Being A System Is Going Through Years And Years Of Abuse And Torment. Being A System Is Sitting In The

Satanic Panic, The False Memory Foundation’s Shaky Origins, and Why You Should Believe RAMCOA Survivors

(TW: mentions of RAMCOA, False Memory Foundation, child torture & death, cults, trafficking)

Pretty disappointed to see a fairly popular and well known blog on tumblr is encouraging the idea that RAMCOA doesn’t exist. Just came across this post and was pretty bummed to see the comments too.

For those that agree with them (most of my followers won’t but who knows who will stumble across this), please know that RAMCOA has been going on for much longer than the Satanic Panic. The Satanic Panic was fabricated in an effort to discredit RAMCOA survivors. It was supported by the False Memory Foundation, which was created by a man (and his wife) trying to prove his daughter’s repressed memories of trauma involving him did not really happen. [Explained further in the third article further down in this post]

For the record, false memory/planting false memories has been disproven, it’s not possible to fully plant false memories in patients. Some memories can be altered to an extent because memories can be disjointed and influence from others can cause memories to shift slightly, which is why it’s not encouraged for trauma patients to share exact detailed memories with each other. For example, if two trauma patients were abused by their father and had a similar situation happen and patient A spoke about their experience in detail, if both fathers wore glasses and patient A describes their father to have black rimmed glasses, patient B’s memory might shift to believe that their father also had black rimmed glasses, even though his glasses were gold rimmed. However, it’s not possible to fully plant memories that do not exist in a patient’s memory. The “base memory” so to speak has to be there in order for any alterations to occur, and those alterations that are possible are often rather minuscule, such as glasses or whether or not their abuser had facial hair or not, or the color of the person’s eyes. Not an entire scene of RA. [Again, explained well by the third article below.]

Repressed memory has been proven to exist. (Though it’s more accurately called dissociated memories by clinicians) It can even exist in people who have traumas that happen in adulthood. Pieces of a traumatic event may go missing in a patient’s working memory, and they may not retrieve it until they are ready to process the memory and all the emotions and information that comes with it. However, it still exists stored in the brain, just in a different area than working memory. It’s why triggers to the traumatic event (that the patient may not even realize are triggers until they occur) can cause flashbacks and memory resurfacing during said flashbacks.

Some sources explaining the False Memory Foundation and the harm they’ve caused: [a good overview of a woman who was major in the development of the idea of repressed memory being a myth, by a researcher of child psychiatry], [while this is a psychology today article, I think this explains well how misused the idea of FMS - false memory syndrome - is.] [A comprehensive article explaining the roots of the FMF and how the studies used to “prove” false memory are terrible and easily debunked, with several assertions from professionals in the field.] I want to add that while the FMF has dissolved and rightfully so, the British False Memory Society is still alive and well, as well as the Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction, and both groups still cite False Memory Syndrome as being real and claim that RAMCOA survivors have false memories of their abuse.

However, before Satanic Panic happened, people were starting to actually believe in the existence of RAMCOA and the concept of DID was brought into the mainstream. A survivor on tiktok has a very good video on this situation. And that scared people, especially the abusers themselves who didn’t want to get caught. That’s when the False Memory Foundation stepped in on the heels of Satanic Panic and literally rewrote the textbooks therapists learned from, and basically taught everyone that repressed memory doesn’t exist. Any therapists that spoke about their patients’ experiences with RAMCOA were sued. Therapists stopped wanting to treat RAMCOA patients for fear of being sued and/or losing their license or being told they planted these memories in their patients’ heads and possibly losing their licenses. It led to generations of old therapists not treating RAMCOA patients and generations of new therapists learning it doesn’t exist.

But it does exist. To outright deny that child torture cannot exist is absurd. 1-2% of reported child abuse falls under the definition of child torture. [source, TW: photos of children with serious injuries from torture included on page 7 of this document] For the record, my abuse was never and has never been reported, and most survivors—RAMCOA and non-RAMCOA, whose trauma falls under the definition of torture—never reported or plan to report.

Even if you find the mind control aspect to be far-fetched, ritual abuse most certainly does exist. I’ve seen videos on the surface web on fucking tiktok of all places of child torture and ritual abuse. Organized abuse such as sex trafficking and labor trafficking does exist. Two out of those three things in the acronym are well documented to exist. And for the record, ritual abuse and cult abuse even in adults can cause extreme mind and identity alteration, upwards to the point of nearly being mind control. Look up OSDD-2 in the DSM-V. Look up just about any cult survivors testimonies and hear how they talk about how they nearly became a different person within their cult, how the cult uses torture and mind altering drugs to get their initiates to commit terrible acts of violence to each other. Now imagine if that same stuff were happening to a child whose mind is significantly easier to mold and change. Even if the child RAMCOA survivor does not develop DID, it can cause extreme conditioned responses in which the child (or now grown adult or teen) will still do the responses even now because as a child they were threatened with torture or death if they didn’t do it.

Mind control is essentially an extreme form of conditioning, and with the plethoras of research on DID and how it functions, it’s not even a difficult concept to grasp that a cult member might learn how to split new alters in a child via torture and then manipulate those alters to do what they want individually. Anyone who knows fuck all about DID knows that alters can be triggered out via positive and negative triggers. All mind control programming is, is creating a specific trigger for a specific alter and then when that child is exposed to that trigger, that alter comes out and does the task it was taught to do—usually via torture, manipulation, and threats of harm to the child or those the child loves. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, and with how long TBMC (torture based mind control) programmers have had to perfect their work, it’s no surprise that they’ve learned how to make alters do extremely complex tasks or hold onto specific functions, always at the ready for their specific trigger.

RAMCOA research doesn’t exist in mainstream spaces because it’s nearly impossible to be taken seriously because of people who claim it doesn’t exist when it’s not even a complex topic to understand. They just don’t want to accept that it exists. The concept is terrifying, harrowing, and at some times almost absurd—and that combination makes it easier for people to put their blinders up and decide it doesn’t exist. [Edited to add: On top of this, what little research is done on it is steeped in conspiracy theories that often have roots in antisemitism. While I’ve asserted that Miller’s deprogramming books are good reads for RAMCOA survivors, she does often sound conspiratorial, and quotes Svali, a known antisemite. While I don’t think RAMCOA is exclusively related to the Illuminati stuff she often talks about, Miller’s work cannot be completely discounted because of her beliefs of where the abuse originated. Where it originates matters much less than the fact that it happens. However, not from dark, underground, secret societies—but from normal places like churches, children’s own homes (yes, RAMCOA can be done by a single parent to a single child, it just may look different than say, a trafficking ring), trafficking rings, militaristic groups, political cults, etc. I wanted to put the above put there because I know someone is going to come at me and try to say the researchers who talk about it were conspiracy theorists. Yeah, they were. Maybe they were the only ones willing to talk openly about it because of the fact they’re conspiracy theorists? I don’t know. However, I think it should also be noted that just because the researchers sucked doesn’t mean the information taken from them isn’t useful when you weed out the conspiracy stuff. For example, a LOT of modern understanding of medicine was taken from Nazi and Japanese experiments during WWII. Arguably some of the worst doctors on earth. Do we discount everything we learned because they were horrible, evil, people? No. While those who studied RAMCOA went about it in shit ways, that doesn’t discount the information learned completely. Likewise, much of modern psych understanding came from roots that included incredibly unethical experiments that would never be allowed today. Do we throw out all of that info too? No, we don’t. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t hold these people accountable, I’m saying we cannot throw out all discussion of RAMCOA because the doctors who talked about it were shitty people.]

I wish I could decide it doesn’t exist. I have permanent scarring that proves what happened did happen. I have doctor’s visits that prove I am disabled because of the traumas I went through. I have a DID specialist who didn’t even know programming to our extent even existed before our parts started telling her what they went through and she heard it from our own mouth. She had to learn how to deprogram us on the fly because she’d never done so before. So fuck off with your “oh, RAMCOA patients only have RAMCOA because they’ve been influenced by their therapist to believe they do” bullshit.

I relive my traumas in flashbacks and nightmares daily. There have been periods in my healing process where I couldn’t leave the house without someone with me for months. I couldn’t hold a job for nearly a year. I didn’t know any of this happened to me until I was in my 20s. I thought my memory was just bad and the only parts of my childhood I remembered were little blips of good things, usually involving my parent that was not involved with the cult or memories with friends at school or when I was hanging out with my sports teammates. Living with this stuff is hell. You think I want to live with this stuff? If I could permanently erase it all from my memory forever I would. But I can’t. I don’t have that luxury.

It happened. And I’m not the only child it happened to, both in the area of my country I live in and in areas all over my country and the world. This is not an isolated phenomenon. It is more common than anyone tends to realize (though still rarer than most DID cases, thank fuck). I was lucky to survive. I survived because they wanted me to. I saw a lot of children, teens, and adults who were not as “lucky” as I was. If you won’t respect survivors and their stories, at least respect the ones who didn’t survive. They didn’t deserve their final moments to be so full of pain. All of the children in these groups deserved to be loved and cared for and treated with softness and compassion. So do adult survivors like me and many others.

If I could end on one thing, it would be to urge the doubters to have some fucking compassion and empathy for people who have been through things they cannot even begin to understand. My past feels like a nightmare I will never be able to escape. I cannot erase it. I can only try to heal from it. So heal I will do, and in the process I will continue to speak the truth of my experience as safely as I can.

You want proof it’s real? Survivors are your proof.

WE are the proof.

[Edit: changed some wording for clarification + added a section after rereading a couple hours later]

[Edit 2: I realized I said my abuse has never been reported, I meant my RAMCOA related abuse. Want to make that clear. I reported sexual abuse done by my church to CPS and nothing came of it. CPS actually wrongfully claimed that since they had no reports existing of that church harming kids they wouldn’t pursue it since it happened so long ago, when a cursory google search of said location shows they’ve been reported multiple times and all reports were dropped. Why, I’m not sure.]

Hey, so definitely don't go into more details than you feel comfortable with but if you can, could you elaborate on systems forming pseudomemories because they researched programming? Like developing completely false memories of programming when they aren't, or?

Hey constellation!

To be completely honest, I don’t know how well I could do that because I’m in heavy denial for the memories I currently have. I often try to tell myself they’re not real/they are pseudomemories so that I can like…feel better, I guess. Lol. Iykyk.

The reason I said that is because of what I read when I looked into RAMCOA, including alllllll of the warnings that were given to me from other victims of RAMCOA and ignored them like a dumbass and researched anyway.

They told me it was super common for non-RAMCOA systems to get pseudomemories. I honestly don’t remember how they explained it, I apologize. Something along the lines of “if you hear about a trauma situation that vaguely seems like it could make sense you may jump to conclusions” sort of thing. Gonna do like a really basic example here:

If you have a phobia of spiders (common in anyone really) but you read about a trauma scenario involving torture with spiders you might be like “Oh GOD! I have a spider phobia! I must have spider related trauma!” And anyone can be good at running with an idea and overthinking and imagining all these horrible scenarios.

HOWEVER

This is not always the case. If you feel you have genuine programming or memories regarding them it’s probably best to NOT fuck around and find out and find a specialist that can treat that because if you poke the bear it can get hella messy. It’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s better to realize they are pseudomemories later than assume they’re pseudomemories and dig deeper to figure out the “real memory” and realize that IS the real memory and massively destabilize the system.

However! (x2)

I stand by my original reply to that one person that if you haven’t already looked into RAMCOA, Don’t. You will not find good things. Whether you have progs or not. It’s not a fun thing to read about.

TW on this next part for what progging would be used for, NOT detailed at all, just be aware that I will be talking briefly about CSA/MC/suicide related things.

Wanna add that not all programming is done the same. I sorta brushed past that in that last reply, but I wanna make it more clear: not all programmers are super skilled or have done it a lot to make a fully programmed system. This sort of thing takes massive amounts of work. YEARS of work. And the stuff that happens is usually massively fucked up. I can only imagine some people not involved in a literal organized cult who specializes in this stuff who try will give up for some reason or another, or may not do it “well enough” or may modify things they’ve learned from other proggers to fit their own needs. Programming/mind control is usually done to fit the abusers/proggers needs, which means one’s programming could be at the level of like “Monarch Program” shit or like, more simple MC/progging for sex-related tasks or compliance or suicide programs for protection of the abusers.

Hope that answers your question. DMs are open, I’m absolutely okay to talk about this stuff carefully.

-Dorian

my depression tips:

* whenever you go to the bathroom, try to do one hygiene task like brushing your teeth, moisturising or washing your face, bc ur already in there so you might as well

* leave out clothes in the bathroom so if u feel like you have the energy to shower you don’t have to waste time on picking out clothes, you can just get straight in

* if u wanna shave but you don’t have the energy, u can get an electric shaver and shave in bed, you won’t get as much hair off but it still does something

* get some of those one time use, water free toothbrushes and keep some next to ur bed, and use some water and any empty bowl or container to spit the toothpaste into. you can also keep a mini mouthwash next to your bed

* for food, try to get ready made meals and frozen meals. i keep a mini fridge in my room with drinks and snacks so if i can’t make it down to the kitchen i have something to fuel my body with

* if u can’t clean your room, make a list in order of priority (mine is floor, bed and surfaces) and whenever you feel like u can or u get a random burst of energy, just do a little bit

* keep a waterbottle next to your bed, and if you have clean tap water refill it whenever you go to the bathroom. i usually use fizzy water and squash so i feel like i’m drinking soda but it’s much healthier

* if u can’t get out of bed but wanna feel more clean, change your underwear and your shirt, then use some dry shampoo and wipes on ur armpits and sweaty areas

* if u have pets, make them a priority bc they need you to live, and they care about you so much, so spending time with them will make u feel better and loved

* if u can’t brush ur hair, don’t tie it up bc it will turn into a rat’s nest and you just don’t wanna have to deal with that. even detangling it with your fingers is better than nothing. also braiding it will protect it

* if u can’t sleep, lying still and closing your eyes still is rly good rest, and if u don’t wanna be alone with your thoughts you can listen to a podcast (any true crime or mythology ones are my fave)

* buy multiple pairs of ur comfort outfits so you always have something you want to wear to change into

* try to get up and open your window to air your room out of the smell, incense also works well to cover it

* to keep you entertained, here are some ideas:

* listen to ur fave songs, podcasts or an audiobook

* browse some social medias (tiktok, reddit and tumblr are my faves)

* join a discord server and just kinda idle on that and watch ppl chat

* play a mindless game on ur phone or if u have a handheld device like a switch (on my phone i love life is strange and on my switch i’ve been playing legend of zelda: breath of the wild)

* read some fanfics on ur phone (all the young dudes is a must read)

* kids activity books of ur fave fandoms are rly fun

* read some webtoons (heartstopper is amazing)

* watching a game play through on youtube (minecraft and skyrim ones are my faves)

* rewatching ur comfort movies or watching some funny cartoons

* if u have a laptop, download sims and play that

Being an autistic HC-DID system-or really any part/person that experienced torture and is autistic-is funny (in a bad way) because I’m so scared of engaging in my special interests. I’m a database for our torture and sigma+zeta programmed sidesystem which is basically I know surface level what happened but I never experienced it, I kind of just hold emotions and the idea.

Sometimes we were tortured for reading comic books and drawing. Art and writing are 2 of our then 3 then 4 and now 5 special interests. It was engaging in the “wrong ways”, as our group liked to call “sin”. Drawing was especially punished-they probably made something up about why it was worse than reading comics but it was probably because it left evidence we were at their houses.

Anyways, it’s especially painful for me to exist. Not only at I constantly anxious and panicked, I can’t do soothing activities that will help me because it’ll make things worse. But, if I don’t do the soothing activities, it also makes it worse. Stimming was also punished so I can’t do that either. I just wish we didn’t live like this.

does RAMCOA always involve sexual abuse by default? We relate to some experiences of RAMCOA survivors but we don't feel sexual abuse was exactly the main focus of the abuse, in fact the sexual abuse we experienced was actually completely unrelated as far as we're away. feel free not to answer if you're not comfortable, we just can't seem to find a clear answer to this question anywhere.

100% No. CSA and SA are often a part of RAMCOA- a lot of people do experience it if they experience RAMCOA- however not a single one of the 3 types of abuse that it covers requires CSA/SA. We had this confusion ourselves for a while at first because we had no memory of CSA whatsoever- sadly we learned we were wrong on that front but even before we had learned we still were a RAMCOA survivor even without it. Hope this helps.

Why maladaptive daydreaming (MaDD) should be classified a dissociative disorder

Contents:

Maladaptive daydreaming summary

Dissociative disorders summary

Diagnostic criteria

Conclusion

(~1100 words)

Keep reading

Sources and explanations on HC-DID, TBMC and RAMCOA methods + what makes an HC-DID system

HUGE TW: VERY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF TBMC AND RAMCOA METHODS AND EFFECTS

Mind control methods sources (note: you need to make a free account to access. Again; it’s free):

Taylor & Francis

Mind control: simple to complex | 16 | Forensic Aspects of Dissociativ

This chapter outlines various forms of mind control, beginning with thought reform that is registered consciously, with memory, then moving

Taylor & Francis

From social conditioning to mind control | 15 | Forensic Aspects of Di

Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. For some, the abuse is embedded in a

RA specific mind control method source:

HowStuffWorks

How Cults Work

Cult indoctrination is a term related to cults. Learn about cult indoctrination at HowStufWorks.

Organized abuse sources (includes some RA sources) :

Organised Abuse

Resources — Organised Abuse

Resources on organised abuse

Explanation of fronting triggers and alter manipulation; has personal experience included:

If you don’t wanna read the graphic shit, skip to “summary:”

Within the context of dissociative identity disorder, these resources spell out a lot of what happens to HC-DID systems and how our system works. If you look at the methods used in cults as well as general mind control methods, one thing across the board is that it unfreezes, changes, and refreezes the ego(s). What does this mean for HC-DID? Well, due to the intense RA and OA trauma they were formed under, when parts are formed they are very disoriented. Perfect for this technique, especially since dissociation already aids in identity disturbance. This is where fronting triggers come in.

Most systems know that triggers bring parts to the front. Programmers also know this, and use it to their advantage. One way is that they utilize the above MC methods while a part is being formed/subjected to trauma. Example: Mr. John Doe is an alter that was formed in a rape, and during that the programmers chanted a long number string. Now whenever they need him out they chant the string the brain will be reminded of the rape, forcing him to front. Once they have a control over who fronts when, the programmers utilize their MC techniques. Isolation is already there, since DID of any form makes you isolated from your other parts.

Speaking of isolation, it’s very very easy once they have control of fronting since if they don’t want a part to see anything they won’t see it. That means a parts whole world can be entirely revolved around rape, c0rn (ykwim), being sold, etc. For example, Mr. John Doe fronts when a certain repeat client is raping the system. That’s the changing part.

The re-freezing part is also easy once you’ve got that stuff down. You make sure the part fronts a lot when their assigned role is needed by the programmers, making-like I said-the world revolve around their role. It’s all that they have, and to them it’s all they ever will have.

Summary: Since they are disoriented and controlled via RA/OA trauma and MC techniques at formation, it unfreezes the part. After that they can control when they front via association fronting triggers, and make them believe the world revolves around their assigned role. This is the changing of the part. After that, they make sure the parts world revolves around their assigned role and only that role-refreezing.

That’s pretty much it for this post. It doesn’t cover all of programming but that’s the gist on how it works. Thank you sm for reading, hope you have a great day. Bye

@crowsquackity since I promised I’d mention y’all

hope this is okay to ask but how would a system who suspects RAMCOA figure out what their programming type is if they show signs of a few different kinds? alternatively; are different techniques sometimes programmed together?

(Warning ahead of time; I will not be censoring any words or topics here. Also, I talk a lot.)

I want to emphasize ahead of time: most cases of RAMCOA do not involve programming. RAMCOA exists on a wide spectrum, and programming is extreme conditioning, starting as a young child, that specifically creates dissociative barriers (thus, creating a system) which requires consistent access and organization. Most cases of RAMCOA do have some levels of conditioning, but well defined programs are considerably less common. You can be a RAMCOA survivor without programming (or, in our case, loosely defined and poorly executed programs that border on "normal" conditioning).

Anyways...

I've recommended this before, but track your symptoms. RAMCOA relies on patterns & consistency, but especially programming. Track emotions, internal system happenings, switches, and their triggers the best you can (whether using a digital medium like Notion or a physical journal). Being able to correlate specific dates & stimuli to symptoms will make a huge difference. Part of how we figured out we have some sort of proto-Delta (aggression, fearlessness, emotional detachment, etc.) programming is through noting how we reacted to wounds/blood, both ours and others'; how specific parts front or come closer to front during times of stress or fear; vague memories of forced perpetration being triggered by certain weapons, scents, or bodily positions; etc.

It is honestly way rarer to find a system with one kind of program in this context. This because nearly all have some sort of basic obedience training, often referred to as "alpha" programming. Another near-universal program is some sort of access program: basically, a way in for programmers to call alters to the front, modify & implant programs, etc. Other kinds of programs are stacked on top of this, relating to whatever the victim's "specialization" would be. For example, sex trafficking that utilized programming would result in a victim probably having some sort of transport program (often to fall asleep on command so they do not know the route or location), one or multiple of the many sexual related programs, an amnesia on command program, and typically, some sort of therapy & abreaction interference program. And that's just the bare bones.

Additionally, some victims may not have a singular specialization, possibly because they were some sort of experimental ground for new programs or new combinations of programs, their group was not very organized or changed focus mid-programming of the victim, or they were the child of higher-ups in the group and expected to perform more complex roles.

If by "technique", you mean different methods of implantation or organization, that is also somewhat par for the course. Some groups change goal or formation over time, others may on-board programmers with a different "style" (an organized crime syndicate utilizing a programmer with a military background, for example). I know that only some of our system is structured strictly & militaristically, because one of our abusers was in the military.

Also... Don't be afraid of being wrong. Sorting out what happened with RAMCOA is confusing on multiple levels—trauma & dissociation warps memories, abusers will lie and trick victims, what happened is often decade(s) old, etc. You are allowed to question, research, and, if you want to, join survivor's spaces. It will be a long journey, but you are not the first and, unfortunately, quite definitely not the last.

I hope your answers come quickly, painlessly, and clearly. - Aisling

Reclaiming post!

hii I am going to be reclaiming the HC-DID term for programmed systems since the person that made it is an awful antisemitic conspirator.

HC-DID means "highly complex DID". It is a term for ramcoa survivors that were programmed to have DID. It exists because the experiences between a programmed system is different than those of CDID systems that aren't programmed.

HC-DID is NOT meant to be a trauma olympics term, it is just a modifier to differentiate the experiences that programmed systems have.

Help for those who constantly apologizing:

So, I am what I like to call a ‘serial apologizer’, I have been known to get stuck inside a ring of ‘I’m sorry’ over things that are totally unnecessary (bumping into things, making too much noise, or even simply being even close to in someone’s way, etc). I have had pretty much every reaction to this habit of mine from kind to extremely rude. Some people have found it endearing, cute or a sign that I am just that polite. While other people found it to be attention-seeking, dishonest, awkward, or just plain annoying. It took me a long time to realize that none of these explanations are really true at all. After a pretty enlightening conversation with a friend in a treatment center, I realized just why I was apologizing all the time. She pointed out that my apologizing was because I was scared to upset anyone, or even take up space. I had never realized or been told that feeling this way was abnormal and that is why I decided to post about it, in hopes of helping others with this problem. 

So here’s a list of the things I have learned since the conversation:

Constant apologizing is a reaction to feeling or having felt that: you aren’t allowed to take up space, you shouldn’t vocalize your needs, you don’t have valuable input. This tick or habit is a direct response to one or several factors: high anxiety (whether social or otherwise), trauma (particularly at the hands of people you cared about), or low self-esteem.

Constant apologizing is NOT attention-seeking, rude, or necessary to be seen as polite.

A lot of the time the apologies is a preventive measure to protect you from rejection, conflict, or awkward situations. It’s actually a defense mechanism.

A lot of common reactions received from people who don’t understand can actually continue this cycle, or make it difficult to resist continuing the cycle.

So with that basic information, I am going to move on to some reminders (Bonus: if you change you to I these double as some pretty nice affirmations)

You do not need to apologize for taking up space. 

You do not need to apologize for making small, mistakes that haven’t hurt anyone.

You do not need to apologize for existing  

You are allowed to make mistakes

You are allowed to show emotions/vulnerability.

You are not obligated to apologize for being yourself or acting human.

Now on to some tips that are helping me overcome this habit (I still struggle with this cycle but I swear these can help out.)

Use positive affirmations to raise your self-esteem and relieve anxiety. (The ones above work and I have a post of confidence-building ones on this blog)

Try (when it makes sense) to use “Thank you.” instead of “I’m sorry” 

Examples:

“Thank you for understanding,” rather than “I’m sorry for *small mistake/ lateness*

“Thank you for making me feel so welcome,” rather than “I’m sorry, you don’t have to do that.”

“Thank you for listening to me. It’s nice to feel heard.” instead of “I’m sorry for being emotional.”

Be gentle with yourself for slipping up. It’s way more beneficial to be kind to yourself rather than self punish.

If you can try to talk to people in your life you feel comfortable/ safe around about the apologizing. 

“I struggle with apologizing all the time, I’m trying to change this habit but it can hard for me. I hope you can understand”

“I’m trying not to apologize as much. Can you give me a gentle reminder/code word when I do I apologize unnecessarily?”

For people who have loved ones who struggle with this habit

 Try to respond kindly with things like:

“It’s okay, you don’t need to apologize for *cause of apology*”

“You seem anxious. Is everything okay? Did something make you uncomfortable?”

“I am not angry or annoyed with you for making a mistake or taking up space. You are allowed to make mistakes”

Have a calm, understanding conversation about the pattern

Be respectful and understanding of the cause of this pattern. This isn’t meant to be a high-maintenance, guilt trip or annoying. In fact, it’s a direct result of being made to feel that way.

I hope this post is helpful for any fellow ‘serial apologizing’ or someone who loves or cares for one.

R