Survey: Men, Women, and Ritual Abuse
In July, 2003, Survivorship conducted a survey of its members to compare brothers and sisters of survivors across various parameters. The results, which were published in Volume 12 Number 1 of the Survivorship Journal, and the questionnaire are reproduced below.
Where the Men Are
Jeannie Riseman
Copyright 2003 by Jeannie Riseman and Survivorship. All rights reserved.
Thank you to everybody who returned the questionnaire on brothers and sisters. Personally, I thought it looked very intimidating, and I really appreciate your patience filling it out.
There were problems, of course. Lots of people were out of touch with their siblings and didn’t have current information. Many questions therefore couldn’t be answered. When this occurred, we calculated the percentages based on the number of answers given. For some questions we omitted the three children 12, 9 and 7.
There was no question asking if the survivor’s parents were among the abusers. There was no way to indicate a gay or lesbian relationship or a non-married relationship with an opposite-sex partner. A question on abusive relationships would have been useful. Finally, it’s presumptuous to judge whether another person is alcoholic or an addict, and many people did not venture to guess.
25 people, all survivors, returned questionnaires. Five were men. These people had 23 brothers and 27 sisters, for a total of 27 men and 48 women (75 in all). All except six siblings were living. Two babies, one fraternal twin boy and one identical twin girl, died shortly after birth. One sister suicided as an adult and three were murdered. (Their ages were not reported).
Survivors ranged in age from 23 to 66, with the average being 42. Brothers ranged from 9 to 64, average 33, and sisters from 12 to 69, average 44. Men were more likely to be married. 78% of them were married (average. 2.0 kids) while 50% of the survivors were married (average 1.2 kids), and 46% of the sisters were married (average 1.6 kids).
The educational level was quite high. Survivors ranged from 7 to 22 years of schooling, with an average of 15.9 years; brothers, 7 to 18 years, average 15.3 years; and sisters 11 to 22, average 15.4. However, all but one of the men (and the two kids) were self-supporting, whereas only 58% of the survivors and 67% of the sisters were.
Survivors were equally likely to be in touch with brothers (41%) and sisters (44%). Of the survivors, only 48% were in touch with their parents versus 89% of the brothers and 89% of the sisters were in touch with their parents.
Everybody was described as abused, except for two sisters (9%). 83% of the survivors said they remembered the abuse, but they thought that only 15% of the brothers and 23% of the sisters did. 75% of the survivors said they were DID and 25% DDNOS, while 54% of the brothers were described as DID and 46% DDNOS, and only one sister was described as DID and six as DDNOS.
Over all, 85% of the brothers, 75% of the sisters, and 61% of the survivors were considered as being in good health. 33% of the brothers, 14% of the sisters, and 16% of the survivors were seen as alcoholic and 20% of the brothers, 14% of the sisters, and 4% of the survivors as drug addicted. Only one person was imprisoned, a female survivor.
Eating disorders were surprisingly high among all three groups: 68% for survivors, 56% for men, and 67% for sisterfs. A study comparing eating disorder rates among both male and female RA survivors, incest survivors, and controls would be very interesting.
One female survivor reported that she might still be involved. Of the brothers, 77% were thought to be still involved, and of the sisters, 54%.
What did people report as their occupations? Survivors: social work 4, disability 3, disability/writer, art director, therapist, child welfare student, grad school/writer, artist, social psychologist/scholar, homemaker/ artist, “in transition,” musician, and healer.
Sisters: nurse 2, teacher 2, disabled 2, student 2, housewife, programmer, receptionist, lab tech, systems analyst, business woman, harpist, geologist, physician, secretary, medical, lawyer, yoga teacher, and tech support.
Brothers: student 3, contractor 2, musician, salesman, programmer, store manager, construction, computers, forester, bank executive, teacher, welder/minister, investment broker, own business, restaurant manager, cable technician, disabled, recruiter, and truck driver.
Based on this relatively small sample, where are the men? They aren’t dead, in prison, in the armed forces, or working for the government. They are engaged in a cross-section of occupations and they look pretty much like everybody else, just with a few more addictive problems.
But very few men seem to have remembered. Fewer still are in healing. And three quarters of them might still be involved with the cult. Why? We don’t know. Perhaps their programming is different from women’s programming. Perhaps there are more “rewards” for men than women in the cult life. Perhaps they have less exposure to the culture of recovery and healing. If we knew, we might be better able to reach out to them, but we don’t know.
The questionnaire
Copyright 2003 by Jeannie Riseman and Survivorship. All rights reserved.
For survivors:
Circle Y for Yes and N for No
Note: DID means multiple, DDNOS means dissociative but not multiple
Please fill out as much as you can for yourself and for each of your brothers
and sisters. Skip those questions you can’t answer.
For therapists:
Please make as many copies as you need and ask your clients if they would like
to complete the survey.
| self | brother 1 | brother 2 | brother 3 | sister 1 | sister 2 | sister 3 |
| Male Y | Living Y N | Living Y N | Living Y N | Living Y N | Living Y N | Living Y N |
| Female Y | Age at death | Age at death | Age at death | Age at death | Age at death | Age at death |
| Cause of death | Cause of death | Cause of death | Cause of death | Cause of death | Cause of death | |
| < Age | >Age | Age | Age | Age | Age | Age |
| In contact Y N | In contact Y N | In contact Y N | In contact Y N | In contact Y N | In contact Y N | |
| In contact with parents Y N | In contact with parents Y N | In contact with parents Y N | In contact with parents Y N | In contact with parents Y N | In contact with parents Y N | In contact with parents Y N |
| Abused Y N | Probably abused Y N | Probably abused Y N | Probably abused Y N | Probably abused Y N | Probably abused Y N | Probably abused Y N |
| Remembered abuse Y N | Remembered abuse Y N | Remembered abuse Y N | Remembered abuse Y N | Remembered abuse Y N | Remembered abuse Y N | Remembered abuse Y N |
| In healing Y N | In healing Y N | In healing Y N | In healing Y N | In healing Y N | In healing Y N | In healing Y N |
| Years of school | Years of school | Years of school | Years of school | >Years of school | Years of school | Years of school |
| Self-supporting Y N | Self-supporting Y N | Self-supporting Y N | Self-supporting Y N | >Self-supporting Y N | Self-supporting Y N | Self-supporting Y N |
| Occupation | Occupation | Occupation | Occupation | Occupation | Occupation | Occupation |
| Married Y N | Married Y N | Married Y N | Married Y N | Married Y N | Married Y N | Married Y N |
| # of kids | # of kids | # of kids | # of kids | # of kids | # of kids | # of kids |
| DID Y N | DID Y N | DID Y N | DID Y N | DID Y N | DID Y N | DID Y N |
| DDNOS Y N | DDNOS Y N | DDNOS Y N | DDNOS Y N | DDNOS Y N | DDNOS Y N | DDNOS Y N |
| Good health Y N | Good health Y N | Good health Y N | Good health Y N | Good health Y N | Good health Y N | Good health Y N |
| Alcoholic Y N | Alcoholic Y N | Alcoholic Y N | Alcoholic Y N | Alcoholic Y N | Alcoholic Y N | Alcoholic Y N |
| Drug addicted Y N | Drug addicted Y N | Drug addicted Y N | Drug addicted Y N | <Drug addicted Y N | Drug addicted Y N | Drug addicted Y N |
| Eating disordered Y N | Eating disordered Y N | Eating disordered Y N | Eating disordered Y N | Eating disordered Y N | Eating disordered Y N | Eating disordered Y N |
| Imprisoned Y N | Imprisoned Y N | Imprisoned Y N | Imprisoned Y N | Imprisoned Y N | Imprisoned Y N | Imprisoned Y N |
| May be still involved Y N | May be still involved Y N | May be still involved Y N | May be still involved Y N | May be still involved Y N | May be still involved Y N | May be still involved Y N |