According to QueenAfi, a mental health consultant and founder of DVWMT, grooming is the number one warning sign of an abusive personality. New partners are groomed rather than courted. The difference is that one is a game or ploy (grooming), a cunning plan or action designed to turn a situation to one's own advantage. I like to call them the stages of the grooming process, which can start in childhood and can follow males or females into adulthood.
The grooming process:
(a) Infectious: it's guilty by association due to childhood trauma; victims of childhood trauma can already be emotionally depressed, never feel whole, experience excessive verbal abuse, and have low self-esteem, which makes them an easy target for the grooming process. Abusers want to know emotionally what you have been missing so they can become that and more. Example: dysfunctional parent-child relationship or upbringing.
(b) Oppression: psychologically valuable thought processes and feeling co-dependent are all targeted by an external force the abuser used to break the victim down. Victims are "brainwashed" through verbal and emotional abuse to suppress anything they believe to be true about themselves.
(c) Possession: the final stage where the victim is operating, thinking, and feeling according to the direction of their abuser, directly linked to the grooming process. The victim is silent to himself or herself but cued to care when his or her abuser permits. Example of the possession: "It feels like I am having an out-of-body experience" or "out of mind" or "not myself" or "I did things I’d never do" or "I was under his/her spell."
The Experts
I agree with Dr. CG Jung on the "possession syndrome theory." Phenomenologically, the subjective experience of possession—feeling influenced by some foreign, alien force beyond the ego's control—is, to some extent, an experiential aspect of most mental disorders. Patients frequently speak of symptoms, unacceptable impulses, thoughts, or emotions as ego-alien, and uncharacteristic moods or destructive behaviors as "not being myself," commonly exclaiming, "I don't know what got into me," or wondering, "what possessed me to do that?" Presently, such disturbing symptoms are hypothesized by psychiatry to be due primarily to some underlying neurological or biochemical aberration.
In a time where so many have lost faith in God and rejected organized religion yet still seek something transpersonal to believe in, something spiritual, transcendental, or supernatural, the notion of demonic possession has a diabolically tempting appeal. Diabolical qualities would be when we hear victims (M/F) say, "The bad boy or bad girl in me took over." Take into consideration that the grooming into possession process can take place in childhood, where, at first, the approach is gentle and benign because infectiousness, oppression, and possession are to work on us without us knowing it. Moving forward into adulthood, "bad company corrupts characters," which leads to a life of always being groomed and corrupt.
The Testimonies
"My history with abuse began when I was a child, and it spilled over into every aspect of my adult life." My parents physically fought, argued, broke up, and made up so many times that I can't even remember them clearly. I was fondled by my uncle twice: once at 10 and then again at 13. "And into adulthood, I was still in abusive relationships." ~ Anonymous.
"I never had a dad, and all my life, I had to figure out what it meant to be a man on my own, until my mother got a man that started physically beating me at 7. I could no longer pay attention to me becoming a man because I had to do what this man said, or he would kill me and my family. I stayed and obeyed for the next 15 years; he died when I turned 23. "I noticed at my age, now 35, that I am still in that same type of relationship all these years later, and I wonder if I am possessed." ~ Anonymous.
Testimonies like this start the grooming process for victims who are possessed well into adulthood. Does this grooming process require an exorcism? Probably not, but research is showing that domestic violence is associated with the grooming process and does leave many mentally ill.
Suggestions
Would I suggest an exorcism? Not exactly, the Bible says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God." "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." "Come near to God, and he will come near to you." (James 4:7, 8). If you know someone who wants to be set free from the grooming process, pray for the right guided help. There are spiritual mental health professional, and he or she can meet with the victim and assess their condition.
I would suggest hypnotherapy, which is guided hypnosis or a trance-like state of focus and concentration achieved with the help of a clinical hypnotherapist. I would suggest the Domestic Violence Wears Many Tags classroom for some solution focused personal sessions, because I believe anything learned can be unlearned with a host of tools and the willpower to change (QueenAfi, 2018).
Wisdom
I believe, for to believe that the devil and his demons can take possession of one's body, mind, and soul is to find evidence of God's existence and to make meaning from meaninglessness. This "will meaning," as existential psychiatrist Viktor Frankl called it,
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Mahatma Gandhi
QueenAfi,
Mental Health Consultant & Founder DVWMT
FB@DVWMT96
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DVWMTS@gmail.com
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