In the thick of it

I won't ever have a way of knowing unless I'm led to an answer. But it's possible my one client's perps (who follow me because of my having advocated for her in the past), were part of my own abuse "network". It's only been 11 years I've been fully conscious in my life. I already know that my other actively abused client had a perp in her life who had been my role model neighbor when I was in high school. Katie is the 4-year-old alter of a former adult client. The gang of pedophiles to which she is connected against her will is headed by a man about 10 years younger than me. He would have been a 30-year-old pedophile when I was a 40-year-old dissociated victim.

I've lived in this area since high school. When my parents moved away, I know now my neighbor knew how to keep me in the fold. I was going on 30 then. When I "woke up", I was working full time, quite effectively and with much conscious praise, for a managed health care company. I had to take leave because of the conscious trauma of the first memories and having to learn how to return to work and somehow be okay. During that short-term leave, I began to do collages. One of my collages along with some internal narrative showed me a vice president of my company, an alter, something to do with foreign stocks, and the word SPIN.

The collage with all the symbols meant nothing to me. I could see things like NOK and "trading at the sound of the bell" and dollar signs. When I looked up NOK, I saw it was the symbol for Norwegian currency. The alter is on the phone and financial symbols are surrounding her. Someone has a finger over their lips. "Don't tell." I had not yet fully learned to understand how I received messages. Even though the collage told me a particular person at work was using the word "spin" with some phrase by telephone to cause me to make phone calls to what? Make stock or currency trades? For whom? Why?...It seemed too surreal to me.

I returned to work after leave. I interacted with this company officer by phone and in person to collaborate on a weekly project. One day, shortly after my return, he came to my desk, pulled up a chair, and we reviewed the project. No problem. Soon after he left, my phone rang. It was him. He wanted a change made but trusted me to write what he wanted to convey. As I was about to hang up, he said, "I trust you to put your spin on it." I stayed conscious, kinda laughed, hung up, and nearly passed out I got so dizzy. I had another picture of the adult female alter hanging upside down with the words "In spin we trust" under her. I trust you to put your spin... My collage and internal message were right on. I learned to trust internal messages very quickly after that.

The first company I worked for out of high school was for the same company where my neighbor worked. WTF? And look at the irony of my last job before having to give up life as I knew it for healing. Survivors scream for help healing while health care refuses to recognize the diagnosis of DID as requiring intensive therapy. And there I was at a managed care company being used in a dissociative state! That's as much as I know definitely about my former dissociated adult life. Exploitation for activities out of conscious awareness.

So I remained living in an area apparently entrenched in this crap for the past 40 years. I live among people who have seen me doing things I don't remember doing...kiddie porn is all I remember from childhood. But what if there are things out there now with me as an adult? I can't deal with that madness. I'm so upset just writing that thought. Both my father and the one survivor's parents worked in the same place. Their paths crossed in the 1970s but it could have been for at least 10 years. Does that mean we only lived places in my life where this stuff was going on? Pedophile community to pedophile community? Do they all know each other? Refer to each other if moving to a new area?

I had confirmation during very early healing that all levels of organized pedophilia interact. I would imagine all pedophile communities surrounding a hub city are aware of each other. Possibly each specializes in some aspect of exploitation. This is what law enforcement needs to figure out. It's huge. It's scary. I walk among my perpetrators. My life has never been my own. Even as healed as I am, they make sure I know they are there. The only way I can do it is to say f*ck them and walk out the door. Some days that's difficult to do. Some days that's impossible to do. Some days I really can say WTF and go about my day. Life shouldn't have to be this difficult. I am only one survivor. I suspect the numbers of victims (children and adults) is in the hundreds of thousands rather than thousands who don't know they are even being used. It's sickening.

Had I known early in my healing I was still in the thick of it, I doubt I could have handled it. I don't know how Katie and the adult of my former client's body handle that knowledge. I had originally thought all of my abuse happened when I was out of town (or taken away from home when younger). I couldn't imagine or even suspected it was local. My mind didn't allow me to go there. It was not until I was in grad school that those memories surfaced. At that point they were answers that made perfect sense. Also it was horrific processing that had been the case and it was outside my door. But I was strong enough to know it and choose to remain here where the rest of my life is. I don't think it matters if I'm here or I move. Someone's eyes from that world will be watching.

Once born into that world, the victim is theirs. Infancy until thirties or forties with some outliers. And add about ten years for strong healing. If we're lucky, we get a mostly conscious and peaceful retirement. It's so surreal to say; I'm sure it's surreal to hear. Even when not connected to a group, a child's future is sealed pretty much for the first three quarters of her life if DID is created from overwhelming abuse. This cannot ever be okay.