Superhero

Family vacation in Tirol, Austria, without me in 1972

Our family was very invested in normalcy. The two-week yearly family vacation abroad was the most treasured family tradition. We would talk about it months in advance. The destination was always chosen by my stepfather who visited holiday spots all year round as camera operator for a travel quiz for Belgian TV. It meant he was already known wherever we went so we got special treatment and his choices always involved significant discounts.

In 1972 my family went on their annual summer vacation without me. I was nine years old. I don't remember the story that justified my absence. My stepfather was eager to swallow anything my mother made up, whether it was about physical signs of abuse or strange absences. The fact that my parents let an entire summer slip by, even the hallowed family trip, with my mother knowing it was unlikely I would ever return and my stepfather never questioning her, gives a small indication of the levels of denial and toxicity that constituted this "normal" family. 

In July, I was whisked off to the US. I had seen in one perpetrator a scared little boy, who couldn't follow along with the other kids, who was a bit slow, who didn't belong. For a very brief moment, while I laughed and he didn't get it, I became the kid who left him in the dust. In the US he brought me to several of his homes and on his boat, repeating many times that I was sophisticated, that I belonged to him, belonged to his class of people, belonged to his family. He educated me about things where no one else had ever bothered. Clothing, food, art - I absorbed his lessons and his privileged environment like manna from heaven, finally receiving the kind of attention I had always craved, finally feeling that I belonged somewhere. 

While on his sailboat, I got a runny nose. Being attuned to my perpetrator, I felt his silent judgment as he became increasingly distant, hiding his disgust for my sniffles. He brought me to a house where I slept separately for the first time since he had brought me to his continent. I was shown my bedroom as the lovely room with softest ever sheets that I got to enjoy all by myself. I wanted badly to believe him and made myself hang onto his words rather than trust my feeling. He remained polite and friendly as we sailed to another of his homes on an island. The decor of the house and the idyllic surroundings nurtured me as I clung to his surface behavior and empty words, believing he was teaching me to be more sophisticated. 

I was put back on his jet with an enormous happy smile and the promise that we would meet again. He was going to make sure of it. I remember that on the flight back to Europe, I felt blissed out, high on his privilege and the idea of true love. 

Arriving in Switzerland I was picked up on the tarmac by the politician who ran the Belgian network, who had initially offered me as a gift for the important American perpetrator. He drove me straight to a lab-like place nearby where fluids were taken and scrapes were done and put in vials.  The very same day we were back in the Belgian’s car on our way to Germany. The drive took several hours. He was extremely put out at chauffeuring me around like an errand boy. He dropped me off and disappeared.

This was 1972. I was trained to be a VIP sex slave and spy. Of my entire childhood, this was the worst thing I endured. Various methods would release superhuman powers that I could use to better attune with men's psyche to perfectly satisfy their sexual desires.

Even though much was done to manipulate my neuro-pathways to accept a new truth about myself, I was loved as a young child. I believe having been loved created, in this situation, a de-programmer part. In the midst of the terror and pressure to accept a new reality, a voice would rise from the depths of my soul, frantically repeating what I knew to be true up until then, affirming again and again - “I am me! I am me! I am me!” - piercing through the weight of muck introduced to my mind.

In my adult life, this de-programmer part has gotten me in a lot of trouble. Anything triggering this transition from feeling deeply connected (the gift of the American perpetrator) to the loss of such connection, gave rise to both the terror and the voice, keeping me awake in the night, rehearsing, repeating, affirming - not necessarily with the affirmations pertinent to the situation. I have truly done a lot of work on myself, but the farthest I ever got with this part was to go underneath the structure of the present with its particular elements projected onto the person with whom I had an issue - and on which the de-programmer was clinging - to try to remove the charge from the person in question. Then I would focus with all my might on my own past and story, reach understanding for myself and let go of my projection of the other, who had become a stand-in for the network programmers.

In the past week, I finally got to meet my de-programmer herself - the superhero who came to the rescue during my superhero training and kept my soul alive. She is a nine year old girl with the eyes of an owl who never sleeps, ever vigilantly repeating her truth, who only knows a small dark room. I have met her and introduced her to my own care, incorporating her into my awareness, embodying her experience, bringing her to safety and the fresh outside air at last. 

What kept this part from being revealed was her shame.

The main part of the “training” lasted one month. While I have no recollection of the official story of my absence that summer, I do remember my mother pressing her lips together and shaking her head, confiding in me that she had not enjoyed the family vacation that year. This was perhaps the farthest my mother could go in terms of expressing some kind of feeling she might have experienced about my lengthy absence and potential death for which she herself was entirely responsible. 

 I have a lot of trouble remembering much from my fourth grade school year when I was taken to various countries to finalize the training, or deployed with a German politician who took me out and about. Many years later, while visiting friends in Germany, I suddenly realized that I was in fact fluent. We all believed it was a miracle. However, I had been thoroughly trained. 

After a year of training, after I had been inducted into the cult of my “owner” and it had become entirely clear that I was to remain his slave for life, my de-programmer came out against him. In my anger he saw vulgarity and in my fear he saw a defect in my program. Crying desperately, I clung to him and he pulled me off him in utter disgust, like I was a dirty worthless thing messing up his neat suit. He made me feel a million times what he might have felt as a boy - that I did not belong - perpetuating his trauma story and magnifying and multiplying it with his power and privilege, to leave one young girl in utter ruin, blaming herself for everything. 

In this lies the essence of the current power structure, that privilege is an outer construct of belonging and power is an illusion that projects belonging through exclusivity. It is the only reason for the entire paradigm. 

I carried that perpetrator's secret shame for my entire life and for the rest of his. The memories of paradise and paradise lost cut out from my psyche, while my attachment to him and his trappings and the underlying terror of transition and my sense of worthlessness and not belonging reared up in almost all situations in my life. His negative projection probably lasted until his death. Once someone's deepest shame and betrayal are so completely transferred onto another human being, the psychic bond is strong. I am finally free from this toxic load. 

By integrating this de-programmer part I am experiencing the magic that comes with observing myself change and grow. My love has increased as I don't need to distance myself, either through arrogance or feeling that I don't belong. I am more present. I have a lot more patience. I stopped feeling responsible for others’ actions. I am eternally grateful for every small token of kindness from all the goodhearted people around me who populate this city and this world. 

We are so much more powerful than the psychopaths to whom we have given the power to rule over this earth. As we all open our eyes to the reality of what it means to not know anything about love, let our united love conquer this darkness.