5.

The Pain

I joined a prominent Los Angeles based dance company. It was good training and a lot of work. The company was led by a director, and the work was collaborative. It was an amazing experience. My director provided a higher level of training, and I further perfected my craft. I was very busy with 2 jobs and the dance company; my day started at 5:00 am and ended at 12:00 am. Working that hard, I had less PTSD symptoms. My body was dead tired, I barely noticed nighttime dystonia and shaking. However, the pelvic pain worsened. After all the years of my pelvic pain, I finally gave it a name: The Pain. The pain in my hip and back became worse, and my hip began to freeze up. There were movements I couldn’t do with my right leg, because of my frozen hip. My director sent me to her chiropractor for assessment. He couldn’t locate the origin of the problem, but an x ray revealed that my pelvis was severely misaligned. My left hip was over an inch higher than my right. My whole pelvis was torqued.

I now understand that years of Dystonia had caused this misalignment in my pelvis. When I became serious in pursuing dance, I tried to ignore my movement disorder symptoms. I mentally and physically locked down all unwanted movements and focussed on training my body. Locking down all unwanted movements produced more intense chronic pain in my pelvis, hip, and back. My teenage victim self was screaming inside, rattling the cage, and demanding to come out. I continued to ignore her and push on.

(...more to come)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2019 09:00AM by MynameisHeather.

6.

Moved to a More Beautiful Place

While in Los Angeles I met my husband. He was and is a loving saint. We were able to become close because we developed a true friendship. There was no pressure for me to “perform” or do anything I didn’t want to do. Our intimate life grew very naturally. But it wasn’t without issues. I struggled with two diametrically apposed emotional states. I was either terrified, frozen, and unable to be close, or I made a conscious choice to perform as I did when Swartz sexually abused me. It was the only way I could cope with sexual intimacy. I believe Swartz was training me to be a prostitute. A lot of my flashbacks point to this. When I finally found a partner, someone I could be close to, my ability to be intimate had been dramatically undermined by the abuse I suffered with Swartz. Though at this point in my life Swartz was not in my thoughts. I had successfully buried him, and his abuse, deep into my subconscious mind.

My husband and I moved to a more beautiful place. We packed our bags and left Los Angeles. We got married. The first few years of our marriage was very difficult. My panic attacks, pelvic pain, and emotional breakdowns continued. I worked part time and went back to school to further my education. Often my husband would come home and find me on the floor of the bedroom or bathroom, or curled up in the dark closet, crying, or completely despondent. He was always kind, and nurturing, and supportive. I can’t believe he’s stayed with me all these long years. I am truly blessed.

My husband knew about the guru, but I didn’t tell him everything. I was ashamed. What I couldn’t face in myself, I couldn’t share with my beloved. A few times, he asked me if the guru had done anything to harm me—had he raped me? I denied it. I couldn’t face The Pain. The Pain became an invisible centerpiece in our lives, it ruled my night and day, it was an ever-present force. Despite this, my husband and I remained completely devoted to each other, a true love that proved to be the greatest miracle in my life.

He helped me with mathematics and my coursework. We worked, saved money for our future, and made plans to have a family. Throughout the years I continued pursuing my goals despite The Pain. I dealt with my chronic pain as I always had—I just pushed through. I had my first child, and the birth was quite difficult. We worked hard, and his parents helped us get started in buying a house.

(...more to come)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2019 09:02AM by MynameisHeather.

7.

Couldn’t Be That Person

When my first child was over a year old, my chronic pain worsened. I became debilitated. When I had a pelvic exam with my doctor, I had my usual panic attack, I hyperventilated, I wept and wept. Normally I avoided doctor’s exams because it always felt traumatizing and physical touch felt painful. My doctor called in a nurse (university hospital) and asked the nurse to observe the remainder of the pelvic exam. They both watched me while I recoiled in pain and cried. My doctor asked me if I had ever been sexually assaulted. I said no. I couldn’t think of that. I couldn’t face The Pain. I couldn’t be “that person”.

My GP assigned several specialists to investigate the chronic pelvic pain. I had exploratory surgery for endometriosis and interstitial cystitis. There were no findings. I was prescribed pain medication, and unfortunately developed an addiction. I was addicted for several years, and then became completely bed bound.

I had to get back to work, and back to my family. I could see I was headed toward death. I decided I needed to do something, try to find something to heal myself. I was desperate to find a cure for my chronic and debilitating pain. The Pain was a mystery to me, it was outside of my power to heal. In my despair, I returned to the guru cult mindset. I remembered what Rama had told me—that I deserved everything I get because it was my karma. I thought I must be a terrible person in this life, or a past life, and this chronic pain is the result of my wrong action. I prayed and begged God to forgive me for all my sins, those I was aware of and those I was not aware of. I reached out with my soul and tried to release myself from my wretched pain ridden body.

My father, a long time TMer in Fairfield, Iowa, offered to pay an Indian pundit to perform a yagya for me. I started meditating again. I read self-help books, bought crystals, chanted along with CDs, and changed my diet. I prayed for angels and divine spirit beings from a higher dimension to descend upon me, bring in the light, and heal me. I started a yoga practice. My pain continued. I started A Course in Miracles and did the full 2-year program. The book helped. I believe I was replacing Guru Rama’s thought reform with another thought reform program. Whatever works! I got off the drugs, and now will never touch another opiate drug again. We decided to have another baby.

(...more to come)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2019 09:03AM by MynameisHeather.

8.

Teaching and Learning

After my second child was born, I went back to school full time and got my teaching degree. Without the help of my husband, I would’ve never made it.

I started teaching and we put all our energies into raising our wonderful family. I loved teaching. My grandmother had been a teacher and a great example for me. I had an amazing time with students and developed my own library of resources. My pain was greatly diminished. I focussed on work. I started taking dance classes again and I was very active in the dance community. I took somatic movement training courses. I did an entire series of Laban Bartenieff work, I also delved into Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s Body Mind Centering. I was involved in my hatha and yin yoga practice and interested in the healing arts. I learned Reiki. I meditated and prayed every day. I was busy.

Laban Bartenieff:

[www.youtube.com]

Body Mind Centering:

[www.youtube.com]

Years went by in the same fashion. Then…the episodes came back. At work, there were periods of time where I found myself in a dissociative fugue. My body trembled. The Pain returned, and at times I had to stay in bed for hours. I put my Reiki hands on my belly and facilitated healing energy to dissolve The Pain. I tried to use my knowledge to heal my body.

(...more to come)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2019 09:03AM by MynameisHeather.

9.

Sleep Walking

The episodes of dissociation became more frequent. I lost hours in a day. When I dissociated, I would “wake up” in the middle of an action or activity and realize that I had been asleep while walking and talking. I had overwhelming feelings of needing to lie down. This turned into long episodes of half-sleep wherein I had many strange experiences. I had a tremor in by body and a buzzing vibration in my brain. I started to have “out of body experiences”, which were intense, unpleasant, and frightening. I researched OBE online. Big mistake. I learned that people consider OBE’s to be a spiritual experience. I returned to the guru cult mindset. I thought I was having a spiritual experience. Since I couldn’t control the OBE’s, I tried to experiment with it, as people on the internet did. When I realized that I was only having terrifying, unpleasant experiences, I stopped immediately. I had to find a way to stop the automatic OBE’s. I had to find a way to stop losing time. I had to find a way to heal myself of The Pain and these afflictions.

The Pain only worsened. My CPTSD interfered with work. I had to quit my job. I decided to go for my yoga teacher certificate. I spent 2 years learning and training in Hatha and Yin yoga. I searched for a spiritual way to heal myself and possibly help others. I still hadn’t made the connection between my PTSD, The Pain, and the abuse from Swartz. I had buried the trauma deep down inside. I was trying to find a spiritual method of healing. My symptoms were out of my control, so I looked for an outside source to heal me. I was in the cultic mindset, after so many years, I was trapped in a trauma bond with Swartz. It felt like a parasite in my body, feeding on me night and day. I couldn’t face The Pain, and the shame. I couldn’t accept being “that person”, the one who was raped, the one who was made to do disgusting things, I couldn’t be that person, I had to try to be a better, more beautiful me. I wanted to change every cell in my body.

(...more to come)

10.

A Face at the End of My Glove

When I got my yoga teaching certificates, for a while I was able to manage my CPTSD symptoms. I enjoyed a small bubble of time where it felt like my life was moving in a positive direction. Then, as it happened many times before, the symptoms returned. I realized that, in my entire adult life, I had expressed this pattern whereby I never became healed, or whole, and I never felt good in my own body. I realized I had to change. I had to do something more intensive.

I hired a personal trainer and started to lift weights. I learned how to run and started running 15-25 kilometers a week. I joined a kickboxing group and worked out intensively 3 times per week. My teacher was a master in Wing Chun, and he also had been a professional boxer. He trained people professionally. Our workouts were gruelling. Cardio, 300 sit ups (no joke), 150 push ups, sparing, boxing, practicing Wing Chun martial arts. I grew strong and fit. I started to notice that I had a lot of energy with the boxing rounds. I had anger. My anger gave me energy, which fueled my focus. After a while I started to see a face at the end of my glove. Swartz. When I saw his face my rage grew, and I punched and kicked with amazing force. Using the right and left side of my brain formed new connections in my brain.

My anger began to boil over. Adrenaline was through the roof. While driving, I started to drive recklessly—with emotion. Everywhere I went, and whatever I did, I moved fast and with force. I developed such rage I couldn’t spend time with my family, or my husband. Most of my hours were spent in high intensity workouts and running. I felt I was losing control. During kickboxing I started having delusional episodes. I hallucinated I was outside my body, I had superpowers, I could see everyone from every angle, I could kill a predator with a single strike. While running, I feared being attacked, I imagined scenarios of an attacker jumping out at me, from behind a bush, and I used my Wing Chun skills to subdue and kill him. The vision was complete in detail. I was the Ip Man.

Ip Man:

[www.youtube.com]

(...more to come)

11.

Seizures

I was maniacal. Nighttime vigilance returned; I had no sleep. The buzz in my head returned. I realized I needed help. I sought out a counselor.

The counselor interviewed me, and we started at the beginning, my childhood. I told her everything about my upbringing, the unresolved issues and existing problems with familial relationships. We spent a month going over all my “stuff”. We worked chronologically. When we got to the point where I was 14 years old, I started to have problems remembering my timeline. I agonized over the order of events. I told her about Swartz and his abuse. However there were blank spots in my memory. For example, I remembered him hypnotizing me, drugging me, and “talking me down”, but then I had a blackout. I remembered after that event I had physical pain. I remembered Jessica taking me to the medical clinic and getting the diagnosis “sexual trauma”. I struggled to put together all the pieces.

I contacted Jessica and we talked for a long time. We went over all the details of our time together in the cult. She helped me put together the missing pieces. We talked about how James Swartz (Rama) worked his influence on us, hypnotized us and got us into the cult. We refined the timeline. We discussed his abuse (training us to be in the sex entertainment industry, and the sexual assaults) and went over the details of my visit to the medical clinic, and my diagnosis of sexual trauma. We discussed Marlene and her Kundalini episodes. We remembered guru Rama told us it was Kundalini energy. We remembered her movements got worse, and eventually Rama said she was “going mad”. We remembered he told us people would say we were crazy if we “spilled the beans”. Jessica related that after I left the cult, she also escaped. She cut her wrist and tried to kill herself. Fortunately she received help from professionals. She got deprogrammed and joined the 12 Step program. Jessica fought her way and reclaimed her life. These talks were very helpful, but it also triggered a lot of CPTSD response—panic attacks, no sleep.

My hip and lower back pain returned. The pain in my right hip started to interfere with my running practice, so I went to see a massage therapist. It was difficult to be on the table with a massage therapist—it hurt to be touched. When the therapist discovered my problem needed a more specialized treatment, she referred me to a Visceral Manipulation Therapist (VMT).

I saw the VMT once a week. One day, while on her table, she had her hand pushed deep into my abdomen (this was part of the release work). Suddenly, I started to violently shake. I had a seizure on her table. While driving home I had a huge episode of Dystonia. My spine twisted and spiralled in circles. My body shook as I drove home. When I parked in the garage, my spine froze in an upright position. I couldn’t move—it was painful. I went directly to the bedroom. I had multiple and intense seizures. It went on for hours and hours without stopping. During the seizures, I had flashbacks of Swartz raping me. My memories flooded back in detail. The flashbacks were body memories of being sexually assaulted, and I could see, visually in my mind, all the events of his attacks.

Here is a video of a girl suffering a non-epileptic seizure.

This is exactly what my seizures look like (both when it started and now):

[www.youtube.com]

It was January 08, 2014 when these violent seizures started. After I left the cult, I suffered for years with milder movement disorders (Dystonia and shaking). But the seizures that started in 2014 were much more intense, and with it came the flashbacks.

From 2014 to 2016 I could not leave my bedroom. I had 4-5 seizures during the day, and each one lasted 2 hours without abatement. I did not sleep at night. I had seizures all night.

My husband wanted to take me to the hospital, but I begged him not to. I didn’t trust doctors. I couldn’t be touched. I was afraid I would be put into a mental institution or be given prescription drugs.

(...more to come)

12.

Shaktipat, Movement Disorders, and Kundalini Energy

My husband took care of me and the kids. He did all the cooking. He helped with homework. I stayed in my bedroom. I laid on my bedroom floor and had seizure after seizure, after seizure. I flopped uncontrollably like a fish. I couldn’t get up off the floor. I was completely overwrought. I felt I was going mad.

Through it all I continued my running practice. It was my lifeline. I had so much adrenaline, I ran far past my group. I wanted to kill Swartz.

I ordered my husband to buy a bottle of Scotch. I needed something to numb the pain. After a whole day of having seizures and flashbacks, I would go down to the kitchen and pour myself 2 ounces. Old Pulteney, my good friend. The anesthetic only worked for ten minutes. I couldn’t watch TV without having seizures. I couldn’t sit at the dinner table without having seizures. I couldn’t drive in the car without having seizures.

I couldn’t meditate without having seizures. I couldn’t do yoga postures without having seizures. I couldn’t read, sit, dance, socialize, or have a bath without seizures.

Finally I went back to my GP. I had brain imaging done. I saw a neurologist, had an EEG and a full body examination. The neurologist diagnosed me with non-epileptic psychogenic movement disorder. He referred me to a psychiatrist and a movement disorder clinic. My doctor diagnosed me with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD).

I didn’t want to see the psychiatrist. I didn’t want to be medicated. I needed to find a way to heal myself. I needed to find an alternative way of healing. I turned to the internet to see if others were suffering from this. I tried to find a spiritual solution. The internet is rife with people experimenting with alternative therapies. It’s a minefield of dangerous misinformation. I fell into my familiar pattern—I went back to the guru cult mindset. I discovered the concept of Kundalini energy on the internet. I remembered what guru Rama told me about how I could use my Kundalini energy to change my body. I thought to myself, “oh, okay…this is a spiritual thing I’m going through…these seizures are Kundalini energy getting stuck in my nadis and chakras…I need to find a way to increase my vibration and clear the blocks in my energy system.”

I began a difficult process of meditating sitting up. I couldn’t sit without my body jerking around and shaking. I tried chanting and toning. I practiced breathing techniques. I spent hours in intensive devotional prayer. I begged God to forgive me for my bad karma so I could be healed.

(...more to come)

13.

I Was Still Controlled by His Abuse

I was having an existential crisis. I needed to rely upon what I knew would be spiritually good, and helpful in resolving my symptoms. I thought meditation is good, prayer is good, yoga is good…these things will help me to heal. However what I failed to do at that time is recognize the connection between the seizure disorder and the spiritual and sexual abuse perpetrated by guru Rama. I was still locked into the cult mindset. Decades after I left the cult, I was still controlled by his abuse.

I love God. I believe in a higher power. I have an overwhelming desire to be one with God. I see connection with God as my ultimate goal. This has always been true for me. I know that we live this short life, and one day we will die. Knowing this, I would like nothing more than to be in communion with the One who created me. I want to live a purposeful life. I want to know I have lived with genuine love for all of creation. I’ve always felt this way, since the day I was born.

My spiritual practice was shaped by what I had been taught. My father had me initiated into Transcendental Mediation when I was eleven years old. My great grandmother taught me the Lord’s prayer and guided me to have a personal relationship with God. Guru Rama transmitted spiritual energy called Shaktipat to me. He taught me how to see auras. He taught me how to “bring in the light” and fill my aura with light. He told me I had bad Karma and I deserved everything I got. He abused me. I deserved it. Therefore, I needed to find a way to energetically cleanse my aura, my spirit, my karma in order to be healed of chronic pain and seizures.

It was a catch 22. I wanted to be close to God, I wanted God to forgive my sins (karma), so I needed to engage in a spiritual practice, but my spiritual practice was overlaid and infused with guru Rama…his teachings…his abuse.

I wanted to have a spiritual practice…but all I saw was his face. Swartz.

Despite my dilemma, I decided to devote myself to spiritual practice. I wanted to raise my vibration and heal myself. I wanted to reclaim my life!

I meditated regularly and practice yoga. I couldn’t stop the seizures, so I did what I always do, I pushed ahead.

Spontaneous Kundalini Kriyas during yoga practice:

[www.youtube.com]

I continued my spiritual practice and searched the internet for people like me. I discovered that shaking is an event that occurs in many cultures, religions, and spiritual practices. I wanted to find answers. I still couldn’t make the connection with the abuse I suffered by Swartz. I didn’t want to be a victim; I didn’t want to be “that person”.

(...more to come)

14.

Snake Oil Salesman

I found this guy, Bradford Keeney. I went to Santa Barbara and attended his workshop. It was like stepping into a scene from Elmer Gantry, or back in time to a performance of a snake oil salesman. He revved up the audience with pounding piano music and drums, he chanted and recited a long free-association monologue, his body convulsed and shook, he put his hands on his wife and caused her to shake, he went into the audience and put his hands on them, causing them to shake. He offered healing energy, he transmitted “energy” to facilitate other people to shake. The tremor and the rumble triggered me and made me shake.

These were my old pals, my seizures. I realized he wasn’t offering me anything I didn’t already have. I already had seizures. I didn’t need this jive turkey to give them to me.

Shaking Medicine:

[www.youtube.com]

I’m not saying there isn’t any value in shaking. I believe that in traditions throughout the world there are ways human animals have discovered letting go of trauma. It’s a natural animal response. Humans take these natural responses and ritualize them. No harm in that. It’s a good thing, as long as no one is profiting from it.

(...more to come)