiagnose the disorder, the belief that DID is rare, the belief that DID is an iatrogenic disorder rather than a trauma-based disorder, the belief that DID is the same entity as borderline personality disorder, and the belief that DID treatment is harmful to patients. Iatrogenic, in this instance, means "induced in a patient by the treatment or comments of a physician" according to the National Institutes of Health)

7 DID myths (easier to read, and covers different topics. Confirms there is not a limit to how many alters a system can have.)

Even more DID myths (NOTE. This article will say that different alters can have their own mental health issues. Please refer to "Can alters have different disorders than the body?" in the Dissociative Identity Disorder section of this post.)

You can find the start of the DSM-5 information on dissociative disorders here, page 336

A quick overview of Dissociative Disorders (this one has OSDD and subtypes)

DISSOCIATIVE AMNESIA:

What it is + cases/examples

More information, explanations of treatment, and other important Q&A's

Other information (basically a summary of the above two, but might be a little easier to read)

Amnesia in Dissociative Amnesia

More types of Amnesia in Dissociative Amnesia

DEPERSONALIZATION-DEREALIZATION DISORDER:

Causes, Symptoms, and more

Living with the disorder, treatment, diagnosis, and more (the overview/symptoms and causes isn't entirely accurate, but still provides a baseline)

A more compact version of the above two (but less in-depth)

An easier to read version of the above two (least in depth but covers the basics)

The most in depth (but also hardest to read and contains a lot of long words and sentences without a lot of breaks. tiny font too)

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER:

Overview of DID

What causes DID? (scroll down to "Risk Factors")

What causes DID? (part 2)

The Theory of Structural Dissociation (the very long and complicated version)

The Theory of Structural Dissociation

Problems with the Theory of Structural Dissociation

What are alters?

Different types of alters (This one goes into detail not only about what alters are, but different types of them and how they help the body/mind. There is some misinformation sprinkled within, so don't take anything as a total fact until you do further research.)

Different types of alters (this one is easier to read and created by a system who is/was in therapy. I am uncertain if the system is diagnosed, but the basic alters and basic functions match up with many diagnosed DID systems.)

Notes on non-human alters (and why you can have entire systems of just non-human alters)

Fictives (this was literally the only article i could find. please send me more.)

A paper that talks about DID and fictives (this one was sent to me and I was unable to read it due to personal reasons)

Is there a limit to how many alters a system can have? (A woman who was diagnosed with DID was reported to have 2,500 alters)

Is there a limit to how many alters a system can have? (A center in Utah who specializes in DID confirms as many as 4,500 alters have been reported)

Is there a limit to how many alters a system can have? (Researchers are still unsure, but up to 4,500 have been reported. Scroll down to "multiple personalities")

Fragments (the most basic definition)

Fragments (scroll down to F)

Fragments

OSDD and UDD

An overview of the types of OSDD

OSDD Type 1 (You can find OSDD-1B and OSDD-1A in there)

OSDD Type 2 and OSDD Type 3 (there was barely any information on these two outside of wikipedia and other not-really-professional blogs that i had access to, but I tried my best)

OSDD Type 2 and OSDD Type 3

OSDD Type 2 and OSDD Type 3

OSDD Type 4 (this will take you to a page called "Trance Disorder". That is what it's called in the ICD-11) (Possession Trance Disorder is also similar, you can find that here)

P-DID/Partial DID

Splitting, is it always trauma based? (the short answer, no. Direct quote: Many individuals cannot split unless a split is strictly necessary for their protection, functioning, or ability to remain hidden as a system. That said, there are exceptions. Some individuals may become so used to using splitting as a coping mechanism that they may split easily in response to seemingly minor stressors. For example, if an individual finds going to the doctor triggering, an alter may split that exists only to attend medical appointments. In some cases, systems may be so destabilized that even trauma processing leads to the creation of new parts.)

Polyfragmented DID: the very very basics

Polyfragmented DID: notes from a diagnosed polyfragmented DID system

Polyfragmented DID (you can find it on the side bar)

More notes on polyfragmented DID from a system, unable to tell if the system is diagnosed or in therapy

Comorbid disorders

Can alters have different disorders than the body? (I couldn't find a link, but short answer, yes and no. Neurodevelopmental disorders are things that are shared by all headmates, since it's all the same brain. So things like autism, ADHD, conduct disorders, those all are implemented into the brain and therefore all alters will have them. For stuff like eating disorders however, one alter may struggle with an eating disorder while others might not. Different alters can also present different symptoms/severity of a disorder.)

This is a post about a system(?) talking about fusion and their experiences

Integration and Fusion (or in simpler terms, integration is the act of breaking down amnesia barriers and building communication. Fusion is the act of fully integrating two parts into one.)

Dormancy (I could not find a good/reliable link, but it's basically when an alter "goes to sleep" for a period of time. This period of time can be long or short, and can happen for a multitude of reasons.)

Final Fusion and Functional Multiplicity

Time loss, Co Fronting, and Co Consciousness

Switching (covers passive influence too)

Passive Influence defined

Basics types of amnesia, not necessarily system related

More types of amnesia

The three most common types of amnesia from the system community, not necessarily scientific

-Emotional amnesia: where you don’t remember any emotions that you were feeling during the memory.

-Greyouts: when you remember what happened but have no memories of it, as if someone told you about the event and you might be able to recall certain details, but you weren’t there.

-Blackouts: when you don’t remember anything about what happened, and you often don’t remember that you missed something.

Innerworlds

Subsystems

Apparently Normal Parts and Emotional Parts

Primary Structural Dissociation

Secondary Structural Dissociation

Tertiary Structural Dissociation

You can find more resources here

A helpline that can help you understand and manage PTSD, dissociative disorders, and trauma can be found at (410) 825-8888 according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness

Crisis Text Line is a Text and Online Chat service provides 24/7 free support to those struggling with various mental health issues, including DID. Online chat: crisistextline.org Text: 741741

NAMI offers a volunteer helpline staffed by knowledgeable professionals who can answer your questions and connect you with valuable resources within your area. Call: (800) 950-6264 Text: Text "Helpline" to 62640

Basically every hotline you could need

Once again, these resources and information are not to be used to self-dx yourself. That means do not read this information and immediately say "oh yea i have this disorder". This is meant to be a starting point to learn more about dissociative disorders. If you feel like you might have any, do more research on your own. And, if you can, see and talk to a professional about it. These articles can be wrong. I can be wrong. We accept articles/papers/studies on anything here to correct us. Our only request is that it is not a carrd or something along those lines. This information is a starting point, and is not final.

Another good post about the basics of DID (not dissociative disorders in general, just DID and subtypes) can be found here

[leaving-samsara]

🧸be softened🧸

[mk-writes-stuff]

The Seven Station Chronicles

Belladonna is the heir to the Seventh Station, one of seven orbital space stations torn from their planet by a wormhole several generations ago and stranded in the dead of space. Six years ago, the ritual that would have allowed her to hoard magic like the other nobles mysteriously failed, leaving her as her parents’ greatest failure. All attempts to regain their favour have been for naught, and, while she still clings to her status as heir, her parents’ manipulations seem targeted at taking away every remaining ounce of control she has over her life and her station.

Cassie is a runaway clone from Sixth Station, escaping the cruel brutality and murderous magical farming of her genetic donor, Cassiopeia. After a tumultuous year on the Seventh Station, armed with nothing but her muscles, the titanium arm she built to replace her lost one, and her street smarts, the magic she gained in an accident during her escape is discovered. To her surprise, instead of being killed outright, she is brought to guard the heir to Seventh Station - with the understanding that the heir will kill her the moment she gets the opportunity.

Both Belladonna and Cassie have secrets to hide and haunting terrors, both past and present, that plague them. Both are desperate to take back the power over their lives that has been ripped away from them. And both are inclined to hate and fear the other. But their lives have been irreversibly tied together by the actions of the leaders of Seventh Station, and not only their lives, but the lives of every person on every station, might be dependent on them - if only they can figure out how to work together.

Welcome to the Seven Station Chronicles, an original space fantasy series I’m working on! This is primarily a political and interpersonal drama story set on a series of seven space stations lost to the void of space, full of fantastical politics and complicated relationships.

There are currently four books planned in the series, each with its own plot but recurring characters and long-term character arcs. Book 1 focuses on Belladonna and Cassie’s relationship, Belladonna’s attempts to get back power over her life and gain power over her station, and the oppression and struggles of clones. Book 2 is focused on First Station and the resource shortages of living in space for so long, along with the struggles and hardships of the First Station leader, Septimus. Book 3 tells the story of an evacuating ship of space elves encountering the station and struggling to integrate and adapt to the new situations, and the stations’ struggle to integrate with them. Book 4 focuses on the religious cult of the Fifth Station and its impacts on the surrounding stations and political impacts. Belladonna remains the protagonist for the entire series, although the group of major characters widens significantly.

The Seven Station Chronicles have themes of abuse and recovery, coming into one’s own, love and found family, oppression and freedom, and the importance of compassion and fighting for what’s right. Please note that the series features depictions of mental illnesses (including eating disorders and addiction), abuse of multiple kinds (including emotional, physical, and sexual), self-harm, cults and cult trauma, homophobia and transphobia, ableism (especially against neurodivergent people), and sexism (women discriminating against men in elvish culture). Please feel free to ask me if you would like more detail on any content warnings - all snippets or detailed descriptions will be tagged with appropriate content warnings and anything depicting explicit content will be tagged as 18+ content.

Feel free to ask me any questions about anything related to this series - I love talking about it, and my asks and DMs are open.

[ganondorf]

out of genuine curiosity, why does RAMCOA not exist? i know you mentioned its linked to satanic panic but abuse at the hands of cults are very real and it feels more like that? idk

like you said here, the source of RAMCOA is linked to satanic panic, NWO shit, which both are inherently antisemitic. cult abuse, religious abuse, trafficking, and organized abuse are very real things, obviously. ritual abuse, as in abuse that occurs in a ritualized manner (ie a kid being assaulted on the same day every month), is even a viable concept, although there's been no actual documentation of that happening (but theoretically not impossible to have doled out). RAMCOA is not

for further context RAMCOA is literally just the re-branded name for SRA (satanic ritual abuse). there is no separating RAMCOA from that no matter how much people try to insist otherwise. the very basis of RAMCOA's existence is satanic panic and antisemitism. the foundation of both RAMCOA and SRA are found within antisemitic illuminati books and have no clinical or legal evidence to back their claims. the chairman of RAMCOA SIG is literally a conspiracy theorist and believed preschools were building underground tunnels for satanic cults. a majority of patients treated by RAMCOA therapists have sued for medical malpractice and abuse done to them by these therapists, and many therapists who propose ritual abuse as a key part to their treatment of dissociative and trauma-based disorders have been disbarred for their actions

so for starters, "mind control" is a hazy concept. there's no proof of it actually being a thing that exists. as another example, one of the biggest criticisms of the BITE model is its reliance on the idea of "mind control." and what i've seen other people describe as "mind control" is just gaslighting + conditioning, which ARE very real things. but what RAMCOA refers to as mind control is literally just like MKUltra type shit

there is genuinely no evidence for the existence of "programming." the human brain is not a computer, it is too complex and people are too varied to be able to manipulate so precisely. conditioning is real, but programming is not. as far as i've been able to find all the programming stuff comes from straight up conspiracy theories

moreover, there has yet to be a single case of RAMCOA that ended up having any ground in reality. like not even "yea the cult existed but they didn't do that" like i mean absolutely zero evidence of these cults ever existing in the first place

now i do think that people BELIEVE they went through RAMCOA because they were actively coached to believe in it. but ultimately it just ends up being gaslighting and conditioning mixed with religious fervor. and i think some of it is also just delusion, as someone who is schizophrenic

[rubberduckyrye]

Me: yay! I get to talk about my favourite oc of the bunch now!

My brain: hey what if I *forces me to hyperfixate on how I'm rewriting Angie instead*

So I'm talking about Angie instead, more specifically what steps I want to take to make her less.... problematic?(Best word I could think of) But for plot reasons I have to have some reference to what she's like in canon.

I mostly focused on Angie's religious side for the rewrite. She's no longer monotheistic and instead follows a polytheistic faith, specifically Hawaiian. Most of the time when she talks about her gods she specifies which one, like she'll say that "Lono will keep you in good fortune". I've also made it so that her whole "Kami-sama can't answer cause he's taking a nap" thing is just a light hearted joke she makes when people mixes up or gets her gods wrong.

Now the blood sacrifices-

They are not gone, instead I've made it so that Angie's community saw blood as the soul itself. So her island had simply had a tradition where they made a religious dish for weddings that the newly weds eat, the dish contains the blood of the couple and it represents their souls mixing and becoming one. They also tended to have a culture of solving spiritual problems (ex: depression, personality disorders, trauma) by having the person bleed out the damaged part of their soul.

There's definitely more to consider but I don't remember it and I don't know where to look. Criticism and advice from you or someone else reading this is welcome :P

Okay so.

I like your spirit, you're on the right track and going places, but. I would just remove the blood thing entirely. If you want to go the route of Headcanoning the problematic away that's one thing, but since you're changing the story up anyway, so you might as well throw out the entire suitcase.

I was actually having a discussion with my partner about the stereotypes Angie presents just last night, as was going to reblog my posts on her racists caricature elements with a slight amendment.

I was struggling to find resources that specifically talked about Native Pacific Islanders being stereotyped as wild savages, and I was complaining to celest on how no one was talking about it and I felt like I wasn't able to do research right anymore. She calmly explained to me why I was having those issues and why no one seems to talk about the "savage Pacific Islander" trope we had seen so many times in movies.

1. The term Pacific Islander is, itself, a problem--as well as terms like Native Hawaiian, and other terms that are just not really used much in discussions about media. That's why I was getting so little information when I was trying to research of my own.

2, and this is the kicker: The stereotype of "Savage Pacific Islander" actually IS talked about as a trope--it's just under the same category as when we talk about the "Savage Native" (Like Native American, or the savage Indian (Indian being used incorrectly to talk about Native tribes of America) the whole Damn time.

While this specific link talks about a slightly different iteration of it, the Savage Native (I refuse to call them Indians that is blatantly incorrect) also has ties to human sacrifices and blood sacrifices, all of which paint indigenous people and culture that in a bad light.

The traditional acts you described could be used in a real life culture somewhere in the world, idk, but I would advise against using it regardless. The use of blood in any kind of ritual is seen as savage or cult like, which with the Native Savage Stereotypes, you REALLY want to avoid if you're making up new shit. Even if you explain it away and make it more symbolic, the fact you're writing a new story means you really should not have the blood thing at all.

As for changing up her religion, I do quite like it! I myself wasn't sure if I should use the Atua or the Kupua as a replacement, and it's something I'm still on the dense about since I am making it blatant that she is Native Hawaiian. I was personally advised by Celest to keep it as the Atua for recognizability's sake, and it'll allow me to throw in some fun facts about actual Atua, but I still can't find anyone who will tell me if Atua and Kupua are interchangeable.

I suggest you do as MUCH research as you can about the culture of your choosing. Like for example: Native Hawaiians sometimes have names that mean disgusting or horrible things, not because their parents cursed them though--in fact it's the opposite. Ugly names are sometimes given to a child to protect them from evil spirits and bad omens if they get sick or hurt in some way. I HV that Angie actually has an ugly name that the Atua call her on her head, one that her mama gave her, and Angie is sort of a white Christian name that was probably forced onto her ngl.

Anyway.

Do research on bad tropes for Pacific Islanders, and especially more research on the "Native Savage" tropes and anything cult related to it. Do research on Hawaiian and native Hawaiian cultures and be respectful about them.

I hope this helps (and sorry if I sound abrasive or curt) xndjxjsjnxaj

[fiftysevenacademics]

April 12, 2024

Bennett Braun, a Chicago psychiatrist whose diagnoses of repressed memories involving horrific abuse by devil worshipers helped to fuel what became known as the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and ’90s, died on March 20 in Lauderhill, Fla., north of Miami. He was 83.

Jane Braun, one of his ex-wives, said the death, in a hospital, was from complications of a fall. Dr. Braun lived in Butte, Mont., but had been in Lauderhill on vacation.

Dr. Braun gained renown in the early 1980s as an expert in two of the most popular and controversial areas of psychiatric treatment: repressed memories and multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder.

He claimed that he could help patients uncover memories of childhood trauma — the existence of which, he and others said, were responsible for the splintering of a person’s self into many distinct personalities.

He created a unit dedicated to dissociative disorders at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago (now Rush University Medical Center); became a frequently quoted expert in the news media; and helped to found what is now the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, a professional organization of over 2,000 members today.

It was from that sizable platform that Dr. Braun publicized his most explosive findings: that in dozens of cases, his patients discovered memories of being tortured by satanic cults and, in some cases, of having participated in the torture themselves.

He was not the only psychiatrist to make such a claim, and his supposed revelations keyed into a growing national panic.

The 1980s saw a vertiginous rise in the number of people, both children and adults, who claimed to have been abused by devil worshipers. It began in 1980 with the book “Michelle Remembers,” by a Canadian woman who said she had recovered memories of ritual abuse, and spiked following allegations of abuse at day care centers in California and North Carolina.

Elements of pop culture, such as heavy metal music and the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, were looped in as supposed entry points for cult activity.

Such stories were fodder for popular TV formats that reveled in the salacious, including talk shows like “Geraldo” and newsmagazines like “Dateline,” which broadcast segments that promoted such claims uncritically.

The psychiatric profession bore some responsibility for the growing panic, with respected researchers like Dr. Braun giving it a gloss of authority. He and others ran seminars and distributed research papers; they even gave the phenomenon a quasi-medical abbreviation, S.R.A., for satanic ritual abuse.

Dr. Braun’s inpatient unit at Rush became a magnet for referrals and a warehouse for patients, some of whom he kept medicated and under supervision for years

Among them was a woman from Iowa named Patricia Burgus. After interviewing her, Dr. Braun and a colleague, Roberta Sachs, claimed not only that she was the victim of satanic ritual abuse, but also that she herself was a “high priestess” of a cult that had raped, tortured and cannibalized thousands of children, including her two young sons.

Dr. Braun and Dr. Sachs sent Mrs. Burgus and her children to a mental health facility in Houston, where they were held apart for nearly three years with minimal contact with the outside world.

By then Mrs. Burgus, heavily medicated, had come to believe the doctors, telling them she recalled torches, live burials and eating the body parts of up to 2,000 people a year. After her parents served her husband meatloaf, she had him get it tested for human tissue. The tests came back negative, but Dr. Braun was not convinced.

Dr. Braun kept other patients under similar conditions at Rush or elsewhere. He persuaded one woman to have an abortion because, he convinced her, she was the product of ritualistic incest; he persuaded another to undergo tubal ligation to prevent having more children within her supposed cult.

The satanic panic began to wane in the early 1990s. A 1992 F.B.I. investigation found no evidence of coordinated cult activity in the United States, and a 1994 report by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect surveyed over 12,000 accusations of satanic ritual abuse and found that not a single one held up under scrutiny.

“The biggest thing was the lack of corroborating evidence,” Kenneth Lanning, a retired F.B.I. agent who wrote the 1992 report, said in a phone interview. “It’s the kind of crime where evidence would have been left behind.”

Many people distanced themselves from their earlier enthusiasms; in 1995, Geraldo Rivera apologized for an episode of his show that covered the falsehood. However, even in 1998, the NBC series “Dateline” ran an episode claiming to show widespread satanic activity in Mississippi.

Mrs. Burgus sued Rush, Dr. Braun and her insurance company over claims that he and Dr. Sachs had implanted false memories in her head. They settled out of court in 1997 for $10.6 million.

“I began to add a few things up and realized there was no way I could come from a little town in Iowa, be eating 2,000 people a year, and nobody said anything about it,” Mrs. Burgus told The Chicago Tribune in 1997.

A year later Dr. Braun’s unit at Rush was shut down, and the Illinois medical licensing board opened an investigation into his practices. In 1999, he received a two-year suspension of his license — though he did not admit wrongdoing.

Bennett George Braun was born on Aug. 7, 1940, in Chicago, to Thelma (Gimbel) and Milton Braun. His father was a professor of orthodontics at Loyola University. He graduated from Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1963 and earned a master’s in the same subject in 1964. He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois in 1968.

Dr. Braun was married three times. His marriages to Renate Deutsch and Mrs. Braun both ended in divorce. His third, to Joanne Arriola, ended in her death. He is survived by five children and five grandchildren.

After temporarily losing his medical license in Illinois, Dr. Braun moved to Montana, where he received a new state license and opened a private practice.

But in 2019, one of his patients, Ciara Rehbein, sued him for overprescribing medication that left her with a permanent facial tic. She also filed a complaint against the Montana Board of Medical Examiners for allowing him a license, despite knowing his past.

Dr. Braun lost his license to practice medicine in Montana in 2020.