The impact of ritual abuse

The quality of life of ritual abuse survivors is undermined every day by flashbacks, hypervigilance, insomnia, eating disturbances and chronic physical and psychosomatic pain as a result of torture. The psychological condition of survivors is at the most extreme end of the post-traumatic scale.

Memories of ritual abuse are lodestones of degradation and shame that can persist in the consciousness of a survivor for decades. When these memories surface, they do so repetitively and with visceral force. A few evocative words can be enough to trigger flashbacks in which every sensation of childhood rape and torture is relived over and over again. The shame and bodily agony associated with memories of ritual abuse may incapacitate an adult survivor and leave them unable to work or care for their loved ones.

For captive adults still being abused, their memories constitute a prison without walls. Perpetrators can punish disobedience from afar using the phone or email. A few well-placed words can trigger new memories, new flashbacks, and a new source of terror and pain for the victim. Many captive adults would rather endure another ordeal of rape and torture, where dissociation leaves them blessedly numb and amnestic, than be forced to relive the atrocities of their childhood.

some of the diagnostic criteria for ‘complex’ types of PTSD are particularly relevant to ritual abuse, including:

- Sense of complete difference from others

- Belief that the self is not human

- Preoccupation with relationship with perpetrator

- Attribution of total power to perpetrator

- Idealisation of perpetrator, gratitude to perpetrator

- Belief in a supernatural/special relationship with a perpetrator

-Acceptance of belief system or rationalisations of perpetrator

- Repeated failures of self-protection

- Sense of hopelessness and despair

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

BPD is a common diagnosis for survivors of severe sexual abuse (Herman, Perry et al. 1989). It describes survivors’ difficulties in interpersonal relationships, and in regulating their emotional states. It is sometimes a ‘catch-all’ category for difficult clients, and some clinicians have called BPD a veiled insult, implying little capacity for recovery and ignoring the history of sadistic victimisation disclosed by many sufferers of BPD (Shaw and Proctor 2005).

Nevertheless, some of the treatments for BPD can be very effective for the ritual abuse survivor – particularly treatments such as Dialectic Behavioural Therapy which focuses on emotional skills and builds the capacity of the survivor to manage their day-to-day life and social interactions.