For several months now, I have been involved in Friends of Esthers. In this, I have direct and indirect contact with survivors of satanic ritual abuse. To outline a brief profile: survivors have been able to build (almost) no relationships of trust throughout their lives, not even with close family members. Often their trust in counselling agencies and government bodies such as the police is also severely damaged.

An essential foundation for helping survivors is building trusting relationships. We try, by carefully building genuine relationships, to show survivors the love they have never known. Building this very thing is a great struggle and requires enormous courage from the survivor time and again. Unfortunately, the cult does everything it can to immediately undermine trust and relationships that have been built. There are already many examples of this on this website and also on www.lichtopsrm.nl.

In this blog, I would like to share a bit more about an incident that happened to me last week to give insight into what you try to take into account when helping survivors.

Last week, I had a nasty scooter accident. I slipped on a bend and my head came down so hard that I passed out. Coincidentally, a policeman lived nearby and came to the scene immediately. He resuscitated me and called the emergency services. I myself regained consciousness later in the ambulance, the rest of my family was taken to the hospital in a police car behind me. I have received this man's phone number and I would love to hear the story from his side and would like to meet him for a brief chat. My husband has since been in touch with this policeman via text message for making an appointment. 

However, what I have to bear in mind is that if I am in contact with this man, pictures may be taken of us. These photos are then sent to survivors giving the impression that I can therefore no longer be trusted. App contact with this policeman can also be used for this purpose. On survivors, such messages from the cult have a big negative impact. There are several reasons for this. Many survivors have memories of being tortured by persons in (police) uniforms. In addition, many survivors also correctly point to people from the judiciary and police as perpetrators and/or have had very unpleasant experiences in a reporting process. Survivors also fear that their counsellors will tell the police information about them. The precarious relationship of trust we have worked extremely hard on for months or sometimes years can be swept off the table or seriously damaged in one fell swoop with such a photo or forwarded app conversation with a police officer. With the possible result of a survivor finding his or her way back into the cult.

I will be meeting this man today and by me posting this blog online in advance, survivors already know why I am in contact with a police officer and hopefully we are ahead of any breach of trust or damage in the trust relationship.

And in case you want to know how I am doing: I was observed overnight in hospital. With huge thanks to our God YHWH, I did not sustain any permanent injuries from the fall. I now mainly have to recover from a battered face and bruised ribs and take it easy for the next week.

Myrjam
Aid worker to survivors of satanic ritual abuse