Gaby Breitenbach has seen and heard some awful things. The German psychotherapist is telling me about how sometimes, from a very young age, women are systematically tortured by people seeking to split their minds into multiple identities. The desire is to control the victims, of course, but also to leave them with an identity that seems perfectly normal to strangers. While the victim's everyday identity will have no "memory" of the trauma they've experienced, Breitenbach says the abusers are able to "summon" the other identities with various triggers. This can be something as simple as a ringtone, for example.
This method of mind control is known as "ritual abuse." Most of the time the abuse is sexual in nature. Sometimes the abusers crave power; sometimes they're just being cruel. Sometimes they're pseudo-religious nutjobs, sometimes they're fascists, and oftentimes they are organized crime networks. Sometimes the abusers use their victims to gain membership to a secret society; sometimes they flick a switch in their minds to make them commit suicide. The world can be an incredibly shitty place.
Last month, Breitenbach opened a safehouse to treat victims of ritual abuse in Germany. Vielseits, which translates to versatility, is the first of its kind in Europe and offers trauma therapy to anyone who walks through its doors. I gave Gaby a call to find out more...
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