Resources!!

What counts as TBMC? Ex-Pentecostal wanting to know because I never really see clear and concise definitions on these things and trying to research RAMCOA gives me a lot of dodgy right wing rhetoric which I don't want to keep having to comb through for my own sanity.

TBMC is known by as two things. One: trauma based mind control. Two: torture based mind control.

Most survivors we've also ran into prefer the former because it tends to include things that are less extreme and not everyone feels their trauma went far enough to be considered torture. It's also unfortunately true that a lotta alt-righters tend to get into mind control in a more co-opting nature, which is ironic given the group that did that to us was alt-right. Honestly we find the TB to be unnecessary given mind control is always traumatic and is inherently horrific.

What counts as TBMC?

TBMC is something done primarily through abusive means to induce a dissociative state, in which one becomes more suggestible. This can be done in order to intentionally create parts/alters (when done starting on someone as a child in rare cases) or just to make someone behave the way you want them to. This is why sometimes people who are abducted by other countries as agents betray their old group and join in with their abusers. (For an extreme example). Other ways the dissociative state is achieved is through putting people into forms of trances. This can be done with meditation or mantras, forced hypnotization, and at times substances.

We've got a good mixture of both mind control and conditioning. The conditioning is done more via Pavlov's Dogs type experiences and "training" and is less tied to TBMC and typically easier to train out of. Mind control- especially in those raised with it- is driven into a part of their personality. It becomes an essential piece of the whole identity and it is not something that can be taken away without proper aid and therapy. You cannot deprogram yourself from mind control the way you can "uncondition" yourself, so to speak.

Anything that was driven into you while in a dissociative state (thus highly suggestible) or being actively traumatized that is ideological, personal, an act, behaviors, etc. is typically a form of mind control. A very common example of this is being made to be fully and completely dependent upon your leader/an authority figure. This may result in what is reminiscent of worship of the individual and in some cases leaves the victims incapable of making decisions. To this day we have to ask friends in desperation what food we should eat because the idea of deciding for ourselves is far too difficult. We roll dice connected to numbers to mark our decisions in hopes of having a way to make a choice. (And again, this is but one example.)

Some of the information we have garnered on the subject comes from a variety of sources more heavily focused upon cults as that was what we grew up in and with. We have dug deep into the information on what makes a cult a cult and what signs of specific types of cultic programming we exhibit. Even then programming can be hard to categorize and know what is meant by because it's so personal and specific in its application. I am uncertain if we are of much help- but I will say we personally see no harm in if you find spaces appropriate for it, asking if specific things you expect may be programming or signs of TBMC are able to be labeled as such. That's what we had to do to accept we were a RAMCOA survivor as we originally had less memories of the cult until given the name by our parents (to be clear we did this only because we were already in therapy and part of our recovery and work is being done in order to come out against the group and the leader, and have full legal protections as a whistle blower)

Something I've noticed is how some CDD systems (and general trauma survivors) sometimes treat "extreme" trauma like a fictional concept when trying to valid themselves. I understand where "you don't need to go through RAMCOA abuse/a war/a dictatorship/etc to be a system and have cptsd" comes from and I fully agree with it. Some shitty ableist singlets can be very annoying with how they only accept trauma when it's "extreme" trauma. But I think the way some people talk about it sometimes just makes it sound off. I don't know it's just the way some people phrase it like "Not everyone traumatised is living in a war zone 🙄" makes me really uncomfortable. Like it's not the faults of people who have gone through "extreme" trauma that some people are ableist and uneducated

Also, people who go through those do exist? Like idk most people I see talk about it like it's some far-off vague fictional out-there concept and not like, a thing that real people experience and go through? Like RAMCOA abuse is real and valid (I'm not a survivor myself so I won't talk about it a lot but I felt the need to bring it up because the way some people talk about it is just weird), people who have lived through wars exist? and their trauma is valid, people who have been trafficked exist and their trauma is valid, people who have been tortured exist and their trauma is valid, people who have survived genocides exist and their trauma is valid, and people who have been in cults exist and their trauma is valid. In general, people with "extreme" trauma exist and their trauma is real

Survivors of "extreme" abuse/trauma shouldn't be made to feel like their trauma is too taboo to mention. Or feel like they can't talk about it out of fear of "invalidating other systems". All trauma is valid (including "non extreme" trauma). I think validating traumatic things that aren't usually viewed as trauma by the average person is good but please try not to bring down anyone else in the process

Coping Mechanisms Masterlist

Thoughts to break the cycle

this is temporary if I believe it is

I AM NOT my perception, or my thoughts

I am the observer of the thoughts

my mind is protecting me and is stressed from not knowing how to fix it. Thank you for protecting me but it will be okay

the negative thoughts are just a symptom of depression, dissociation/dpdr, c-ptsd, or anxiety or all of the above

thoughts are just like another one of the 5 senses. Like how you can perceive textures, smells, tastes, sounds. Your thoughts allow you to perceive an experience. But you are not your nose. You are not your mouth. You are not your ears. You are not your hand it’s just a hand that’s connected to your body. And so You are not your thoughts. You’re the one experiencing these sensations you are not the sensations.

Even if you genetically are predisposed or your genetics or brain chemistry has caused the issue. Especially in this case your thoughts do not define who you are they are just a reaction your brain is creating to protect you from something it thinks is a threat.

self hate and depression is a coping mechanism: your body wants you to be better, to be perfect to avoid something negative that hurts and self hate is the way it decided to go but it doesn’t have to be that way. Tell your mind “thank you” and “I love you but it’s okay.” “We are safe” and “I am enough.”

I try to remember my goals: how I want to be happy, the things I want to add to my life that will make me feel calmer and happier. (If you don’t have any goals or ideas think of anything you want in this world to achieve, or learn, or earn and write it down and imagine how it would feel if you had it right now. It helps push you to realize you can shape your life how you want)

that someone in this world loves you. If you can’t name anyone. Your own body loves you. It keeps you alive and gives you the ability to experience things like eating yummy food, being able to pet an animal and feel how soft their fur is, being able to look up at the sky and see stars or clouds. Simple every day things that we take for granted because we get so stressed out from life and drama. Sometimes we forget we could lose our eyesight and we wouldn’t be able to see things or people that we love. We could get injured and never be able to walk, run or jump again. We could lose our ability to breathe and be hooked up to a ventilator. I like to write down anything I can think of to be grateful for everyday in my journal and it makes me feel less depressed, less anxious,and excited to be able to just .. be alive especially when I want to not be alive anymore

I remind myself that when I was a baby I didn’t have any thoughts I didn’t know shit. The way I grew up and had to experience life made it so I perceive life the way I do. I like to imagine if I was a blank slate what are the different ways I could look at my life? What are the ways I can decide to look at situations or myself? People don’t just wake up and love themselves they were taught to feel loved. Just like how we don’t wake up with these negative self hateful thoughts. We got them from somewhere. We can choose if we want to still believe our perceptions or not. But learning to be happy and to love ourself is like a skill. Just like how learning to hate ourselves took time and repeated experiences.

Self care / Self love activities

imagining an older version of myself comforting present me. And imagining myself currently to comfort past me during traumatic moments

bubble baths

napping with soothing audios, or sleep meditations

walking outside

calling a friend

visiting a family member or friend

Write yourself a note when you’re happy to yourself and read it when you’re upset

Make a voice memo give future you a pep talk, positive affirmations, or even guided meditations and listen to it when you’re upset

lighting a candle and writing down an intention and meditating or you can pray if you believe in a god or have a religion. Or if you just believe in the universe and law of attraction

journaling

cleaning or tidying up a little

eating a yummy but healthy snack

cooking or baking

(if I’m severely not okay) holding an ice cube, running my hands in cold water and splashing the water in my face, taking a cold shower, taking a rubber band on my wrist and snapping it back

reading a book

watching my favorite tv show or movie

watching a comedy

playing music and forcing myself to dance (when I’m alone of course 😅)

yoga

exercising

watching cute animal videos on YouTube

Singing in the shower

Adult coloring books

some type of video about philosophy that reminds me that I’m not alone and we are all lost

some type of video that reminds me how beautiful life can be

some type of video that reminds me that I’m not in control of my circumstance, my genetics, or the world but I’m in control of how I react that I’m the one that gives power to my thoughts

Breaking thought patterns, bad habits and doing self care every day helps immensely. Over time it gets easier and easier to feel okay and to even feel happy. But never stop doing these things for the rest of your life. You either feed the negative thoughts or you feed the positive. You either feed the negative habits or you feed the bad. You get to choose. Seek help, and be gentle with yourself. Healing isn’t linear.

Me& seeing your latest posts & then realizing we& have a sidesystem: o h.

Bc like, we're& not aware of a lot of the older system members that must've formed earlier in life & any system members who're usually older aren't speaking so I'm& presuming memories are being hidden from me&. I& get like. These flashes of younger child me& dissociating tf out & my& main abuser ( there were multiple perpetrators ) more or less called forth — I& suppose these were introjects fronting or at least co-fronting at the time, I& suspect that if these introjects were programmed it was because I& really liked the characters they were introjected from, I'm& not entirely sure — who'd I'd& thought formed much later in life, among other flashbacks that are just confusing to me&. So like. It's really confusing. Idk hopefully I'm& making sense.

Yeah stuff like this can be super weird to realize. I wouldn't know for sure how your own system would function but that sounds plausible. We also know a lot of other systems who have certain sections of their system have little to no communication with other sections which may also be why you don't see them as speaking- or they're just choosing not to which also happens sometimes. As long as a part was fronting at a specific enough time they may be programmed.

We also had stuff like programmed fragments fuse to be an alter and then said alter who in our case is often an introject- is programmed.

I’m gonna make an exception to my DNI on the endo thing for THIS POST ONLY, so-again THIS POST ONLY and ONLY FOR THE ENDO RULE-endos and supporters can interact because I want to hear peoples opinions on this. Do not harass us!!!

DID from a RAMCOA and TBMC survivor “sysmed” systems perspective (so many adjectives)

Hi. I’m the host of an HC-DID system. We are all, as far as I’m aware, what one might call a sysmed. Why do we believe this, and what’s our perception of DID? I’ll explain my views in this post

For us, while living does not mean misery, DID means misery, if that makes any sense. I differentiate the two because my whole life does not revolve around my DID. Anyways, our entire dissociation revolves around our programming and trauma. Even my fellow parts mean misery to me, even though I don’t hate all of them since I know it’s not some of their faults. It means misery because it means more time lost and more time where our programming takes place. Even though not all parts are brainwashed, we all have some degree of programming. We also all have some degree of amnesia.

I’d say I’m in control about 35% of our life. That’s 65% of my life gone because of this disorder, and that’s only counting when I’ve been the host. Imagine when I’m not the host anymore? I’ll be nothing, pretty much.

So, that’s my view on DID; while it doesn’t taint everything, it means misery.

That’s why for me and the rest of us (again, that I know of) having a glamorized carefree “version” of that is a result of ignorance. Being endogenic is taking away everything that DID is about.

And no, if you count “sysmeds” as a struggle, sorry but that’s nowhere near comparable to the trauma people who actually are systems experience.

Satanic Panic

I saw a post about Satanic Panic, so I felt the need to write an overview of what actually happened for those who don’t know.

What is Satanic Panic?

Satanic Panic can be viewed as either part of the Memory Wars or as an entirely separate entity. If viewed as aligned with the False Memory movement, it might be seen as proof of False Memories and a near complete lack of the existence of ritual abuse. The other takes Satanic Panic as still harmful, but removes the blame from those claiming to have experienced it.

I believe that a crucial part of enabling healing is giving survivors the benefit of the doubt. People who are speaking out about abuse might be doing so for the first time, and are particularly vulnerable to disbelief even if they have told their story before. Talking about maltreatment takes a lot of courage, especially when a stigma already exists around the topic.

Fundie Satanism

That said, the Satanic Panic was weaponized by Christian groups expecting to gain power from it. Some genuinely believed Satanic Ritual Abuse was a primary concern, others knew it was only a face for the politics.

Fundamentalist groups wanted to have the kind of attention they were no longer getting, and the instatement of mandated reporter laws and influx of unsupervised children gave them a fighting cause. They saw that child abuse was becoming popular in media, and they used it as leverage to frighten well-meaning folks into their way of thinking.

Satanic was the word for non-Christian, and Christians were quick to disown anything that hinted at rot within their own organization. Christianity was still popular, and nobody wanted to believe they could be involved with a group that caused harm. So they took any religious abuse, and some non-religious abuses, and slapped Satanic on it.

Satanic Ritual Abuse

Ritual abuse refers to maltreatment that is both standardized and associated with symbols or ideologies. At the time, many kinds of organized (involving multiple perpetrators and victims) and/or coercive (intentionally manipulative) abuse were grouped under that name. Extreme abuse was also called ritual abuse, and we still don’t have a solid definition for that one.

Given that all ritual abuse would have been considered Satanic, fundies basically screwed over anyone who was abused in this specific way. Ritual abuse as we know it now did and does happen. An abuser doesn’t have to believe in their symbolism or ideology to misuse it, and many forms of religion and other structured beliefs can be applied to hurt and intimidate people.

RAMCOA

Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse are grouped together under a metric ton of buzz words. The survivors of this collection of abuses are left with research that is out of date, chock full of misinformation, and unable to communicate with people outside of the community.

I know the words are conspiratorial. I get that the books have fear-mongering content. I need people to understand that there is no better option, and pretending bad things don’t happen doesn’t make them go away.

Government Mind Control

Mind control is manipulation with intent. Coercion. Using psychology to get your way. Implanting false memories would be mind control. Again, it doesn’t sound good because cultural contexts have evolved over time and clinical language for this kind of abuse has not. Not all mind control is abusive at all. McDonald’s using targeted ads is mind control. But also training children like dogs is mind control.

There have been government-sponsored projects on mind control. There probably still are. Governments do sketchy things like that for military advancement and because they don’t face consequences, and there was a time where government employees admitted to it. Similar to McDonald’s and their hot coffee campaign, there were some strategic moves to look better to newcomers.

The government has sponsored lots of things they don’t want to acknowledge, and people are still suffering the effects. People in poverty, black and brown communities, and so on can probably agree that government is not synonymous with benevolent.

One of the things the government did was talk to criminal organizations. I don’t know if this is news to anyone, but it was a good way to get information and resources. There were wartime experiments on drugs and interrogation, and those were mind control.

Enough survivors agree about their experiences that it doesn’t seem worthwhile to dismiss them, so until there’s better information we would do well to try to understand them. You don’t have to agree full heartedly to sit with people in their own stories.

Cult Mind Control

I would describe a cult as any group that uses unhealthy practices as a defining feature of their cultural norms. Not everyone agrees on what is or isn’t a cult, and that mostly fine. This is the definition I’m using because it makes the most sense to me in context.

Cults members are not the only ones to use or receive mind control tactics, but the post I saw mentions cults this way. The specific technique is called Trauma Based Mind Control, which is the application of psychological responses to danger and overwhelm for the purposes of an abuser.

TBMC is the primary method for what the RAMCOA survivor community calls programming. Programming is the use of cues associated with PTSD triggers to achieve a desired response in a subject. When programming is done to a small child (under age 6-12, depending on the source), a common response is Dissociative Identity Disorder.

HC-DID

Abusers create alternate self-states within one body to react to the cues given. Depending on how knowledgeable the perpetrator(s) is/are, a child might have a very structured system of alters with little control allocated to them. These systems are designed by and for abusers to create long term obedient subjects.

Not every DID system is formed this way. Most are naturally developed with the induction of trauma in a child’s life. Some organic systems have complex structures anyway, but not for anyone but themselves. These systems are polyfragmented, or C-DID systems.

The level of control and organization found within a programmed system is almost always more than those found in organic systems. In the RAMCOA community, this is called HC-DID. The key difference isn’t true complexity, but the type of prerequisites to qualify.

Highly Complex DID isn’t particularly difficult to groom in a child, but it does require intent. Cult groups, as well as other high control groups, are quite capable of figuring it out by sheer cruelty and observation.

Why Does It Matter?

Making blanket statements about what abuse is and isn’t real doesn’t actually help anyone. While people prone to worry who didn’t experience RAMCOA might feel temporarily safer, it’s likely they’ll figure out they were lied to.

People who did experience it struggle with doubt and disbelief from others, and may have been told that nobody would care. This field is still considered taboo, and there are victims of torture and adjacent who are ashamed or afraid because of the state of the larger population.

I survived RAMCOA. My family and friends survived RAMCOA. Not all of my friends survived RAMCOA. Watch yourself.

Can you explain what a shell alter is and what their purpose is? /gen

Shell alters are a dissociated system member who is fronting all the time, or almost all the time. They often lack elaboration. Shells work as an interface between the rest of the system & the outside world by never leaving front, and having the rest of the system either blending with them temporariality or being forced into co-consciousness. This serves a few purposes; make the system more covert, mask inter-switch amnesia, blunt or filter out emotions/urges/etc. from the rest of the system, and more. It's uncommon, but there can be multiple shells one system, serving different subroles.

In some cases of OSDD-1a, the shell is the "unified" identity. Think like, if the system is made up of "angry Sarah", "scared Sarah", "work Sarah", etc., that shell would be the "Sarah" identity.

They're most commonly seen in OSDD-1a, but can come up in other forms of multiplicity, like DID, but typically when RAMCOA is in the picture. Although it can be daunting, healing with a shell is possible. You can reached out to them, they can be integrated, they gain more elaboration, etc etc. Whatever healing path works for you.

We don't have a shell, but I'm sure some pwDID/OSDD on this hellsite (affectionate) have talked about their experiences with them more in depth. There isn't a ton of research on them — many sites point to Alison Miller's books, but there's no actual like, raw data, just summations of what's she's found in her practice/case studies — so take that as you will.

Each shell is a different, and different systems may use slightly different definitions. Hopefully this was a good overview. -Aisling

Trans Ramcoa

I dont want to make this a habit however, when looking for terms to reclaim, I came across a post that made me recoil in disgust. @ cincinique made a post defending the not reclaimed term Trans Ramcoa and I would like to bring this to people attention so they can block the people interacting with this post and defending this term. I would like this to be perfectly clear, if you use the term Trans-Ramcoa or similar Trans-id terms, you are:

Defending Child pornography

Romanticizing Child Prostitution

Romanticizing the torture of Children

Defending Child rapists

YOU. ARE. BORDERLINE. PEDOPHILIC.

Not in a million years will these people understand what we went through as a child, all the abuse and torture we experienced at the hands of the people who were supposed to love us. To call this a kink, to say its just you being "kinky" is you getting off to the idea of child torture. You calling this a kink is you pushing people into dangerous situations were they will be abused and tortured. What you post matters. What you do matters. Do not make your legacy online supporting child rape and child torture.

thanks! i was wondering what helps you safely deal with/ resist callbacks in general? i hope i worded that ok, if it‘s too triggering to talk about please don‘t.

It's not triggering at all! Don't worry one bit. We took a while because we were vacationing (and getting used to my boyfriend snoring like a chainsaw directly into my eardrum)!

Callback is tricky for us because it's one of the few well-executed programs we have. Our situation was poorly planned, so most of the attempted conditioning ended up messy. Teenage ad-hoc groups aren't exactly known for their consistency.

Something to keep in mind is that programming does not come from nowhere. It exaggerates and warps common trauma responses. It is a common experience in abuse survivors to have the urge to return, and that means there are lots of resources on this topic! Yes, a survivor of extreme conditioning presents differently than a ""normal"" DV/abuse survivor, but at its core, it's the same mechanisms.

For us, in particular, though:

Identify material barriers. This is things like not having enough money, being in a location where you can't really leave freely (work, school, etc.), not having access to transit that will get you to a location, etc. Locking our credit card is example of introducing a material barrier ahead of time.

Identify nonmaterial barriers. This is social consequences like people missing you & having responsibilities that need fulfilling in the time frame, or less physical things like not having a method of contact (like lacking a phone number) or address.

Let someone be your accountabili-buddy. This doesn't have to be telling someone about programming, but it could be as simple as "can you please call me at x time" or "I will call you when my flight lands". This goes into nonmaterial barriers, but here, instead of passive "what if people miss me" or something, you are instead actively introducing someone who will be checking on you.

Good ol' grounding. Whatever method works for you(/y'all), it will help. Programming is a return to a time period, a way of thinking, that is incongruent to the current moment. Reminding yourself that it you are not in that place anymore (through whatever means you like) will help. Our favorite is music, especially newly-discovered stuff.

Mild reminders to how bad that trauma period was helps us. Fighting a program with flashbacks isn't ideal, so we try to keep the reminders abstract. "It was very scary back then and things are better now. We should not go back." That sorta thing. Our partner helps a lot with this, as he is not going to be specific (he does not know the details of course) but still reassuring and supportive.

See if switching will help. We come armed with many sensory-based triggers (a plush or two, music playlists, jewelry, access to food & drink) so we try to drag someone else's sorry ass into the mix, especially a non-conditioned part. Blake, a physical protector and top layer resident, is our default "walking in potentially dangerous area" headmate and he ended up escorting us through the airport a lot!

We did all of these while we travelled last week, and we ended up perfectly fine. We were on the phone with our partner nearly the entire time, kept ourselves fed & watered, and honestly? Enjoyed it. We like the odd liminality of airports and despite an hour delay for one of our flights, we actually had a great time travelling.

We wish you luck!

Hi everyone,

I thought I would share this interesting comparison chart between Autistic traits vs Autistic trauma. I found this pretty informal, so I hope some of you do too.

Autism Traits

Autism Trauma