Memory Work
Overall
Memory work or working through memories is a major
aspect within all the stages of recovery. There are also stages to memory work.
These are allowing memories to surface, accepting them, having them validated
by yourself or a supporter and then discharging them. Memories are mainly in
the programming, accessing and deployment. It is in memory work that being free from the perpetrators actually
happens. Programming is about torture and deception and so addressing and
getting rid of the painful trauma and lies releases the victim from being
controlled. Memory work about the deployment is also important. It releases the
supposed guilt and stops the memory from intruding into ones daily life.
Basically memories
come up when you/the survivor can get rid of them. Sometimes they occur because
of accessing or deployment pressure or
because an everyday incident or situation has reminded the victim/survivor of
the abuse. At other more non triggering times, s/he can work on them at his/her
pace. When a victim/survivor feels s/he maybe accessed or deployed or is
actually being accessed, there is intense pressure to deprogram to stop the
accessing cueing and contact. This particularly happens in the initial stages
of survivorship when there is an conscious or even unconscious fear of being
accessed which would generally be happening. Memory flooding happens a lot
during this period. This is different to other forms
of abuse when it happened in the past. Even though the trauma happened before,
this trauma is still being abused for programming and accessing and so there is
pressure to get rid of the traumatic programming memories.
Victims/survivors
become frantic and intensely work on the memories. Pressured memory work also
happens when an everyday incident or situation reminds the victim/survivor past
abuse. For example, a victim/survivor may have to go to a supermarket and
becomes claustrophobic. S/he feels locked in like when s/he was abused in large
airport hangers. In order to deal with this situation s/he feels s/he needs to
work on the memory.
When there is less
triggering and little or no contact, s/he can work on them at his/her pace.
Memories can come up gradually and worked on more easily.
There are many ways a memory can surface from the unconscious. One way
is being reminded of past abuse such as seeing a face that reminds the
victim/survivor of a past perpetrator. The second is through dreams where the
victim/survivor sees the actual occurrence or understands it through symbolism.
The most common way is to have the actual memory. The memories simply happen
because the victim/survivor is able to have them. The memory is observed from a
distance where a dissociated personality has approached the memory from a
removed position or actually being in
it. The memory consists of either seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling or hearing
what happened, or a combination of these. These memories can happen anytime of
the day.
How Much Memory Can be Worked On
Generally, how far one goes
in bringing back and working on these memories depends on how much you/the
survivor can accept the pain. This is an important non judgmental approach to
survivorship and memory work. We do have physical and psychological limitations
in doing memory work. What assists with memory work is loving and trusting
oneself, the love and trust of others and how much real support you get. The victim/survivor
also needs to be in some safety.
Memory work can be done by
oneself and most of the time we do this. Memory work is natural thing. It is simply expressing the
pain of past abuse so as to get rid of the pain. We allow the memory to come
up, accept it, These are allowing memories to surface, accepting them, and then discharging them. Discharging means
emotional expression such as anger, annoyance, sadness, etc. We can tell the
perpetrators off in our minds or out loud, and then feel the sadness and joy of
releasing this anger.
As
said, most victims/survivors are doing memory work naturally, but many have
found that with assistance from a counsellor, memory work can be done more
easily. The main reason to get assistance from a counsellor is that most victims/survivors have been stopped from
doing the natural memory work by perpetrators in the past. When we wanted to
discharge before we were either reprogrammed or chided and so this process was
inhibited. Counsellors can assist in
showing us again how to discharge properly. Counsellors when they understand
that you are reading to relearn how to discharge can take you through the
steps. They wont do this until the victim/survivor is ready. Once weve learnt
how to discharge memory we can do it by ourselves at home or anywhere there is
privacy or no people. After a while memory work becomes second nature. We can
also organise times when we do memory work in order to have some order in our
life.
There are specific
considerations when doing memory work with deprogramming. First, memory work
here isnt as simple and straightfoward as with general release of emotions. In
the programming process, the perpetrators set
up deceptive and fabricated abuse. For example, I was lied to that my
mum was hurting me so that I am deceived into thinking that my mum is a
perpetrator. Either “the mum” wasn’t my actual mum or she was thinking she was
having sex with my father as she was drugged and deceived. If I had followed my
feelings and discharged this memory I would believe my mum was a perpetrator
and therefore fall into the trap of being programmed. The best thing in doing
deprogramming memory work is to not listen to the grub programmers but to see
what and hear what is really happening. Don’t go straight into following your
feelings. Be observant and see where the deception lies. Then discharge at the
real perpetrators, the grub programmers who are deceiving you and want control.
Other lies that grub perpetrators say is that "grub activity is happening
in this particular place" when it is actually happening elsewhere, or that
famous innocent people are perpetrators, etc. This is to try and confuse you
are or contaminate your evidence when you go to legal authorities. Again, not
listen to perpetrators and trust your real memories of people, places and
events, and release your anger against the perpetrators abuse and
deception.
The second important
consideration is that you are working with dissociated parts many of whom are
grub controlled and alligned. With dissociated parts you are basically talking
to another person. You are dialoguing with another part of you and so therefore
the usual respectful and considerate ways of talking to another person are
really important. See the part as how you would see yourself. Be caring, listen
well, also firm if need be, etc. Be respectful of their age and abilities and
relate according to their age and their intellectual and physical abilities. If
you make agreements, keep to them like you would anyone else.
What is also very important
is that you are also talking to some parts that are controlled by a perpetrator
which is someone outside of yourself. A lot of care is needed in talking with
this part. You need to show that they are lied to and that they are being
abused. They cannot really do what they want as they are beholden to someone
else and have to do what they want and really get no benefit in return. The
care is also very important in that underneath the part is the fears, false
promises, deception and trauma which they only understand and act on. Listening
to them, but not accepting the programming, talking with them and explaining
within their age and abilities, and simply showing that you really care about
them will show that you don’t want to hurt them and that the perpetrators are the bad guys.
Basically parts are either
grub controlled, are rethinking about the abuse or have come back to you and
been reclaimed. There should be no judgement on any of these parts. Controlled
parts are simply those that havent seen yet. Parts that have come back to you
have seen that the grubs are perpetrators through either your education or from
what they see for themselves. Reclaimed parts will give you lots of information
about the abuse, as will some who are rethinking about whether it is abuse.
They will also explain what grub controlled parts are doing. You can simply ask
what is happening or happened. These parts however also have many threats not
to tell and so it sometimes useful to use ways in which they don’t feel they
are in danger when wanting memory and information. Drawing, using another
language, using pictures, etc can bypass the programming not to talk about the
abuse in English.
Most victims/survivors live
with having many parts. The more the recovery the more the parts become
reclaimed. Living with reclaimed parts is relatively easy as they all work
together. This is called coconsciousness between parts. When there are both
cult controlled parts and reclaimed parts there can be conflict and the
victim/survivor needs to become a nonjudgmental arbitrator caring for everyone
so that internal fights do not occur. Some victims/survivors associate the
parts so that they are not dissociated anymore. This means going back to the
programming trauma and deception and working on the lies and pain. The part
then doesn’t need to dissociate anymore and become fully integrated.
Deployment memory work
entails addressing the programming lies of supposed willing involvement and
getting angry with this, and of feeling the pain of what you were deluded into
doing.
It is really important to see
that it was programming that forced you to do things you would not normally do.
We were deluded by lies, threats, altruism, etc. These could be lies that the
people you assassinated were “going to
kill your parents, family, friends, etc”, or that the information you couriered
was “vital medical information”, etc. What is also very important to understand
is the reality is that you didn’t/dont want to assassinate, produce drugs,
courier information etc, normally. You don’t assassinate, produce and carry
drugs within organised crime, etc now or before, and have no desire to. It is
only when you are non consciously programmed is when parts are deceived into
thinking they are doing the right thing. The perpetrators lie that you wanted
to do these things but in fact they know that you don’t. That’s why they program you and make you non conscious
to it. If you had the choice you would follow a normal life. The real
perpetrators are those that are conscious and want to do these things like
programmers and directors.
The second aspect is the pain of
having to kill, etc, stopping any guilt and feeling for whoever died. Release
the anger towards the perpetrators for putting you there in the first place.
Also, allow the parts to feel the fear, confusion, sadness, etc that
assassination and other deployment brings. Stopping guilt is taking the
rational approach that you didn’t want to be there and also releasing angry
emotions of being falsely accused of such.
The simple answer to this is
when the victim/survivor feels that memories do not intrude so much that a
normal life is severely disrupted. Counsellors believe that it is not necessary
to work through all past memories to have a good life. They are in the past. If
they are causing too much confusion and trouble in your everyday life then there
is a need to work more on the memories. It is important to work on memories to
stop accessing. Stopping accessing
means breaking free from the perpetrators and not being reabused. Doing
deployment memory work means not having memories severely intruding into your
everyday life and therefore not suffering from ptsd, etc. Because of
programming deception that ‘you live a normal life’ when in fact you are being
abused, it very important to get clear feedback from your counsellor that you
are really living a normal and free life. From knowing how far you’ve
progressed and asking general questions s/he can give you a good understanding.