Ch. 1: So...My In-laws Might Be Satanists...
Or my husband is more seriously ill than either of us could imagine!
That Night
One night when Jasmyne was 2 years old, we returned home from a trip. When Scott picked us up from the bus station, he was disheveled and seemed distraught about something…but still trying to hold things together. We got home, put our daughter to bed, and sat down to chat. He spilled out everything he had been trying to hold in:
While we were gone, he was plagued with images of being abused by his family of origin. But not just any kind of abuse.
He went on to describe a chilling scene:
He was a child in the middle of a circle, surrounded by adults in hooded robes, chanting incantations and, in his words, “trying to make me worship the devil.” He claimed that one of his older siblings was there as well, enduring the same kind of abuse. He proceeded to name the individuals in the circle, most of whom were members of his own family. But it didn’t stop with them. The neighborhood he grew up in, even the city he lived in, was full of people like this. He had come to the horrifying realization that his childhood was not what it appeared to be, and that his family led a secret life that they pulled him into as a child, against his will. He was devastated.
When my husband told me these things, I will be honest. The first thing that came to my mind was, “well, that makes sense!” If you knew his family, you’d know what I was talking about. My sweet husband’s family was, for lack of a better word, eccentric. I mean, Scott was quirky in his own way, but with him, it was endearing, at least to me. With his parents, it was just…strange.
At the time, they lived isolated on 15 acres of land, in a home that Scott’s father designed and built from the ground up, almost singlehandedly. They had their own unique world view. My mother-in-law listened to an obscure (at the time) radio program called “Infowars”. They didn’t believe we went to the moon. The world was run by shadowy figures only referred to as “they”. “They” are controlling the media. “They” want to take away our guns. “They” are part of the Illuminati. There are these people who meet once a year in a grove under the statue of a Big Owl, and worship the devil. Martial law is coming to the land…so, there was a stockpile of certain defensive items scattered around their property, so I was told. They were ready to resist the coming New World Order.
My father in law was low-key obsessed with dates and symbols. It was no coincidence that Waco, Columbine, and the OK City bombings all happened on or near the same date in April. These incidences were all some kind of mass sacrifice. The CBS symbol is really the all seeing eye, controlled by “them”. It seemed like everything my inlaws did, revolved around these beliefs. There was even a false wall in the basement…when they remodeled it in 2005, behind the wall was floor to ceiling canned food that had been there since probably 1989. At the same time, they professed to be born again Christians, which opened up a whole other host of beliefs and practices mixed in with their world view.
So…
When my husband said they were basically witches in disguise? My gut reaction was more like a reflex…it actually kind of made sense. In that one moment when he told me all of this, it seemed as if there was an explanation for many of the issues he had had all of his life, and that we had had since we married 6 years earlier, and for some of the strange things I observed in his highly dysfunctional family.
PLOT TWIST
There was just one problem. My husband, who was diagnosed nearly 20 years earlier with Bipolar I at the age of 16, was not on his medication, and had not been for some time. He was without a doubt, quite manic when he relayed this information to me.
The Present Day…
That was almost 18 years ago, in early December 2005. Everything that has happened since That Night, has haunted us to this day. I don’t think anything could have prepared us for the havoc these “little revelations” would wreak on our family. Multiple psychotic episodes, disappearances, jail time, homelessness, financial hardship, solo parenting for me, and much, much more can be traced back to That Night.
And ever since then, I’ve been asking myself, and God, “Did I marry a man who is much more severely ill than I thought? Or…a son of a witch?!”
The good news is, Scott and I are together today and doing well in spite of all our challenges. His diagnosis was recently changed from Bipolar 1 to schizoaffective disorder. He is stable on medication, and his symptoms are under control. Our daughter is a young adult now, and just completed her first year of college. She has emerged from the chaotic years of instability a published author and a budding stage diva, while bravely navigating her way through mental health challenges of her own with a maturity beyond her years.
However…
*We are completely estranged from Scott’s family. He remains adamant to this day about keeping his distance.
*He still has flashbacks of ritual abuse. Currently, he is stable, on medication.
*Since That Night, a family member, the one he said was also there, has corroborated some of his accounts of this horrific trauma, that I discovered has a name: Satanic Ritual Abuse. And says that it also happened to them.
*It has taken an awfully long time to work through this, and we’ve barely gotten started.
*I’m full of stories about some of the crazy things we’ve been through! People keep telling me I should write a book. Maybe I will.
The truth is, we don’t really know the full details of what, if anything at all, really happened to my husband in his past. Notice I said my inlaws “might” be satanists, not that they actually are. The circumstantial evidence is strong, but not enough to convict.
Over the course of the past almost 20 years now, I’ve plunged head first down the proverbial rabbit hole. I’ve sifted through piles of research on psychiatric disorders, trauma, and conspiracy theories. I’ve consulted with professional and spiritual experts, desperately seeking explanations as to why my mentally ill husband would claim to remember being ritually abused by his family as a child. What medication should he be on? Which demon should we cast out? Is it even remotely possible that my in laws (my child’s grandparents) could not only be part of some secret satanic cult, but also…criminals??! What do I, his wife, do with this?
Because of my personal belief and faith in Christ, I fervently prayed to the Lord. Either my husband was far more ill than either of us could have imagined, or my inlaws were some of the most horrible people on the planet behind closed doors. Either way, whatever was going on, this was not good at all. But, I didn’t know just how “not good” things would be from that point on.
For years, I’ve used my writing and blogs and podcasting to process some of the things we’ve gone through as the result of this information, and its impact on our family. I’ve shared from a faith perspective all of the amazing ways I believe the Lord has delivered us and brought us to a place of safety.
However, until now, I’ve only skirted around the subject of satanic ritual abuse, only referring to it as “childhood trauma”. I’ve shared about mental illness, I’ve shared about the times his illness caused him to disappear for years at a time, I’ve shared about the impact of mental illness on our marriage and family.
I’ve never shared anything about satanic ritual abuse. Why do so now? Because it’s every bit as much a part of our story as living with mental illness, and doesn’t make sense without it. The mental illness either caused it to be brought up, or came about as a result of it. Figuring out which one it is has been a journey in and of itself! Most of all, in these particular times, the timing just seems right.
So…What would you think if you were in my position? Let me know in the comments! And stay tuned for more!
Much more…
Thank you so much Kimberly!! These stories are so powerful and so close to home for me. It is hard to determine what is real and what is mania. Thank you for your transparency and vulnerability. Please know how healing it is for me to read every one of the words you write!! Much love and God bless you and your family!!
Thank you for sharing your story, Kimberly and excited to see what God is going to do in and through your marriage. You and Scott are a beautiful couple. Big hugs to you both and thanks for being courageous and vulnerable with sharing the spiritual, mental illness and other trauma complexities with SRA.