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No child should have to feel like a human sacrifice every other weekend

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Being told your pain is real but irrelevant is not support. Unfortunately, this kind of response is why so many people stay silent. If you are considering next steps in a situation like this, this might be a helpful resource.

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X

Grace

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Shoutout to everyone whose abuser(s) were never punished.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser is living a normal life.

Shoutout to everyone whose allegations were immediately dismissed.

Shoutout to everyone reported their abuser to the police and nothing happened.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser was able to get out of significant legal punishment.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser is generally seen as a good person.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser is a “pillar of the community.”

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser has lied about you.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser has framed them.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser threatened them into silence.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser discouraged them from reporting.

Shoutout to everyone who lost friends after reporting and or exposing their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who lost family after reporting and or exposing their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who received backlash for reporting and or exposing their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who has created a rift in their family or friends by reporting or exposing their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who is terrified to tell anyone about their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who never had the opportunity to talk about their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who feels like talking about their abuser is worthless.

Shoutout to everyone whose case was dismissed by the court.

Shoutout to everyone who faced backlash after their abuser was put in jail.

Shoutout to everyone who faced backlash for testifying against their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who still has yet to be believed that they were abused.

Shoutout to everyone who knows their abuser will never be punished.

Shoutout to everyone who knows their abuser will never face backlash.

Shoutout to everyone who knows their story will be dismissed by loved ones.

Shoutout to everyone who spoke out about their abuser, but wasn’t believed until something happened to someone else.

Shoutout to everyone who spoke out about their abuser and wasn’t believed until they seriously harmed you.

Shoutout to everyone who has been mocked for trying to speak out about their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who has faced social repercussions for speaking out or exposing their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone who has suffered financially for speaking out or exposing their abuser.

Shoutout to everyone whose abuser has admitted guilt, but never faced justice.

Shoutout to everyone who knows they were abused and are punished for it.

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Hell hath no fury like a doctor whose ego’s been bruised

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Enma Ai ; Hell Girl ☆ Alter

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I made this after experiencing 2 different events of horrific medical trauma back to back. The second of which led to me and my wife fleeing the hospital (she had a head injury!) against medical advice because we felt unsafe there. I posted this on my art instagram and tagged the hospital. A bold move but its just art and i do not censor my art.

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"We're the pride of the country," they say, as they turn you away once again. No appointments left today.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as the doctor brushes you off. It's all in your head, stop being selfish and wasting their precious time.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as the call operator tells you to take some ibuprofen, and make an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. There's nothing they can do.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as you count your fourth hour in agony in a crowded room, waiting to be seen. The woman next to you is bleeding, a blood soaked rag clasped to her arm. She hasn't been seen yet either.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as the paramedics wheel you into a crowded bay and line you up in a corridor alongside ten others. They tell you that the wait will be long, you can see the sorrow in their eyes. Pain and fear echoes around you but the man in front of you lays eerily still, makes no sound. A nurse lounges at her station nearby.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as the nurse tells you there's nothing wrong with you, and sends you home. It's all in your head, and the doctors are too busy to see you. You've wasted their precious time.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as your mother clasps you against her chest, crying. You've been bedridden for days but tonight she found you like this, and she called an ambulance immediately. You've only been getting worse in the two hours since.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as the doctor tells you it's just an infection. They'll give you some antibiotics and send you home when you start feeling better. They don't do any tests, they don't need to.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as the nurse tells you to stop being lazy and get out of bed. You're overreacting, the pain and swelling are because you've been laying in bed for too long. She yells at your mother for coddling you, she's imagining the lump on your head. No need to call for a doctor.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as your mother arrives to find you seizing and soiled in your hospital bed. They didn't notice. They didn't check. They're busy, after all.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as your mother calls for help again. Nobody answers. The nurse who lounges at her station simply didn't hear. She's too busy.

"We're the pride of the country," they say, as they tell your family to hurry and say their goodbyes. It couldn't have been prevented, it was just one of those things. Nobody is at fault here.

Especially not the pride of our country.

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A lot of intenret content on child abuse/childrens rights violations i see is (rightly) focused mainly upon parents and teachers. But i wish there were more discussions about other adults with authority over children -- pediatricians, doctors, therapists, psychiatrists.

As someone who has personally survived them, i can guarantee that pediatricians/therapists can be abusive shits who enable or do nothing about the parents. The abusive parents may manipulate them to take their side and dismiss the child, telling the child its their fault, they need to obey the rules until they're 18, or theyre "rude/disrespectful/badly behaved/ungrateful/oversensitive." Or they may medicate the child to shut their anxiety/depression up, but then do absolutely NOTHING to help remove the child from their abusive parents causing that in the first place.

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Western doctors' egos are so big they can't see they're not practicing medicine, they're undereducated glorified drug dealers for capitalism and arms of the patriarchy. I'm burnt out from being gaslit, I'm traumatized from trusting in their "science", I've lost years of my life on waiting lists, only to be disappointed in the end.

Western medicine is implicitly biased against and incapable of caring for autistic people with complex trauma, for women and young people with chronic illness, and for the mentally ill. Pathologizing humanity. Our society is sick and soulless. I know who to call when I'm craving a bandaid for my bullet hole.

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Some “lovely” ableist replies to psychiatric horror stories on YouTube

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the spanking debate isn’t all that complicated. you’re either ok with hitting small kids who are completely defenseless and literally at your mercy, or you’re not. supporting the first option makes you a bad and dangerous person, and unfit to be a parent, and im sorry to say but there’s no way around this, no excuses or loopholes. it is what it is

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Does anyone else have an list of 10-15 untouchable thoughts that if you let yourself remeber or think about them for even a second it’s excruciating or is this a me thing

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tbh when i hear some people talk about 'breaking cycles of abuse', it becomes clear pretty quickly who has come to understand that phrase to mean 'since i was a victim of abuse/neglect by my parents/caretaker/s i will do everything to be nothing like them' and that is all. its not a completely flawed way of thinking either - something that hurt you would very likely hurt someone else; through empathy we learn to understand not to hurt others the way we were hurt too.

but what 'breaking cycles' looks like is more complicated than just not being your parents/caretakers - it's about recognizing how the things that happened to you changed you and how you can heal so you don't hurt someone else in turn. the survival skills you learned in an unhealthy enviroment often translate to poor if not unhealthy interpersonal skills in an enviroment where things ARE safe.

its a difficult pill to swallow for a lot of survivors of abuse (trust me, i know) because we have a tendency to simply want our pain to be recognized. by painting yourself as "absolutely nothing like my abuser" you can abstain from recognizing your own harmful tendencies and live comfortably in the role of victim hood for the rest of your life. it can be tempting to do this especially when so many people will do their best to deny what you experienced - almost like leaning into a stuck door that just won't budge.

the problem with this is if you never recognize that being mistreated made it so you LACK a lot of what other people learned from a loving enviroment, you can hurt people pretty badly even when doing your best just not to replicate what your parents/caretakers got wrong.

this also hurts for victims because, when it comes down to it - it's not FAIR. you were hurt for no reason, and most of us will never hear an apology or even admittance from the person who did it - so why do YOU have to change? why do YOU, the person hurt unjustly, have to put in the work?

and i mean. that's what breaking a cycle is. it means pushing against what's fair and comfortable deliberately so that you can stop something that's been repeating. it's work. its not just recognition of pain, it's the purposeful healing and treatment of it. but thats scary, and it's not fun, so a lot of people fall right back into it. its a lot easier said than done.

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The Big "Is RAMCOA Antisemitic?" Debunk Post

Because I have to stay relevant, here we go

Let's start with a little speech. A bit of positivity.

You know, there is something good to said about this RAMCOA antisemitism discourse. The majority don't seem to be falling for it at all, and many are becoming more educated about the panic, RAMCOA/OEA and its history (the good and the bad) than ever before

RAMCOA/OEA a very real issue that deserves awareness and advocacy, and so far, I've noticed a massive surge in members of the community researching the ISSTD and the OEA sig's work.

It has brought antisemitism into light in a way that hasn't really been talked about on a large scale in system communities, and most don't know ever existed. Many, genuinely, had no idea that the satanic panic was antisemitic in these ways, and it's putting a lot of pieces together and adding a lot of context that'll help us grow and be better people going forward.

It's been really nice seeing such a positive shift to open, educational conversations, with people genuinely wanting to know the truth and unlearn harmful associations.

SAS stands with RAMCOA and OEA survivors.

So let's get into it.

SRA and The Memory Wars, lasting results

SRA started with Michelle Remembers, a book, in 1980. It resulted in thousands of unsubstantiated claims of abuse, daycare hysteria, set CDD research and OEA abuse back decades, affected millions, and to this day conjures images of cloaked figures sacrificing children.

The ISSTD was formed in 1984, amid the panic, with the goal of quickly developing an effective treatment and documenting the disorder as thoroughly as possible. Many mistakes were made. Clinicians aren't immune to societal panics, and lessons were learned the hard way.

I think an important distinction that many have forgotten is that the ISSTD's principal controversy isn't SRA. SRA didn't start or end with the ISSTD.

While the “Satanic Panic” played out in courts and in mass media, the ISSTD entered “The Memory Wars”, and it's this that they're most controversial for. False, implanted, and fostered memories weren't solely related to SRA. It was used to discredit all types of abuse and violence and is still used to this day to silence victims.

By the 1990s, therapists were being sued, licenses were being revoked, and members were fleeing the ISSTD. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation wouldn't be created for another couple of years, but that doesn't mean its founding members weren't already wreaking havoc.

The FMSF would be created in 1992, and their bigger and better attacks on therapists were brutal and persistent. The legal battles would be especially effective at causing therapists to refuse to work with victims of abuse.

Research on ritual abuse, CDDs, and repressed memories came to a grinding halt.

The Satanic Panic eventually fell into relative silence by 1995, but false memories lived on, loud and cruel.

The FMSF would eventually begin to write college textbooks for the next generation of clinicians. It would survive until 2019.

The ISSTD is still trying to regain its membership. It's only recently that they reached 1500, the highest since 1993.

Antisemitism, blood libel, and the satanic panic

If you're confused about how everything is related, I'm going to make it very simple so you grasp the basic idea.

This is not a history lesson.

Blood Libel, or ritual murder, is the idea that Jewish people sacrificed Christian children in religious rituals. Cloaked figures performing rituals and killing children and animals. The same thing you picture when you think of Satanists and rituals.

For those who recognize the connection (racists), this fuels their sentiments and creates a language for them to speak to each other.

It is true, a basic fact, that for many people, Satanists are anyone who doesn't worship the Christian god. Including and especially Jewish people.

SRA and RAMCOA

Depending on who you ask, the connection is either that:

MYTH: the ISSTD originally called their RAMCOA sig (Special Interest Group) the SRA sig. FACT: The RAMCOA sig, one of twelve ISSTD sigs, was created in 2008. There was never any kind of satanic ritual abuse group or association within the ISSTD.

FACT: Ritual abuse, the RA in RAMCOA, still has ties to SRA and brings to mind everything from the panic. ALSO FACT: That's why the ISSTD has renamed it to the OEA sig.

Hopefully we're all on the same page now.

Who's Grey Faction?

Grey Faction is a group of the TST (The Satanic Temple) and is closely related to the FMSF. While the FMSF generally attacked all types of abuse, GF, being related to Satanism, is focused on recovered memories and the (still alive) satanic panic. They believe that all reports of false memories supports satanic panic conspiracy theories. They continue the FMSF's work.

How did we get here?

Well, TST and GF are on reddit. Syscringe is on reddit. And now syscringe is here.

This is what syscringe bot says every time RAMCOA is brought up.

That link goes to Grey Faction.

So is RAMCOA Antisemitic?

Kind of yeah. It was a really good move of the ISSTD to change the name to OEA sig. They talk about the association on their website and stated they wanted to get away from that. No one won the satanic panic. Ritual abuse is real, but its history is tainted.

The discourse around RAMCOA isn't about helping Jewish people. At least, not for the people pushing the false connection that the ISSTD started and continues to maintain the panic to this day.

It's about discrediting the ISSTD and the trauma theory. It's about silencing victims, even Jewish survivors.

It's about ignoring that the ISSTD is making moves in the right direction.

It's about continuing the idea that false memories exist and that trauma memories can't be trusted or taken at face value. It's about downplaying the depravity of abusers and the lengths they'll go to.

I want to finish this post with a letter from a very dear friend. It's not a mod on this blog, simply someone wishing to stay anonymous.

Uplift Jewish Voices

Hello, I’m Noam, an ethnic and religious Jew. I face antisemitism on the daily and deal with having DID. I am not a RAMCOA survivor, but I have a number of friends who are. Today I’m here to talk about the recent discourse going around regarding whether claiming to have RAMCOA experiences is inherently antisemitic. TLDR: no.

Let’s start with understanding why people think this. The term ritual abuse originated from the term satanic ritual abuse and is often associated with the satanic panic. The satanic panic in the 80s and 90s was extreme and yes, did involve a lot of antisemitic conspiracy theories. People would suggest certain symbols or music or groups of people (often vague, or calling it a nationwide conspiracy) were “brainwashing” these “good Christian children” into satanic practices or straying from rigid Christianity. Jews are often stereotyped as Satanic, controlling things, and murdering and cannibalizing children/babies.

Ritual abuse nowadays is often still associated with Satanic cults, but it has a much broader and less accusatory definition in medical/therapeutic spaces. Per Schröder et al. (2018), “ritual abuse occurs when a religious, political, or spiritual authority uses its position of power and the sovereignty to interpret the respective belief system to manipulate and dominate its followers.” Some examples include repeated forced creation of CSEM, religious and other types of cults (yes, including satanic, but also Christian and other religions), and being forced to abuse others (Schröder et al., 2018). Trafficking is also a type of organized abuse. We know these types of abuses happen. But given the history of RA as a term and the harm claims of SRA caused, how does one determine whether something is a conspiracy theory or actual trauma someone experienced?

This page by the European Commission does a good job of talking about identifying conspiracy theories and the harm they do. I won’t recount the whole thing, but here are some basic things they state conspiracy theories have in common: a secret plot, a group of conspirators, unfounded/unreliable evidence, suggesting everything is connected, dividing the world into good people and bad people, and scapegoating certain groups (“Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” 2020).

What makes (many) stories of RAMCOA different from antisemitic conspiracy theories? I’m glad you asked!

• The secret plot in conspiracy theories often involves a large group of people in on some secret changing something about the world or identifying a secret thing that must have happened to lead to unfortunate current events. RAMCOA tends to stem from people or organizations working on a much smaller scale, and the things they are doing mostly affect the person/people experiencing this abuse. Abusers may try to instill in victims a sense that they control a lot about the world and the events that happen within it, but they don’t.

• A big question I like to ask people who spout conspiracy theories is “who is they (the group of conspirators)?” If they is some generic big bad, the government, “elites” (see the AJC’s Translate Hate Glossary section titled “cosmopolitan elite”), or vague and unknown, it’s usually a dogwhistle for Jews. The person themselves may not realize this, but perhaps they never looked further into the evidence behind these accusations and who those being accused are. RAMCOA perpetrators are not vague to their victims. They often have familial ties or other close relationships with them that allow the abusers to gain their victims’ trust (Schröder et al. 2018). The things they do to abuse people and the methods they use are not vague or mysterious actions to achieve an end. There are specific actions and tactics that cults and authority figures use for RAMCOA.

• Whether evidence is unfounded is a harder thing to distinguish, since many survivors of RAMCOA cope using dissociation or have an amount of dissociative amnesia around traumatic events (Shröder 2018). The Europe Commission suggests three main things to check for in regards to evidence about a claim. Who is the author and why are they writing this? Is the source reliable/reputable? Is the tone and style “balanced and fair or sensationalist and one-dimensional?” (“Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” 2020). I also like to think about, especially with regards to abuse survivors, if this is a conspiracy theory, why are they telling me the things they’re telling me? Most RAMCOA survivors I’ve met avoid talking about their trauma and are more focused on figuring out if what they experienced is real and how to heal from it. They are not trying to convince me of something; they are just sharing their story and looking for support.

• RAMCOA victims I’ve talked to, particularly those with DID, also have a more complex view of their abusers or are trying to come to terms with all the bad things someone they admired, trusted, and/or loved did. Conspiracy theorists tend to separate people into conspirators or innocents. There is no middle ground. Healing for a lot of abuse victims involves realizing that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things; the world is not black and white.

• Scapegoating often involves generalizing and demonizing certain people or groups of people. I find a lack of seeing these “others” as human or wanting anything other than a single, unified goal. It also tends to involve assumptions much more than any personal experience. Anyone with even the slightest connection to a certain ideology is evil. RAMCOA often involves many victims, many of whom understand that other people involved with the organization that hurt them are also victims or have been scared or brainwashed into further perpetuating abuse.

• Also, while satanic panic was largely about going against Christianity, many religious cults are associated with particular sects or communities within Christianity, and they use certain ideologies within the group to deter people from leaving or reporting abuse. Perpetrators claim some sort of punishment or betrayal will be involved in these actions.

Anyways, I want to put emphasis on healing in RAMCOA survivors, where many of the points and purposes of conspiracy theories are antithetical to such a process. People should be allowed to find support, community, and reliable resources about what they have gone through (if it is physically/mentally safe for them to do so). Please do not insist that these traumas aren’t real on the basis of antisemitism from the satanic panic. The survivors I’ve met who talk about parts of their trauma are working hard to come to terms with it themselves and how to cope, and while they may be angry and upset towards their abusers, they do not try to insist to me how evil a group is and that there is a need to take direct action against them. They are just trying to survive.

Now, ritual abuse as a term and the history of its use is something I think needs more discussion. I would love to see more research about how the term evolved within medical/therapeutic spaces and how much of a connection the current definition and use has to antisemitism. But regardless of what we end up calling these types of abuses, there are real examples of them and people who have empirical evidence that they have been through such experiences.

Furthermore, I have a problem with a lot of the claims of antisemitism in relation to RAMCOA coming from goyim (AKA non-Jews). You are not the authority on antisemitism. You do not get to claim to defend us while not speaking to us about the topic. There is so much antisemitism going around, but I find so few people willing to listen to Jews when we talk about the struggles we face. (The SAS mods are an example of exceptions to this. I appreciate the amount I’ve been able to talk to them and how open and supportive they are. I love y’all.) Encouraging hate and disbelief is not helpful to us. What’s helpful is doing your research and learning about how to recognize and combat antisemitism. Take your energy where it’s needed, thank you.

European Commission. (2020, August 12). Identifying conspiracy theories. European Commission. <https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en>

Gerke, J., Fegert, J., Rassenhofer, M., & Fegert, J. M. (2024). Organized sexualized and ritual violence: Results from two representative German samples. Child Abuse & Neglect, 152, 106792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106792

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