#controversial issues

The Shadowlands. Who are they? 

In simplistic terms, the whole of the Shadowlands was built on and to deal with the ritualistic aspects of a belief system that was so far from mainstream it’s like they live in another world entirely. They have a rigid hierarchy. Pyramidal in nature. Two rulers at the top (The Mistress and her Consort). Three directly under them (The Overseers). Then the groups are ranged in rank under them.

It should be noted that because of a schism in their beliefs, a large number of people from the Shadowlands left and relocated. It was the single largest mass exodus to date and those that left have taken residence in the Crystal Horizons. However, there was still a firm core group that didn’t leave and still reside within the Shadowlands. As far as we know, the five listed above along with the Torturers and the Punishers and the Border Guards also stayed. We aren’t sure if Blood Rose and Lissiandra stayed but it’s likely as they were the two among the Acolytes who were firmly against questioning their beliefs. In their minds, they have remained loyal and true and those who left have betrayed everything they existed for.

For what it’s worth, those who left also believe they have betrayed their heritage. However, they also believe there has to be a better way to still honor their beliefs than to continue what they knew.

In a lot of ways they are our spiritual core. Not religious. Spiritual. We do see the two words as meaning vastly different things. They see the world through a completely different filter. They tend to see through to the heart of people. They tend to be accurate in their judgment of people’s characters. They know things we have no idea how they know.

They were told, and still believe in varying degrees, they were marked. Chosen for something. Firstborn daughter of the Firstborn of the Firstborn daughter of the Firstborn. That meant something to them. Trained to be Priestesses, Consorts, Torturers. Sacrifices and offerings. All done in the name of their beliefs, their gods.

They were devoted. They weren’t allowed to question, to doubt. Becoming a Transgressor was one of the worst things in the entire world for them. You either believed or you didn’t. There was no room for anything in between. You learned, you adapted or you died.

A lot of the time we don’t like to try and explain because we know we miss so much in translation. We often prefer for them to explain things in their own words because sometimes the wrong words change the meaning of things. But at the moment, none of them are around or willing to talk. Raylene and *enigma* were the best at explaining the ways things work, their beliefs. Because they are so foreign to most of us, we feel... like trying to explain another person’s culture from the outside.

We often would say that their world is darker, harsher than ours. But it’s more and less complicated than that. Because ‘dark’ means something totally different to them than most people. They tend to speak more formally, will use words and phrases that don’t quite fit in common vernacular. And they very rarely bother to attempt to be other than who and what they are.

They (those who relocated, anyway) ironically have a code of honor that is extremely important to them. If they give their word they will or will not do something, they stick to it. Their word is their bond. But they will stick to the absolute letter if it is them having to agree to something they don’t like. Which means the way something is phrased is important.

They do recognize that we do not currently live within the strictures they were raised and will respect that... for the most part. But some of them have to be given a reason why they should do so. A valid one. If it makes sense, even if they disagree, they will respect it.

They can be blunt. They rarely soften their words or opinions. They can often come across as arrogant, even if that’s not the impression they’re trying to make. They will not care if you believe them or if you believe the same as they do. Nor will they waste time trying to convince you or convert you. It is neither their job nor their inclination.

They prefer harsh realities over softer falsehoods. They don’t approve of lies, though they are masters at only revealing certain things. Misdirection and omission. Sometimes they can be incredibly literal and sometimes they speak in analogy and symbols.

In their training they learned that failure was never an option and excuses were not tolerated. They performed to expectations or they were punished until they got it right.

If you earn their contempt it is exceedingly rare you will ever earn their respect. Most people they don’t even deign to speak to. We have been constantly surprised by who they will speak to and who they will dismiss.

It is difficult to sum them up in a way that does not make them sound cold and uncaring. It is difficult for them not to often come across that way to other people. Emotions are difficult things for them to show or convey despite the fact that they feel things very deeply.

Raylene was the first one who dared to speak out against their ways in defense of the shadow kids who still suffered and she paid for it by losing her place and having her sisters turn on her. She wouldn’t back down, though. And all of us believe if she had not been so firm it would have been much harder to reach any of the others. The Torturers, the group Raylene not only belonged to but was the leader of, existed outside of the hierarchy. We think this is the only reason she was able to make the decision she did without more repercussions than being cast out. She had enough power the rest were wary of her.

we had, originally, planned to talk about our collectives in the usual order we try to explain them to people. Which also tends to be the order we learned about them. That was the plan. Thinking about it last night, we’ve decided to scrap that plan.

DID is still a controversial diagnosis, even now. Despite it being in the DSM-V, there are professionals that will still say to people’s faces they don't believe it’s real. Having your reality questioned never makes you feel good.

I/We first started learning about it when it was still called MPD. Before we were diagnosed the first time, we had a fascination with stories about Sybil and Truddi Chase. Something we recognized, even if we didn’t know why. The late 80s and early 90s were... an interesting time. Most of the published literature we’ve read comes from professionals who started their practices in the late 90s. And while we were initially diagnosed in 1991 when we were 17, we weren’t told our diagnosis and our parents stopped taking us to see the psychiatrist who diagnosed us. We didn’t know we had been diagnosed at 17 until ten years later, at 27, when we were diagnosed the second time. Our mother, who we hadn’t learned not to share things with, mentioned it in an offhand way, as she often did about many issues when we brought them up to her. (That’s a long story all in itself.)

In the early 2000s, the issue of SRA was still being talked about, but not to the level it had been in the late 80s and 90s. SRA stands for Satanic Ritual Abuse. And that... is often the first moment we start to lose people.

In general, MOST people who suffered from SRA were the victims of abusers who weren’t Satanic. They used props and drugs and such to confuse and invalidate the reality of the child being abused so even if they did tell someone, people would doubt it. Because most people, as soon as you start talking about Satan and demons, stop taking you seriously. They just do.

But not all of them. We can’t truly speak to this because, even though for a few years we thought that’s what was behind the Shadowlands, it felt wrong. We do know we were abused by someone in a Baptist church for a while, which likely confused the issue. The main problem with being a child who is abused is that other predators can pick it up. Some people are only abused by one person, whether in the home or outside it. Some of us... have multiple abusers.

The problem comes with burden of proof. It is hard to prove something that happened years and years in the past. Especially with abuse and trauma and a child’s memory. Without concrete details and names and dates, which children don’t always know or notice and trauma can skew, there is no real way to find proof that is undeniable. Not in things like this.

Anything that has religious overtones or makes one think of conspiracy theories tends to make pragmatic people question the reality of the whole story because it doesn’t fit into ‘real’ life. People like for the simplest explanation to be the right one. Often it is. But sometimes it really isn’t.

SRA still gets argued back and forth. Whether it’s real or not. How can it be real. It’s a hoax. We don’t know, as to the greater world or what other people have been through, how true that is. People get so caught up in concrete reality and facts as if they are the only things that shape the world we live in. They aren’t. But when you can’t prove something, people will doubt.

The Shadowlands are not Satanic in nature. They never have been and it’s why we won’t use SRA to describe us. We will use Ritual Abuse, though. Becuase their entire world is built upon beliefs and practices that are not something you will find in any ‘official’ religious doctrine. It has taken us years of wading through tracing various religions through to their historical roots to try and make sense of their world. It took learning a few things about my father’s family history and the bitch who fucked us and him and his sister up so much (may she rot in hell eternally). It took finding sites online and reading between the lines only to find those sites gone in a year and we questioned our theories and sanity. It took hearing people in our system spout things about stuff we shouldn’t even have known and then looking them up later and finding they were right and then wondering how they knew.

And the conclusion we came to was this. No matter what anyone else believes or doesn’t believe, our truth is OUR truth. We don’t need someone else to believe what we tell them for us to know what we experienced. Not the little details, but the base core of beliefs that they (the Shadowlands) had instilled in them. They came from somewhere and they are too entrenched and clear for it to have just been made up on a whim.

What we know is that the Shadowlands have a capacity for concepts like faith and devotion that are not highly prevalent in today’s society. And they recognize it in others, regardless of the religion of origin.