As a child and into young adulthood, I suffered through psychological, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of my mother, her husband, and a number of other people who were brought into my life via my parents, not to mention the spiritual abuse that I endured at the churches we attended.
Additionally, with the knowledge and the assistance of Mother and her second husband, I was ritually abused by a group of individuals, as well as used in government-sponsored projects, partially for the purposes of experimentation and study in the field of parapsychology, the training for which was also traumatizing and abusive.
As a result, in order to cope with the constant trauma, both from the mind control as well as from the daily abuse at home, I developed a severe dissociative disorder.
Of course, as an adult, what was helpful to me as a child under extremely difficult circumstances, is no longer as helpful. So I am learning to cope in different ways that are healthy for me, and this is part of my Healing Journey.
But this journey started off very rocky!
Over the span of my adult years, in trying to heal from those past traumas that I could hardly bear to acknowledge, I reached out to several different mental health professionals, but found no relief from symptoms:
- I wasn’t able to break through the dissociative wall and come to an actual understanding of what I was dealing with in regards to wounds from the past (to put it another way that maybe most people can understand, I was living in denial and had no help to figure out how to regain my truth);
- I wasn’t able to come to an understanding of my unhealthy coping mechanisms (namely, dissociation and depersonalization, but there were others, including substance abuse);
- And no one taught me how to build better coping mechanisms.
In other words, the “therapy” was pretty much useless, and overall, a waste of resources and energy.
I’m not suggesting that all therapy is ineffective, or that all therapists are useless. I’m simply stating that the few therapists I have worked with in my life have not been helpful, and in some cases, they have been downright harmful.
So in 2014 I decided to take a non-traditional approach to trauma therapy, accepting the proffered help from an individual, a “life coach,” as he called himself, who claimed (and to my knowledge, still claims) to be an expert in helping people with dissociative disorders, specifically those people who had survived ritual abuse and psychological trauma for the purposes of deep-state agendas. His type of “therapy” is often referred to as “deliverance ministry,” although at the time I was working with him, he did not use that term.
I naively believed that person to be the expert he had claimed to be, and began the process of what I was told was “de-programming” and “re-programming.”
Things started off innocuously enough, mostly with a lot of pseudo “prayers” that were supposed to be “more powerful” than regular prayers, but it didn’t take long before things took a downturn and I was in worse condition than before: emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically a complete wreck, unable to cope with very painful memories, not to mention every day life, and with no support or guidance to help me through that incredibly dark time.
Nearly two years later I finally extracted myself from that abusive “counseling” situation, and I spent the a lot of time processing the experiences I had had with the individuals in that organization. I came to the painful realization that the person, the “life coach/deliverance minister,” who I had trusted to lead me into a healing space, had been a complete fraud. And not only was he a con artist, but his so-called expert mentor was a con artist, too, falsely claiming to be a “Christian clinical psychologist,” when he actually had no credentials to back up his claims.
I had been swindled in the worst possible way.
Not only had I and my family been conned out of our hard-earned money (nearly $7000 over the span of two years), but instead of finding the healing I had been looking for, I and my testimony had instead been used, through his deceit, to build his own scam of a business (his so-called “ministry”), and I had been systematically and purposefully manipulated the entire time, leading me into incredible psychological and spiritual harm, as well as led into grievous spiritual error, in several key ways, such as:
- continually reinforcing my dissociation, as well as purposefully creating and reinforcing additional splits of my psyche;
- encouraging me to be completely open to any and all spiritual experiences I was having, and to discourage me from building and using my own discernment over such experiences;
- insisting that I could not rely on my own judgement and intuition as to what was right and what was wrong for me;
- and by encouraging the pursuit of dark occult activities and teachings without any discernment whatsoever. For example, one of the biggest deceptions was concerning a type of “spiritual warfare” that I was gradually conned into, and the “Christian minister” who was “counseling” me, led myself and his other clients (both paying and non-paying clients) into engaging in “battle” against other people that had brought us or others actual or imagined harm. It was the equivalent of sending curses upon people with no regard to outcome. Worse, I’d argue, because we thought we were of “light,” yet the darkness was so great!
As a result, I had become even more broken and dissociative, with absolutely no healthy coping skills whatsoever. And aside from the personal attacks I endured (the lies and the gossiping while within the “deliverance ministry” group, as well as the lies and the smear campaign that took place after having having left the group), I had also been left open to not only demonic attack—
(yes, I believe actual “demons” exist, by whatever name they may be called within various cultures, and I’ll probably write some about my experiences with this when the time is right and you can read about it here, but I don’t discount or reject others who disagree)
—but also from astral attack from other individuals who were practicing the dark arts within the group and without the group.
It was a very scary and dangerous time for me, both psychologically and spiritually, but the attacks had been excused away as being a natural part of our “spiritual warfare,” and so we were instructed to double-down on our “spiritual battling,” which only made things worse, of course.
During my time of processing, I also came to the shocking realization that the person I had so naively trusted to “counsel” me was connected to a larger network of people and organizations who were all involved in doing the same: purposefully triggering and luring survivors of deep-state agendas and ritual abuse into their control, and essentially “re-programming” them for their own purposes, all in the name of “Christ”.
Of course, none of this was clear to me at the time I was going through the “reprogramming,” because if I would have recognized it, I wouldn’t have placed myself in that situation in the first place; or, at the least, I would have left much, much sooner! But things became very clear to me later, after I had left, put space between myself and the entire group, and was able to process everything that had happened to me.
By the grace of God, once I extracted myself from that wholly toxic situation and begin to actually heal, I came to a place where, in an effort to distance myself from the darkness, and in an effort to heal from the all the psychological manipulations I had endured, I shunned much of that which is spiritual: both the dark and the light, the lie and the truth. Because at that point, the deception had been so great and so painful that I couldn’t discern the truth from the lie. So I rejected pretty much everything.
I didn’t discarded all truth nor reject all light, no. My heart was still fully open to my Creator and I wanted to please Him. But for my own mental, emotional, and spiritual health, I closed the doors of my heart to nearly everything I had been open to before, especially to the influence of Jesus, the Angels, and the Spirit Guides. I just wasn’t sure, at that point, of whether I had been interacting with Jesus, or if I had been deceived by an antichrist… or, just as bad, if “Jesus” was simply a figment of my imagination, or even a programming script that had been running within my internal system! I couldn’t discern if I had been interacting with Messengers from God, or if they had been messengers of deception, or if they had been my imagination, or previous programming that had been triggered. I couldn’t know if the Angels had been a figment of my imagination, a cruel deception, or the result of psychological manipulations.
I was a mess, and I couldn’t know anything for sure, so I kicked everyone out and closed the door.
I do not blame myself for that reaction, and in fact, I still believe it was the right thing for me to do at that time: to wipe the slate clean and start over. It certainly broke the hold that the systematic brainwashing had had on me: the psychological manipulation I had gone through as a child, as well as the manipulations I had gone through during that time of toxic “reprogramming”.
After all, I realized that whatever is meant to remain will come back anyway—and praise and thanks be to God for His eternal Grace, it has.
During my healing process, I realized a few very important key points, the most important being this:
→ God—the Creator, the Divine, the Source, the Absolute, the Universe, Spirit, etc… whatever Name or Title one wishes to use—God does not program people.
God does not reprogram, nor does God deprogram. Those are elements of programming and are the result of human efforts. But God does not engage in those tactics.
Instead, God heals. God delivers. God sets us free.
You see, we are made in the image of our Divine Creator; not in the image of programmers.
We are made in the image of God; we are not made in the image of computers.
We Are Not Meant To Be Programmed!
And when we allow the Divine Source, through whatever means and resources are given to us (both practical physical resources, such as education and counseling from a qualified trauma therapist, as well as practical spiritual resources, such as meditation and prayer), to heal our minds and hearts, over time we are transformed and changed, and begin to fully manifest God through us.
This is not re-programming or de-programming.
This is a miracle of healing.
So while some describe a healing process by using terminology such as “programming” or “deprogramming” or “reprogramming,” or even other similar terms, such as “rewiring,” I stay away from such terms. Those types of terms may be innocuous to many, but to me, in my experiences, they are terms that bring memories of many past traumas. They are terms that dehumanize me and reduce me to a computer. And I am not a computer. I am a Divine Spirit made in the image of my Creator.
And here’s another important revelation I have learned:
→ What mankind and the enemy means for our evil, God means for our good. (Genesis 50:20, Romans 8:28)
This does not mean that my past sufferings are something that was “good” in and of itself.
No! It’s never good when people work evil, and the people who are responsible for their abuses will one day be held accountable for their words and deeds. Some of them already have, and the others will soon follow.
But what I’ve learned is that God is using my suffering for my good.
Firstly, as I continue to heal from the past traumas, God is working within me Love and Patience and Kindness and Peace… and all the other Good Fruit that can only come about when the Spirit works within us. (Galatians 5:22-26)
And secondly, the process of overcoming my suffering is helping to form a more perfect Union with God.
And that’s really the only reason I need for understanding my suffering: I share in the sufferings with Christ so that I may also share a glorification with Him. (Romans 8:17-25, Philippians 3:10-14)
→ Furthermore, I’ve also learned not only is God using my suffering for my good, but He’s also using my suffering for the ultimate good of those who caused it.
Why do I say this? Because God’s Promises aren’t just for me; they are for everyone! God’s Mercy isn’t just extended towards me; it’s extended towards all! God’s Forgiveness isn’t just available to me; it’s available to all who ask!
Again, this doesn’t mean that the perpetrators won’t be held responsible or that they will get off “scot-free,” as the saying is. But I’m just expressing that I’ve been shown the larger picture of my life, and I can be at peace knowing that my suffering hasn’t been in vain, in any regard.
→ I’ve also learned that the healing process is a lifelong process — that it is a way of life, and not a destination to reach and then move away from — and that I can trust God and be at peace, without hurry, because God, who began a Good Work within me, always finishes what He starts. (Philippians 1:6)
→ I’ve learned to submit all things to God and to ask for His will to be accomplished, having faith that He will take care of every situation in His own time and in His own way.
This process has been especially important when it comes to my healing process, and when facing certain circumstances that are out of my control, such as when negative energy is coming towards me, or attacking me, either from within myself or externally; or when I’m aware of something that has gone awry in my internal worlds; or when I have doubts or concerns about any spiritual experiences I have; or other situations, both of a physical nature as well as a spiritual nature, that cause me concern or worry or fear or doubt: I have learned to simply submit everything to God, and then turn my thoughts away from those things that are out of my control.
This takes a lot of practice, and I’m still practicing, but it’s been an invaluable lesson for me to learn.
→ I’ve learned that my personal truth is not the same thing as someone else’s personal truth, and that this is okay. We all have individual experiences that shape our opinions and belief systems. It’s normal. It’s nothing to be afraid of.
I’ve also learned that my understanding of personal truth is not the same thing as God’s Universal Truth, and that the more I know, the more I realize I do not know. I’ve learned to be okay with this, understanding that as time passes, new experiences will further shape my opinions, my understanding will be deepened, and what was personally true for me earlier may change or evolve later as I come to a closer understanding of God’s Universal Truth. This is part of the Divinely beautiful, living, breathing process of learning and growing and evolving and becoming that all of us, as humanity, are meant to go through.
→ I’ve learned that God’s Universal Truth does not begin and end with my personal belief system, it is not bound by my personal religious preferences, it is not changed by my personal interpretations or opinions, it is not defined by what I hold to be true for me. But Universal Truth is something that stands alone, it is something that transcends religious systems and personal belief systems. It is something to be sought after and followed, and this journey of seeking Truth is an eternal journey that the Spirit leads us all on.
→ I’ve learned that one’s spiritual philosophy, theology, or understanding may or may not be correct, and that we can all have opinions about what is best for us; but what is most important is Love. What matters is the state of one’s heart. (Matthew 22:35-40, 1 Corinthians 13)
→ I’ve learned to not expect my spiritual walk to look like others, nor theirs to look like mine.
God has an individual plan for all of us (Psalm 37:18, 40:5, 139:16, Isaiah 25:1, Ephesians 1:11), and I’ve learned that the same faith I have for the Spirit to keep me on the path that God has set for me can be applied to other people, and I can have faith that the Spirit will keep others on the path that God has set for them, without feeling the need to intrude, object, or expect others to believe the same way that I believe, or to have the same understanding as I have. We are all on different paths and levels of understanding, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing, because in this way, we can both give and receive help and counsel when needed.
→ I’ve learned that darkness can and will masquerade as light, but if I keep my focus on God, there is no reason to be afraid of the darkness nor of the deception.
Evil can try to hide under a cloak of what seems to be good deeds that look right, and practice deceit by using right words that sound good. And I’ve seen men and women try to wield the Light — the Truth — for themselves and control it, using it as a weapon to beat others into submission, to build their own kingdoms, to gain for themselves whatever it is they desire, or to cause harm to others in various ways. But that is not of God. That is not the Goodness of God. That is not His Light, nor His Love, but it is a deception.
Goodness comes from God. Light comes from God. In His Love, He pours out His Goodness and His Light upon us, into us, and ultimately, through us. In this way, Light shines in the darkness, and Goodness overcomes evil.
But if, in our fear of the deception of the darkness, we don’t allow Him to pour His Light and Love into us, and ultimately through us… if we instead hide our Light — the Light that comes from God — under a basket, or bury our Treasure in fear — the Treasure that comes from God — then what good can they do? What good can we do?
So I’ve learned to not be afraid of the darkness nor of the deception, but to simply keep focused on God and on my relationship with Him. The Spirit will take care of all the rest.
→ And I’ve learned that where sin abounds — even those sins that were committed against me as a child — God’s Grace abounds all the more.
I pray you recognize God’s Grace that is overflowing towards you, as well.
See also: Disclaimers
Diary of a Christian Mystic 