i dont talk abt my childhood RE ITBC and OEA on here anymore really to avoid the whole "its a conspiracy" people
but i feel a NEED to say this
there is a side to the internets portrayal of ITBC that IS conspiratorial and falsified.
when i say im programmed i mean i was conditioned via extreme measures to respond to specific stimuli, people and inputs a certain way.
eg: Person A asks [specific phrase] and i will respond how they have made me to every time
because of how my brain chose to respond to this, i split alters to respond accordingly
from what i know from other HC-DID systems that have spoken about this.. most of us werent intended to be separate alters, but states of being and "approved" behaviours. DID wasnt the intention, "correct" behaviour was.
i think the amount of misinfo out there especially spread by people who cannot for whatever reason fully research is the main detriment to spaces where this is talked about
also a lot of us dont have the words or understanding to describe what actually happened to us.
this post is pretty messy and i do NOT SPEAK FOR ALL HC-DID SYSTEMS ABOUT THIS
im just tryna explain this stuff in a more easily understandable way hopefully
oea/ramcoa is one of the more "abhorrent" forms of abuse. it's less to do with the trauma olympics aspect and more to do with the way oea acts are committed. but sometimes i wish more people understood it better.
i always feel terrible when i say that, because the only way to truly understand oea/ramcoa is to go through it. i wouldn't wish that upon my greatest enemies. it just really sucks when the trauma i've faced and the effort i've given to get where i am today get dismissed and even pushed under the rug. i've spent my whole life not being believed by the people who were supposed to protect me. what makes my trauma so unbelievable?
most people don't understand and they never will. i think one of the worst aspects of oea/ramcoa that a lot of us don't mention is the loneliness of it all. even if i do talk to other survivors, oea/ramcoa is such a broad term, and its practices are vastly different from each other. there's not really a single safe person who will get everything about my story.
i guess i just wish i had someone who could listen and understand. but i'm not provided that luxury and it hurts a lot more than i expected.
If you enjoy being a RAMCOA/OEA system; you aren't a RAMCOA/OEA system.
I'm tired of people making victims feel like they should be happy about their trauma.
And if you genuinely like being a RAMCOA/OEA victim; you don’t know what being one actually feels like.
Let me give you a run-down
You are casually researching on your phone, suddenly you recognize the name of a place you had once been. You do not remember your time there. It's like someone cut a chunk of film off the reel. It was an entire year absolutely gone from your memory. Some days you wish for the memories back, you're curious. But you remind yourself that curiousity killed the cat; after all, you had been doing so well recently, and you'd hate to go backwards in your recovery. You impulsively start sinking into a rabbit hole, researching everything to do with the organization's name. Gradually, with each site, you fall into older and more obscure archives.
You read a single phrase and your heart drops to your stomach.
"...reports of torture and severe abuse..."
You wake up. You check the time. It's been an hour since you had researched. What happened to the time? Why can't you remember? It's all gone. It's all blacked out.
At least you have the evidence you were abused? You look around for your notebook. You spot it on the other side of the room; you open it only to realize all of your notes had been ripped out and dissapeared. All your research tabs are closed.
Every time you try to access the memories, it's like you're a dove flying head first for a foggy glass wall. You panic.
You try to speak. You have to tell someone, right? You need help. But nothing comes out. Dread fills your turning stomach and the room begins to spin. Nobody can help you. You're trapped in your own mind. A zoo animal kept in a small cage. You don't even know the barriers; you know there must be more, it's so much more complex. But, you're hopeless and ignorant.
You can look me in the eyes and tell me this is fun. RAMCOA/OEA isn't a quirky label. It's a wound that extends far past bone.
This was a small part of my experience, not every RAMCOA/OEA experience is the same; but none of them are fun. I will not tolerate victim's experiences being romanticised and fetishised. I'm not saying victims can't have fun experiences; everyone no matter their experiences can. You aren't constantly miserable. But, if you think your RAMCOA/OEA experience was enjoyable, you aren't a victim.
Reminder for those who think someone couldn't have been tortured, because they don't have any scars: There are alot of different types of torture. Not all leave scars, some leave little or no physical marks at all (think of sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, isolation, etc).
Please keep this in mind when talking to or about torture victims and survivors, not everyone has gone through the same things.
To those who doubt their own validity because they don't have scars: you're valid. You're allowed to call yourself a torture survivor and you have a place in the community. It's also common for survivors to doubt themselves, which is ok. You're not wrong for feeling that way.
I hope this cleared some things up and helped some of you. If I said anything incorrect or insensitive, please let me know.
- 💜
Edit: We want to clarify that we also intended to include those who have gone through physical torture (eg. flagellation, caning, whipping, electroshock), not only psychological torture (like we've mentioned above). Those who have less noticable scars (such as faded scars or broad scars, like burns) or other injuries or illnesses (broken bones, bruises, concussions, etc) are also valid.
No matter who you are or what type of torture you've been through, torture is torture. You deserve to be acknowledged and supported.
Tattletale - An alter who tells handlers when another alter goes against their programming.
Flag Meaning : The green stripes represent insecurity and fear of failure or punishment if the alter doesn't report to the handler(s). The high number of stripes represents this being a repeating pattern of behaviour. The stripes getting thinner as they get further from the center represents the lack of trust the system may feel toward this alter.
Don't know who drew this, if anyone knows it'll be greatly appreciated and I'll be able to give credit
This drawing and text reminds us so much of our Delta Alters. Deltas are known as the "violent parts" within a Programmed System this image to us shows that even if our Deltas were/are programmed to be violent towards ourselves or others, they don't actually want to do it. Forced to become the monsters becoming something to be feared and to bare the fangs and claws created by the abusers
i always hate the classical conditioning unit in psychology because it just brings back a really uncomfortable feeling and puts our body in unsafe mode and sometimes it causes us to have a ptsd episode because it reminds us of the itbc we went through
