Miloslav

People should be allowed to talk about RAMCOA. Is it fucked up? Yes. Should you be careful if you're gonna look into it? Also yes.

But the fact that most people don't even know it exists is wrong. You can't stop something from happening if you don't know it's happening in the first place.

One of my favourite bits of media history trivia is that back in the Elizabethan period, people used to publish unauthorised copies of plays by sending someone who was good with shorthand to discretely write down all of the play's dialogue while they watched it, then reconstructing the play by combining those notes with audience interviews to recover the stage directions; in some cases, these unauthorised copies are the only record of a given play that survives to the present day. It's one of my favourites for two reasons:

It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and

Imagine being the 1603 equivalent of the guy with the cell phone camera in the movie theatre, furtively scribbling down notes in a little book and hoping Shakespeare himself doesn't catch you.

rusalki are not mermaids. stop translating the word "rusalka" as "mermaid" and stop calling rusalki "slavic mermaids". it's confusing, it's misleading, and it's simply isn't true. the association of rusalka with a western mermaid and undine began in 19th century, when russian empire poets wanted to adapt a popular western motif of a sorrowful water maid that is unrequitedly in love with a mortal man. this literature character of rusalka has nothing to do with actual rusalki folklore and cult.

rusalki are natural undead spirits that are connected to slavic ancestral worship. they don't have tails. they are not in any way connected to the sea: only lakes, ponds, and rivers. often, they're not even connected to water at all: there are forest rusalki, field rusalki, meadow rusalki, etc. they are in close relationships with their human kin: during the spring and summer, they are used in agricultural rites and are believed to help with farming and raising crops. rusalki were sacred to slavic people. the "week of the rusalki" festival, when rusalki are believed to walk on earth and visit their relatives, is celebrated to this day. to call them "slavic mermaids" is very diminutive of their actual role in slavic cultures.

⚠️TW- Talks of Death⚠️

However. However while it's true an alter within headspace cannot truly die and more goes into a "slumber" aka dormancy there are actual ways alters can "die".

•An alter who was front and experienced a near death experience might turn into a ghost alter

•An alter who has been dormant for so long and their amnesia walls are so high up could be considered dead

•For our System we have a Purgatory meaning that alters who no longer wish to be within the System will go into Purgatory where memories are "erased" and essentially are declared "deceased" as they no longer take front nor do they consider themselves to be associated with main Inner World, the Side System or even Subsystems.

•Purgatory Example-

Two of our alters/headmates were once considered to be "mortal" one is an adult trauma holder and another is a Little trauma holder.

The adult holder experienced a near death experience when front and in the Inner World got pushed into Purgatory. This one alter is the only alter that managed to escape from Purgatory with memories in tact.

The other alter to essentially "die" is our Little holder. This Little became a zombie. This Little willingly placed themselves in Purgatory due to the high stress of trauma.

These are just two possible examples plus one special of how an alter within headspace could "die" however an alter dying in the Inner World and no longer being of an existence is not possible as even if they turn into an undead or ghost alter they're still within the head.

The one and only way alters can truly die, cease to exist is when the body dies. With DID alters are created by and from the brain due to trauma. When humans pass, the brain will no longer function along with the rest of the body. This is the only way and how alters can truly die

The differences between C-DID and HC-DID

WARNING: RAMCOA AND TMBC TALK. STAY SAFE!!!

So, we see a lot of people on here are saying that HC-DID is just C-DID but with a different abuse history, which is only a very small part of makes the two different! So, we’re going to explain in this what differentiates the two, as well as what makes them similar!!!

Also, no hate to those saying they’re the same as most of not all of the time they’re just misinformed!!!

Overlap

Polyfragmented

Has subsystems

If there’s an inner world it’s complex

Smaller window for structure formation (eg. 0-5 years old instead of 0-9)

Can have a low splitting tolerance

C-DID traits not present in HC-DID

No mind control/programmed alters

this is the most important thing!!! I wouldn’t recommend looking into MC and it’s forms if you are suspecting a history of it for yourself, but there are different programs (eg. eta, beta, iota, spider in web) that create and mind control alters. We’ll get into that more in HC-DID exclusive!!!

Always has low split tolerance or group splittings

High amnesia barriers in every area

Was not intentionally created/disorder was not manipulated by abusers to serve them

HC-DID traits not present in C-DID

Programming and programmed alters.

We’re going to use an example here, so be warned. Let’s say the XYZ system has gamma and beta programming. Gamma programming is loyalty programming. When XYZ heard a certain string of numbers, a member of the ABC sidesystem (more on that later) comes out. An alter from there then goes to contact an abuser asking for sex, to which the abuser replies. The abuser then plays a song that triggers out a member of the DEF sidesystem, which is beta aka sexually programmed. The alters come out and have sex with the abuser.

Another example. Suicide and sh are discussed. The 123 system has omega programming, which is suicidal and sh programming. The host of the 123 system decides to look into RAMCOA, and a higher up/internal handler with Omega programming is alerted by a gatekeeper. The handler then orders the gatekeeper to let the 456 sidesystem take front, to which the alters take turns in mutilating the body in different ways. At the end, the host fronts and human instincts, programming and logical reasoning all decide that looking into RAMCOA is not worth it, meaning the system doesn’t find out about its history for a long time.

Sidesystems. Sidesystems are a set of programmed alters meant to carry out a specific programmed act. For example, a theta aka religiously programmed sidesystem may exist for certain rituals, in which one alter fronts for each step. These are different from subsystems because subsystems are not programmed.

Can have a high split tolerance as well as a low split tolerance

Can have low amnesia barriers in some areas with high amnesia barriers in others (layer 1 alters can remember what the others do but don’t remember anything about the layer 3 alters and their actions)

Disorder was intentionally manipulated to serve the abuser(s) whether they knew about DID as a disorder or not

And those are what we’ve got! We hope that this post was informative and helped you get a better understanding of the differences between the two structures!!! Tysm for reading, and have a good day!!!

Reclaiming post!

hii I am going to be reclaiming the HC-DID term for programmed systems since the person that made it is an awful antisemitic conspirator.

HC-DID means "highly complex DID". It is a term for ramcoa survivors that were programmed to have DID. It exists because the experiences between a programmed system is different than those of CDID systems that aren't programmed.

HC-DID is NOT meant to be a trauma olympics term, it is just a modifier to differentiate the experiences that programmed systems have.

I am just going to say this outright and bare with me until the last paragraph. The idea that "the few people who are faking this disorder aren't actually hurting real people with DID or taking away resources" is demonstrably false. I check around sometimes for other people looking for dissociative specialists and ever since ~2019/8, if I call and ask a therapist if they have experience with DID their questions are "does this person spend a lot of time on social media" and "have they actually been diagnosed with DID before." I've met therapists who took their dissociation specialty off of their websites because they kept getting tons of calls from people who were seeking a diagnosis and they could not keep up.

This trend where large amounts of people are claiming to have RAMCOA and polyfragmentation within the past few years, which a significantly smaller number of specialists believe in and treat, IS going to detrimentally affect survivors even quicker and harder than general DID where there are a larger amount of people involved both professionally and not. I called this a few years ago that sometime in the future polyfragmentation would be commonly considered a "fake marker" (just as prior community trends turned into "fake markers" like introjects and kid parts) and that's already started.

We need to be able to talk about community issues like this from a practical perspective for people who need those resources, without it turning into a validation discussion or a discussion about malingering or pointless discourse. We need to step away from "shoulds"--yes it is true that practitioners should not let these things affect their overall care, but it does and simply saying it should not be that way doesn't fix anything. We need practical discussions that say "We are at this point. Now what?"

Unless you’re uncomfortable with them having number names continue let them using their number name. It’s not disrespectful and they’re not exclusive. It’s not like a close practice. How many singlets do you know with the name zero, I know, at least three. Unlike close practises number names are just something that happens. There’s lots of reasons for them to exist, yes RAMCOA is one but there is many more. Our Ramcoa support group had talked about this and basically everybody there and a lot of other people I’ve talk to have a greed that it’s not exclusive, so unless you’re uncomfortable continue using them. If people are giving you shit about this redirect them to like people like me or switch case. 

i have a bit of a question regarding using number names as a non-RAMCOA survivor.

we have alters and many fragments who have numbers for/instead of names. we’ve been questioning being RAMCOA survivors for a while, but ultimately decided to simply drop it as it was damaging us and our mental health more than anything, and it really isn’t something we should’ve been looking into at all in the first place without the help of a therapist. i personally (jay) don’t believe we’re a RAMCOA survivor, but many others in the system genuinely do and it’s not exactly a debate we can settle easily.

my question is, what do we do about these alters and fragments? we don’t actually know whether we’re a survivor or not. do we just not let them front, or force them to pick names (something we have tried, but made them extremely upset/uncomfortable because according to them they had names, which were their numbers)? none of them front very often anyways, but right now anytime any of them have fronted they’ve essentially just been told they can’t talk anywhere publicly. we’re really stuck on what to do. we know it’s disrespectful, but we also don’t have any idea for sure if we can use them or not, and like i said we’ve completely dropped trying to figure it out because of how both damaging and potentially dangerous it was. what do we do?

if it’s ok to ask what exactly counts as experiencing tbmc? does it include manipulation and gaslighting.. childhood torture? what exactly is mind control how does someone know if they have been through that? is childhood torture in general considered ramcoa as well or must it meet specified requirements?

Okay so we ended up getting hit by a shit ton of stuff in our life so we've been a bit less active here- sorry it took a while to answer.

First we have another post we have made discussing some of the stuff surrounding TBMC. You can find that post here.

Second, this is a religious sight that is trying to make Christianity more healthy and safe and trauma informed, not fully our cup of tea but it has an interesting page on TBMC here. (Mention it's religious and which religion because it can be triggering)

Now onto us actually answering things ourself.

what exactly counts as experiencing tbmc? does it include manipulation and gaslighting.. childhood torture?

TBMC as we have previously mentioned is known as Trauma Based or Torture Based Mind Control. Childhood torture very often is done for the purpose of mind control, in which case it would fall under TBMC. Most childhood torture is RAMCOA but not all of it falls under TBMC as TBMC is more known as the result rather than the traumatic incidents that it takes to occur the way RAMCOA generally defines the experiences.

TBMC is also not something only children can experience. The experiences of children born into it or raised with it at a young age will be different than an adult introduced to it later in life, but it is still TBMC all the same. There is no cut off age for when torture magically can stop affecting the wiring of your brain. Humans are malleable, and bad people will always know that. Governments will know that too. TBMC is rampant among governmental agencies.

All TBMC is manipulation- but not all manipulation is TBMC. TBMC is done with the goal of rewiring your brain and making you behave in very specific ways. It's meant to make you do things you would not otherwise or believe in things you would not otherwise. It is intrinsically linked to programming. Programming can be done to individual alters (induced by programmers targeting a specific self-state or state of mind or associating certain traumas with specific orders/tasks/etc to make an alter be attached to a specific behavior or task or idea), and system-wide or on the whole of the person (think strong unwavering loyalty common in many cults that refuse all evidence of being in a cult).

Gaslighting might get used within TBMC but it is not inherited to TBMC and by itself would not produce the same effects as TBMC.

what exactly is mind control how does someone know if they have been through that?

Oh man this is where it gets very tricky. There is no exact answer to what mind control is as it happens in a variety of different ways. Mind control is basically manipulation of someone's thoughts and behavior that then become intrinsic to the person and last far after they were programmed. It's more than just being made to believe strange things- it's internalizing them to such a degree that they impact your day to day life and view of the world as a whole.

Us being a decade away from the cult and having no reason to go back but having an urge even stronger than our OCD compulsions at times to go back is one type of programming we experience. We also have what presents as agoraphobia- but do not have fear of open spaces and can get groceries fine and go to work and school without issue. This is actually our self-isolation program that tells us when there is no obligation we should never interact with anyone else- there is no reason to. Unless the reason is to proselytize- and since we do not have the faith we once did, that is no longer an option. It's a deeply internalized behavior and belief that sticks even when we logically know it's bad. We are aware it is stupid and unreasonable but we physically cannot break out of it (where we are in recovery currently that is).

It's hard to tell for sure if you have it or not. One thing we had that should have been incredibly fucking obvious to us but wasn't- was that we excused the abuse one of the people in our life put us through as "he was just trying to train us". Never occurred to us that the fact he was "training" us made it worse. It was basically self-defense but not for actual defense type stuff if you catch my drift.

There can also be signs within your behavior. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate OCD and programs as well because some programs can be pushed back on the same way you can with OCD compulsions. However in our case most of our programs are just innate and incredibly difficult to stop ourselves from doing if we can at all. Realizing you have behavior that you struggle to physically stop and have no wish to engage in and do while consciously being aware you do not want to do them and this happens often- was one of the big signs to us. (And again it's a very complex issue because of different mental health concerns that could be tricky.)

is childhood torture in general considered ramcoa as well or must it meet specified requirements?

We personally consider it to fall under that because more extreme forms of abuse tend to end up with the same issues but there is debate. The most common things people know of that fall under RAMCOA is trafficking and cults.

However if you are trying to determine if something you have already known to experience counts as this term there's a few things you can do.

Does it fall under RA/Ritual abuse? It can hard to tell but I suggest just looking up basic information on what RA is conceptually (if you are in a good mental state and/or have a professional to fall back on and if possible a safety net of friends or family). RA is a very vast concept.

Did you experience TBMC or another form of mind control? If yes then automatically the label applies to you. This also goes for hypnotic mind control and substances used for mind control- as they are also important but less talked about forms of this.

Did you experienced organized abuse? This is a group partaking in abuse towards you. Whether it be mandated or the norm by something like a cult, or a criminal ring, etc. It's a bit hard to get into right now for me.

The only requirements are that you experience RA, MC, or OA. You can experience multiple- RA AND MC for example. Or just one. OA or RA. We struggle mostly with MC as we grew up in a cult that kinda worshipped the leader almost (but nobody would ever admit it even though they quote shit he says online like bible quotes). Which is why we talk about it so much, but it's not necessary to be a RAMCOA survivor.

It's okay to take time to figure out the extent of trauma you might have gone through. It's okay if you fit or don't fit any particular label. All trauma is incredibly important. There just tends to be a lot of subgroups of people with specific experiences because of how it impacts their daily life.

Do you have any resources for RAMCOA? Resources for like...the types of programs and stuff like that. We're going through things and trying to research and pinpoint things, but finding resources has been absolute hell. If you get this twice, I'm sorry. Our tumblr is kind of shit.

Hello! I have several resources that I think may be helpful to you:

This document (LINK) of "rare programs" and their descriptions, posted by @killercatboys.

Chapters 4 and 7 of Becoming Yourself by Alison Miller (LINK) discuss programming and chapter 7 includes an anecdote with specific programs and definitions. The entire book is really a great read and is geared towards survivors of RAMCOA, just be sure to take it slow and take care of yourself.

Common Programs Observed in Survivors of Satanic Ritualistic Abuse by David W. Neswald (LINK) - massive trigger warning for suicide, self-harm, and abuse.

Spin Programming: A Newly Uncovered Technique of Systematic Mind Control by John D. Lovern (LINK) - includes symptoms, implementation, and uses of spin programs; trigger warning for abuse/torture methods.

Healing the Unimaginable by Alison Miller (LINK) is geared towards therapists and professionals and includes more in-depth information about RAMCOA than Becoming Yourself does. Again, massive trigger warning throughout the book for RAMCOA.

Kinds of Torture Endured in Ritual Abuse and Trauma-Based Mind Control by Ellen P. Lacter (LINK) - partial list of torture methods used in RAMCOA; trigger warning for abuse, near-death, and torture.

Mind Control: Simple to Complex by Ellen P. Lacter (LINK) - describes twelve "stages" of mind control and programming, going from outward compliance to torture/trauma-based mind control; trigger warning for descriptions of abuse.

Some Indicators of Trauma-Based Mind Control Programming by Ellen P. Lacter (LINK) provides common indicators of TBMC; most survivors of programming will have many of these indicators, but their presence does not prove the existence of TBMC and their absence does not prove that one has not experienced TBMC.

Adult and Adolescent Indicators of Ritual Trauma by Ellen P. Lacter (LINK) provides indicators of ritual abuse in teens and adults; as with the last bullet point, their presence does not prove ritual abuse and their absence does not disprove it.

Child Indicators of Ritual Abuse Trauma in Play and Art by Ellen P. Lacter (LINK) provides potential indicators of ritualized abuse in children and pre-teens; as with the previous two bullet points, their presence does not prove ritual abuse and their absence does not disprove it.