Why don't Ritual Abuse survivors tell?

Ritual Abuse survivors are taught from an early age that no one will believe them. The fact that this tends to be true re-enforces this.

Survivors are taught not to talk. They are taught that it would be a betrayal. They are taught that talking is a weakness.

Ritual Abuse survivors find talking difficult, as do most survivors. If you add to that the extent of the trauma and how talking about it can cause flashbacks, it sometimes becomes impossible to talk.

Survivors often believe that if they talk, they will die or someone will.

As adults, survivors can appreciate that what they might try to say will be unbelievable. Things may have happened that they know on a rational level just can’t be possible. They may also appreciate that there must have been trickery involved, but not know what it was.

The literal language that many survivors use while trying to talk can make it difficult for others to understand what they are trying to say.

People sometimes don’t ask or persist in asking in the right way. Many survivors need to be asked in a very direct manner.

Many survivors believe that it is pointless to try and talk about abuse.

Loyalty to the family and the group can run very deep.

RA survivors often feel that what happened to them was right. They often feel that they quite literally belong to the group and as such the group had a right to do anything at all to them. In this case, talking about it would not be a consideration for a survivor.

Many RA survivors who have tried to talk have experienced a severe backlash from the abusers.

If people generally, and publicly, do not believe that this type of abuse happens, it is next to impossible to get survivors to talk about it.

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