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There were over 50 personalities in our system. We were abused sexually from the age of 6 months, until we moved away from the family of origin. It was a "family thing," as all the males and some females were involved. Only the greatgrandmother was a "safe person", until her death when we were 7. She died just after our birthday. The family was involved in generational familial satanic ritual abuse, as well as physical, emotional, and mental abuse throughout this time.
From ages 6 through 9 1/2, we were subjected to spiritual ritual abuse, from the uncle's cult. What happened there was too horrendous to talk about here. We were brainwashed into believing what they wanted us to believe. We were threatened with death frequently, and with vivid descriptions of the ways they would do it. We were truly frightened half to death. We got to be very good at hiding, and were hard to find. We would hide and cry silently. They used drugs, alcohol, hypnosis and brainwashing to control us. This ended when we were 10-11. Growing up in a family that has so many secrets that no one can keep all of them straight, is a confusing household. One day you can do this activity, the next day you can't. The main purpose behind it is to keep the abuser in charge, and those being abused in a contstant state of anxiety trying to figure out the rules for today. The rules varied by whim, with no regard to the day of the week, hour of the day, or any kind of commitments that had been made. It was common place to have to call and cancel appointments because they were an inconvenience to the abusers. Trying to get homework done in this type of environment was difficult at best. Bedtime was always flexible--at the abuser's convenience. We did all we could to stay out of the house as much as possible. We went to choir practice, the neighbor for help on homework, and got a job as soon as we could. When we were 16, we could finally work part-time after school, and tried to work as much as we could just to stay out of the house till 9:30 PM at night. The uncle went to work just before 11PM, and he had less time to come after us. We joined Sing Out America, so between working and that, we were not home a lot during the week. We did homework in study halls, before school, after school on the bus to work, on breaks at work, on the bus home, during rehearsal breaks for Sing Out, and after we got home. Anything less than a B+ or an 88% was not allowed. By the time we got to our senior year, we were able to speak German fluently, think in German, write in it, and debate the teacher. (We had been in a special class that started studying German in 3rd grade, although we have very vague memories of learning German in grade school. We knew Christmas carols and some sentences and many words by 7th grade.) Our family was originally German, and our godmother's mother talked to us in German from the age of 6 onwards. We stopped in our senior year so we would have more time to do homework at school. We went from graduating high school right into Nursing School. We trained at a then prestigious 3 year diploma program, and graduated, passed our state boards without trouble. We got married in our last year of training in June, the week that Hurricaine Agnes hit. 1972. The flood abated enough by the weekend to still have the wedding. Anyone else may have thought twice about it, but we didn't. We thought our husband was the sweetest man in the world. We were 21. We were both too young, and didn't know better. But we were in love.
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