"I command you to leave this woman's body in Jesus' name!" The blond haired woman used a voice of authority. From my mouth came a voice filled with laughter. "Lady, you could work on me all day and all night for the next ten weeks, and you wouldn't even have begun to get us all." It mocked her. "How many are you?" she asked. "Thousands," replied the voice. I was terrified, quaking inside as the exchange went on. I could hear it all, but was powerless to stop it. "You legions, depart in the name of Jesus." The short- haired blond used her authoritative voice again. Six hours later, she pronounced me "cured" and "delivered". But I heard a mocking voice inside of melaughing at her, rolling on the ground internally. "She didn't even know what she was dealing with, the idiot," it said. I smiled and thanked the lady for "healing me" and fled, more confused than ever and wondering why I was so resistant to deliverance.
This is a true story from early in my healing journey, and is used to illustrate a point. The area of spiritual warfare for the person with ritual abuse and DID is often highly misunderstood. What the woman involved in deliverance didn't realize is that the part talking to her was an ALTERNATE PERSONALITY named "laugher" who was created in times of great emotional stress (I wasn't allowed to cry when I felt pain at others' suffering, but mocking laughter was highly accepted as an emotional release). And the "thousands" referred to were personalities, not demons. Laugher found the evening highly entertaining, but others inside found it highly traumatic.
It is sad but true that all too often, the healing of DID (dissociative identity disorder) and ritual abuse is divided into two separate, and at times, disparaging groups. The first camp is what I privately term the "psychological approach." This approach states that if a wounded person is allowed to verbalize their traumas, is given support and grounding techniques, and can learn system cooperation, that they will begin to heal. While this is valid, and important, it leaves out part of the picture. A person who recovers dissociated memories will be recovering memories of severe trauma and horrendous pain that will often feel overwhelming. Despair may hit, and the person searches for a reason to go on living. Without a strong faith basis, the person may find it difficult to resolve these traumas. Also, this approach leaves out the reality of the spiritual abuse and experiences that the survivor went through in a cult setting. Or the influence of the demonic. I believe that the demonic is real, and must be dealt with, or it will continue to retraumatize a survivor of ritual abuse.
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