Faith Allen’s Story – Forced to Watch Sister “Killed” (More to the Story)

*******trigger warning – ritual and emotional abuse; religious triggers*******

On Monday, I shared a recently recovered ritual abuse memory. The next night, I recovered more of the memory. The “part two” shook me up much more than that “part one,” but I am not sure why. My offline friend said that it made perfect sense to her.

As I was trying to go to sleep the following night, I was right back under the stars again watching my sister being “murdered.” However, this time, instead of fast-forwarding to the next morning, someone grabbed me roughly from behind by my upper arms, lifted me in the air, and carried me over to my table, where he threw me down on my back. I did not see or hear him coming, so I was both startled and frightened. As I recovered this part of the memory, my body released body memories of how it felt to be lifted and thrown down by my upper arms.

He raped me on the table. My body released the feelings of being raped (always a “pleasure” – NOT!). While he did that, someone else walked over to the blood splattered everywhere, took a handful of it, and rubbed it all over me as the other one continued to rape me. I was sickened inside but had no reaction to it outwardly.

I had been raped many times before, but this time it didn’t matter anymore. Up until then, everything had been about protecting and saving my sister. I was always threatened with her death – if I did not obey, they would kill my sister. Now they had, so what was the point? It didn’t matter what they did to me any longer. I didn’t care. My reason for being alive had ended. I didn’t care what they did to me. There was no one left to protect.

I got off the table and walked to the right. I couldn’t “see” in the memory what was there. In my flashbacks, I always see the set up from the same perspective. The bonfire is in the middle. My table is at 8:00, and the brick wall that I see when I feel the urge to self-injure is northwest of me. My sister is at 10:00 when she is on her table. At 4:00 is where my abusers brought in and slaughtered my dog. I always entered from 9:00 and went to my table. I cannot “see” 6:00, but that is where I went. I don’t know if it was a place to clean up or what.

I remember climbing into the front seat of our VW beetle with my mother at the wheel. It didn’t occur to me to look in the backseat to see if my sister was there since I believed she was dead. I don’t remember much … just having no reason for being alive.

Then, I flashed back to the next morning and the jarring shock of seeing my sister alive and well, walking into the kitchen to eat her breakfast. She didn’t sleep in her bed that night (next to mine). I awoke to her empty bed and believed she was dead. Then, she was alive and OK. I didn’t know how to process this.

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Faith Allen’s Story – Forced to Watch Sister “Killed”

*******trigger warning – ritual and emotional abuse; religious triggers*******

I have been having dreams lately of a “little dog,” which symbolized that I had another really big traumatic memory to work through. Two of my most traumatizing memories involved dogs – watching my abusers kill my dog and being raped by a dog. I knew this was going to be a difficult memory to recover.

I recovered it last night. It is a variation of what I already shared about being forced to “kill” another child, only this happened before the ruse was pulled on me.

I knew the memory needed to come. I looked into the dog’s crate, opened the door, and peeked inside. Suddenly, it was like I was beamed back into my eight-year-old body. I was standing outside under very bright stars. Everything in the world seemed larger because I was viewing it from an eight-year-old child’s perspective. I took in the bonfire, the tables, and the people in robes filing in. This was different because I was not at my place at the table. I was just standing there observing the ritual.

Just as what I described here, I watched the same ritual with a child who was a little bit older than I was. The child was in a robe with the head robed man standing behind the child. A large knife was placed in the child’s hands, and the man put his hands around the child’s hands to force him/her to hold it.

Then, they carried out my sleeping (drugged) six-year-old sister and laid her at the feet of the child. I knew what was coming. I began screaming and sobbing in my head, but not one muscle on my face belied my internal emotions. I watched as the head man droned on and on and couldn’t see them replace my sister with a slab of meat. I watched as the knife plunged into what I thought was my sister, and I watched as what I thought was my sister’s blood saturated the child who “killed” her. Inside, I was screaming and crying. Outside, I was completely stoic – not one trace of emotion.

The next morning, my sister was there with me going to breakfast – alive with no marks on her body. As Chrystine Oksana says, “the real unreal.” I saw her die, and yet here she was. What can I believe? What is true? What is not?

I get it all from the adult perspective, especially since I already worked through being on the “killing end” of this dynamic. However, I still have to process the emotions of the eight-year-old girl who believed she saw her baby sister murdered.

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Faith Allen’s Story – Forced to “Kill”

*******trigger warning – ritual and emotional abuse; religious triggers*******

I believe this was a later memory – perhaps at age 9 or 10. The cult leader told me that I was going to be initiated into a higher level of the cult. Of course, I had no interest in being any more involved with these crazy people than I already was, but nobody asked my opinion.

They told me that I was going to kill a child tonight. They put me in my own robe and had me stand in front of the cult leader in his black robe. They laid a child at my feet. She looked like she was asleep, but I suspect that she was drugged and unconscious.

The cult leader put a large knife between my hands, and then he held my hands (holding the knife) inside of his hands. He lifted up my hands high above my head. Meanwhile, another cult member beamed a flashlight into my eyes while the cult leader made a long speech. The blood drained from my hands and arms, and I desperately wanted to put down my arms. However, I knew that when I did, I would kill someone, so I both dreaded the end of the speech and longed for it. This entire time, I was “blinded” by this flashlight shining directly into my eyes.

Eventually, the cult leader quit talking and forced my arms to stab where the child had been lying. I was saturated in what I believed was blood, à la the “Carrie” movie. I felt the knife cut through flesh, and I truly believed that I had just killed a child.

This flashback was one of the most difficult ones I have ever recovered, but I was fortunate to have God right there helping me through this. This is the only time I have actually “felt” the presence of Jesus beside me as I recovered a memory. I mostly talk about God and not Jesus, but I assure you that I felt Jesus standing there telling me repeatedly, “You did nothing to be forgiven for.”

My eyes were immediately opened to the truth of what happened that night. While the flashlight was in my eyes, the cult members removed the child and put a slab of meat in her place. That is why I felt the knife cutting through flesh. The “blood” was all a sham. It might have been real blood, but it was not human blood. A sleeping child who wasn’t fighting back would not have “bled out” to that degree – the “blood” was dumped on me for effect.

Why would my abusers do this? To test my silence. I had to find out why someone would do this (other than to be cruel, which is obvious). Cults will do this to ensure the child’s silence. If I had gone to the police about this, the cult would have produced the child and called me a liar. Whether I talked or not, they were still in control.

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Faith Allen’s Story – Watching a Child Fall

*******trigger warning – emotional, ritual, & physical abuse*******

Most of my memories of ritual abuse happened during the night, so this flashback surprised me by taking place in the daytime. My sister and I had to work together to piece it all together to make sense of what happened. We both had the same basic memory – of the child falling – but we had to combine our memory fragments to piece together the how. We have different opinions of the truth of what happened that day.

A group of ritual abusers took us out in the woods during the day, which was unusual. We came to a clearing and stood in a group – the abusers with my sister and me – and watched a toddler walk around on a deer stand. The deer stand was high enough up to hurt the toddler if she fell, and it did not have guard rails on the sides (sort of like this one).

There was no adult there to protect the toddler. She looked new to walking and was unsteady on her feet. She toddled this way and that, and I was terrified about what would happen if she fell off. One of the abusers whispered in my ear in a sing-songy voice, “Hey, [child’s name]. Where’s your dolly?”

Eventually, the toddler lost her balance and fell off the deer stand. My sister says she remembers watching her body fall to the ground and thinking, “Hmmm. I thought it would bounce.” She believes the toddler died and that we witnessed a murder. I choose to believe that there was some sort of cushion that prevented the toddler from dying, but I do not remember the toddler making any noise, such as crying after the fall.

I have been haunted by nightmares of falling my entire life, especially of my son falling from a great height. I hear that people never hit the ground when they fall in their dreams, but I do – both my son and I hit the ground in my dreams. I do not like sitting on balconies, and I am fearful whenever my son is anywhere near any sort of ledge, such as a hotel balcony.

My sister has been haunted by the sound of the toddler’s body hitting the ground – thump. She hears is over and over in her head, followed by the thought of, “Hmmm. I thought it would bounce.”

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Faith Allen’s Story – Buried Alive

*******trigger warning – confinement and emotional abuses*******

My abusers would sometimes bury me alive. I don’t know why other than to freak me out. I cannot fathom what purpose burying someone alive has other than to be cruel. Those memories are more flashes than anything else.

I did recover one “after” memory of digging myself out and then finding my mother talking to S & L (my most sadistic abusers). I remember her making a crack about how dirty I was. I was a little girl who just wanted to watch TV or read a book. It was very unusual for me to get dirty at all, so my mother’s flip comment about being “dirty” was very upsetting to me.

They would put some sort of tube in my mouth so I could breathe, and then they would heap dirt on me. I feared what would happen if they put something in the tube because then I would not be able to breathe.

To this day, I hate to get my hands dirty. I hate gardening, and I let people think it is because I am too much of a “princess” to get dirt in my fingernails. The truth is that any type of dirt in my fingernails really wigs me out. What’s even worse is dirt inside of my nails, such as when your nail separates, and then dirt gets stuck between the two parts. Seeing any split in my nails sends me over the edge. I have to cut my nails off before I let my nails split like that.

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Faith Allen’s Story – Locked in a Box

*******trigger warning – ritual abuse and confinement *******

My abusers used to lock me in a large plywood box for long periods of time. I have no idea why other than to freak me out. My memories of this are sketchy, but I definitely have flashes of being locked in the box alone and then sometimes with objects to freak me out, such as with a Russian nesting doll.

I have flashes of lying still and hearing every single noise. Of course, it was dark in the box, so my hearing was my strongest sense. I would hear every little noise, including the sound of my own breathing, which sounded incredibly loud. I could also hear/feel my heart beating so fast.

S & L (my most sadistic abusers) gave my sister and me one of these boxes as a “gift” to use as a toy box in our basement. My parents thought it was a splendid idea. We could fit a bunch of our toys in the box, including two child-sized chairs. The plywood box had a latch on it that could have locked us in, even without a lock being used. I cannot fathom parents believing such a box was child-friendly, but my parents were hardly clued into what was safe or unsafe for their children.

To this day, I must have white noise going at all times (air purifier, fan, music, etc.), or I feel like I am going to lose my mind. I find it very triggering to be in an environment of complete silence other than the simple noises I might make by a slight shift of my body.

I am also claustrophobic. I have a hard time climbing in the “tubes” at a play land, so I was thrilled when my son became old enough to navigate play land tubes by himself.

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Faith Allen’s Story – Abusers Killed My Dog

*******trigger warning – animal abuse and emotional abuse*******

I have already written about this memory here. I am reprinting the story here. This was one of my most traumatizing memories, so I see no need to put myself through telling the story all over again.

When I was around six years old, our dog had puppies. I fell in love with H and begged my parents to keep her. They eventually relented, and I was inseparable from H.

I think H was only about 18 months old on the most traumatizing night of my life. My most sadistic abusers, S & L, invited my younger sister and me to go on an overnight camping trip. They offered to let me take H along and sleep with her under the stars. It sounded great.

I remember camping out by a mobile home. I remember eating fish and playing with H.

Then, I am back in that horrible place in the dark around the bonfire. People are milling about before the “ceremony” begins.

The cult leader tells me that this is a special night – they will be “sacrificing” my sister. Of course, I panic, but there is nothing that I can do. They have already snuffed out any trace of emotion from me, but my soul bleeds at the news.

They tell me that I can choose a replacement for her, but I will be responsible for the death of the replacement. I say, “Yes. Anyone but my sister.” They make a big deal about me being the one to choose the replacement.

I am so relieved that my sister will not be the one “sacrificed” until I hear H’s whines. Three or four robed people are dragging my beloved dog toward the bonfire, and she is putting up quite a struggle. They are having to drag her to get into my line of vision. They want me to watch … and I do as they slit her throat with a knife.

Her body stops moving instantly, and then they plunge the knife back into her, making a “cross” as they cut her long ways down her torso. Blood is pouring from my beloved dog, and I can do nothing. I cannot cry. I cannot scream. I can do nothing except feel the weight of being the one to “choose” her death. She was one of two beings in my life who truly loved me, and they took her from me.

They throw her body on the fire, and I smell her burning flesh. They scoop up her feces and smear it all over my body – my face, my hands … everywhere. It is still warm — she expelled it as she fought for her life.

Then, they carve out part of her burned flesh and force me to eat it. I have no choice. I “ chose” this. This was my doing.

I turn over to the side and vomit, tasting my bile filled with fish from my dinner a few hours earlier. To this day, I cannot eat fish. It triggers me enormously, as does coming into contact with dog feces.

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Faith Allen’s Story – Why I Must Be “Perfect”

*******trigger warning – emotional abuse*******

This story is actually a year later (in third grade, when I was 8). I am jumping ahead because this is another S story. After this, my next several posts will center on the ritual abuse, which is what S was grooming me for with all of her torture in her basement.

In the 1970’s, a movie came out called Baker’s Hawk, and I was dying to see it. For whatever reason, my mother would not take me to see it. So, I bought a copy of the book.

The teacher assigned book reports, and I really wanted to write my book report on this book. The problem was that the book was not developmentally appropriate for an eight-year-old child, but I begged and pleaded until the teacher relented. Sure enough, it was too difficult for an eight-year-old child to read. I made it through most of the book, but I still had 25 pages to go the night before the book report was due, plus I had to write the book report.

If this had happened to my son (who is nine), I would have told him how much I love him and how proud I was of him for reading as much as he did. I would have cuddled with him on the couch and read him the remaining 25 pages. That is not what my mother did. Instead, she berated me for being irresponsible and locked me in my room until I finished reading the book. I was crying so hard that I could not read the words through my tears. I lied about the ending, and she busted me because she, herself, had read the last 25 pages, and my ending apparently did not line up.

My mother grounded me for two weeks. In addition, so she told S about my “irresponsibility,” who took it upon herself to “teach me a lesson” about finishing my homework. What she did to me is a big flat blank, which is never good. I only know that it was extremely traumatizing.

When I turned in my book report, the teacher asked me if I really read that entire book because it was so much longer than any book that any other child in the class had read. She said it was okay if I did not. I looked her straight in the eye and lied. I had paid enough.

That experience taught me that I must be perfect. It does not matter if everyone else only reads 50 pages. If I don’t read 200 pages, then I am a failure and will be punished. I have been working hard for many years to dismantle this flawed thinking and accept that it is okay to mess up sometimes. Most of the time, I have a hard time believing it.

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Child Abuse: I Was Only Eight Years Old!

I was recently triggered and got to thinking about the event that caused the triggering. This story is not triggering to read.

I was eight years old when my teacher assigned the class a book report. Most of the kids chose short books. I had always wanted to see a particular movie, which my mother did not take me to, so I asked to read that book for the book report. It was a full-length paperback novel, so my teacher tried to discourage me from reading it for the book report. However, because I insisted that I wanted to do it, she relented.

Sure enough, a full-length novel was too long for me read in the time period allotted. I was only eight years old, and a young eight at that (recently had a birthday).

My mother took no pity on me. She sent me to my room and would not let me out until I finished the book. I had already read hundreds of pages, but I simply could not handle the last 25 pages. It was too much. I could not see the words through my tears.

Instead of reading the last 25 pages with me, my mother punished me. I was grounded for weeks. Then, S (my most sadistic abuser) abused me terribly, saying that it was “punishment” for not reading the whole book. When my teacher compassionately asked me if I had really read the entire book, I looked her square in the eye and said, “Yes.” I had been punished enough.

I took from this incident that doing five times as much as everyone else was not good enough. I had to be perfect, and I had to get it right 100% of the time. Anything less would result is severe consequences.

I was thinking about this incident as I was driving my son to school, and it hit me – He is exactly the age that I was when this happened. The child cannot get through a simple chapter book yet, much less a novel written for adults. How cruel to expect this little boy, who is not developmentally ready to read an adult book, to punish him for not being able to do it.

And then, for the first time, it really hit me just how cruel these adults in my life really were. I was just a little kid.

For some reason, in my memories, I seem older than I was. I look at my little eight-year-old boy who is clearly such a little kid, and it drives home just how cruel my abusers were. I cannot fathom how they could look at a child that young and innocent and do the things that they did to me.

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My Most Traumatizing Child Abuse Memory ++++ Triggers ++++

This blog entry will likely only be healing to me, but I need to get this out. Although I endured an unbelievable amount of trauma throughout my childhood (and some into adulthood), none of the memories has haunted me like this one.

I am feeling driven to face this memory once and for all so I can heal from it. I deserve to be freed from it. I have mentioned it in passing, but I do not believe that I have ever told anyone the full story about that night. I am going to do that now because I need to in order to heal. I have always needed to give my trauma a voice, and that is what I am doing now.

++++ animal abuse & ritual abuse triggers ++++

When I was around six years old, our dog had puppies. I fell in love with H and begged my parents to keep her. They eventually relented, and I was inseparable from H.

I think H was only about 18 months old on the most traumatizing night of my life. My most sadistic abusers, S & L, invited my younger sister and me to go on an overnight camping trip. They offered to let me take H along and sleep with her under the stars. It sounded great.

I remember camping out by a mobile home. I remember eating fish and playing with H.

Then, I am back in that horrible place in the dark around the bonfire. People are milling about before the “ceremony” begins.

The cult leader tells me that this is a special night – they will be “sacrificing” my sister. Of course, I panic, but there is nothing that I can do. They have already snuffed out any trace of emotion from me, but my soul bleeds at the news.

They tell me that I can choose a replacement for her, but I will be responsible for the death of the replacement. I say, “Yes. Anyone but my sister.” They make a big deal about me being the one to choose the replacement.

I am so relieved that my sister will not be the one “sacrificed” until I hear H’s whines. Three or four robed people are dragging my beloved dog toward the bonfire, and she is putting up quite a struggle. They are having to drag her to get into my line of vision. They want me to watch … and I do as they slit her throat with a knife.

Her body stops moving instantly, and then they plunge the knife back into her, making a “cross” as they cut her long ways down her torso. Blood is pouring from my beloved dog, and I can do nothing. I cannot cry. I cannot scream. I can do nothing except feel the weight of being the one to “choose” her death. She was one of two beings in my life who truly loved me, and they took her from me.

They throw her body on the fire, and I smell her burning flesh. They scoop up her feces and smear it all over my body – my face, my hands … everywhere. It is still warm — she expelled it as she fought for her life.

Then, they carve out part of her burned flesh and force me to eat it. I have no choice. I “ chose” this. This was my doing.

I turn over to the side and vomit, tasting my bile filled with fish from my dinner a few hours earlier. To this day, I cannot eat fish. It triggers me enormously, as does coming into contact with dog feces.

++++ end triggers ++++

As an adult, I know that it was not my fault. This was all “drama” to drive home the point that they had the power to kill my sister if I ever told … and I never did until adulthood. Even now, I tell through a pen name and use initials rather than names.

At least I can cry now. It feels very good to shed the tears that I have held back for over three decades. The last time I tried to cry over this, it took me thirty minutes to work up one single tear, but the release was enormous. Today, I have tears streaming down my face. They have been a long time in coming.

I honor H for her love and her sacrifice. I forgive myself for “choosing” her death. I give myself the gift of releasing the pain and the screams that I have held back for over thirty years. I am grateful for the love that this dog gave me, and know that she forgives me. At least her passing was quick.

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