R.I.P. Feather

Too much has been going on this week, so I haven’t had time to think about the next post in my series.

I’d like to tell a story instead.

Once upon a time, I had two friends. Both were abuse survivors. One of them was dissociative, and one was not.

The one who was dissociative (DSB) was still involved with her abusive group. The one who was not (FD) gained a quick and ugly lesson in what it’s like to be involved with a dissociative person when they are not as free of their past as they want others to think they are.

I spent a year living with them off and on. I got to know them well, as their respective individual selves and as the couple they were at the time.

Unfortunately, one of the things that became clear over the course of that year was that DSB was not only still being accessed by her abusers in the current day – but that, as a whole, she had no intention of changing that fact. Her system was aware of the ongoing abuse, but none of them were willing to fight it.

This was not because they felt helpless or powerless, and it wasn’t because they had no help or support. They were one of the lucky few in that regard. They had knowledge of what was happening to them, they had support, and they had several good and trustworthy people who were willing to help them in any way it took to get them free.

What they did not have was the desire to get themselves free.

Various personality types may crop up among the dissociative population with the same frequency that they do in the non-dissociative population.

Having been abused and being dissociative is no guarantee that the personalities we would have had under other circumstances would have made us a good person, a kind person, a loving person, a generous person – any more than the mere fact of existence is an assurance that every human being in the world is good. We all know that that isn’t true. Among the billions of people in the world, there are hundreds of thousands who are dark or evil or simply bad in a staggering variety of ways.

This is true of survivors as well. Having been abused does not automatically mean someone would have been or is a good person. Underneath any and all sequelae of the abuse, our personalities still bear the original imprint it had when we were born – and that personality may or may not naturally lead us toward good.

Mind control trainers consider it a bonus when a natural personality tends towards the less positive human characteristics. These are the people who will remain easily controlled for the rest of their lives, the ones whose loyalty will never be in doubt, the ones who will never be a headache, the ones that the programmers don’t have to worry about. These are the ones who can’t be reached with any message of potential change, because they don’t want to hear it. They have found where they want to be already.

DSB was such a one.

These dissociative systems are relatively unusual, and anyone who has never had experience with  one of them may count themselves lucky – but it would be unfair to assume that lack of experience with them means they don’t exist, or that DSB was merely a misunderstood person whose helpers failed her, or that it was the effects of programming being mistaken for actual preference of life with and as a perpetrator.

Someone who has walked a path themselves can recognize where someone else is on the same path. Alcoholics in recovery can tell by a glance when someone is about to fall off the wagon or when they already have, whether they are truly committed to recovery or whether they have a distance yet to fall before hitting their personal rock bottom. They can tell these things about other alcoholics because they have been there themselves. It gives them an insider’s understanding and perception that a non-alcoholic can never have. In the same way, a survivor of mind control programming who has traveled a distance in their own healing can see things in other survivors, simply by virtue of having been in those same places themselves.

And the thing that was apparent about DSB was that she did not want to be helped to leave her abusive group. She did not want to leave them at all.

I mourned DSB years ago. I mourned the person I wished she could be, and then I stayed away from the person she truly was. She tried to jeopardize the safety I was working so hard to obtain for myself, and I could not allow her to do that.

This week, I mourn my friend FD, who was not as lucky as I was.

DSB gained nothing from what was offered to her by others in their desire to help her. But someone else did lose everything by giving too much to someone who had no intention of benefitting from it.

And I wish I could say this was an isolated occurrence – but it isn’t.

Survivors – whether you are dissociative or not – if you are committed to your healing, then guard it well. Guard it from anyone who would do it damage, even if they appear as a friend, and sometimes even from your own self. Remember that you can still be vulnerable – and regardless of where you meet them or how, not everyone does want to heal. Please be careful of yourselves – don’t give blindly, and don’t give so much to someone else that you cost yourself everything.

Let your ears be open and let your pride step back. Listen for the ring of truth, even as your self-love wants to jump out and slap the person who insulted it. Let the truth enter your heart and your mind – the truth about your history, and the truth about the things within you that need to be changed in order for you to find the kind of life you most want for yourself, and even the truth that others may not be the friends you want to think they are.

Let yourself heal – and offer a hand to others who need one as they travel the same path – but don’t be tricked into gripping a hand that only wants to pull you back down. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to take care of yourself first.