I was formed when I was gang raped in a bathroom at age seventeen. I thought I must have deserved what I suffered because part of the attack was pleasurable.

Just a few months ago, I resurfaced. I was shocked to discover that instead of having the body of a skinny 135-pound seventeen-year-old, I found myself in the body of a really old (forty-three years old) 210-pound person! And as if this wasn’t bewildering enough, it is a man’s body! I was certain that I was a young woman. I had given myself a woman’s name. I tried telling my host to let me buy women’s clothes and let me walk around outside. He freaked. I really could not understand why he would not let me. I was a girl. Even my host also saw me as a girl internally when he looked at me, because that is how I showed myself to him.

My host would take me into the bathroom and have me look in the mirror. It was weird. What in my mind I saw and felt wasn’t at all what was in the mirror. I would reach up and try to feel for my breasts and they were not there. It really freaked me out.

I was sure I was in the wrong body. It was incredibly confusing. I hated that body. I had wanted to be on stage and make men look at me.

I did not cope well at all. I would punish this body thinking that it was just wrong. I did not belong in it. It was truly frightening. It took my host and a friend’s alter and Grantley quite a while to help me with this. All of them would tell me that I was really a man and that I only felt like a woman.

The frustration and bewilderment of having a body that was the wrong gender and totally the wrong weight and age was just a fraction of my problems. I was hurting really bad. I was always fearful of being raped again and was full of pain. I hated God and was furiously angry with him. I thought that he would rape, hurt and reject me, just like other people had. It made me very afraid.

Jesus would appear to me. I would scream at him and even cuss at him, telling him to leave me. He just stood there. He didn’t yell back or attempt to touch me or hurt me. Convinced that he would end up hurting and rejecting me, I wanted to get this impasse over with. I would tell him how he should hate me and use me as a whore. I would then start hitting myself over and over again.

I would do terrible things to myself and whenever God stopped me from hurting myself I cussed him for stopping me. Always hurting, I wanted him to kill me. I told him that he was a liar whenever he indicated that he loved me. For me, love meant me being used as a whore.

Once, when I was so fearful of Jesus that I wanted to hide from him, I told him to go away. Do you know what happened? He did! Then a demon came. In a panic I quickly told Jesus I was so sorry and asked him to come back and not go away.

Alice is a friend of mine who has alters. She lives in another state but we often e-mail and sometimes phone each other. It was after I told one of her alters alter about me being raped that I started feeling different. When you keep things secret they seem so much more fearful and shameful than they really are. I had believed the degrading things my abusers had said about me and I thought I deserved what they had done to me, but with this alter’s help it slowly dawned that what they had said and done was evil and wrong. The same kind of people beat Jesus until the blood ran down him and pooled on the ground at His feet. They stripped him, put thorns in his head and hung him on the cross until he died.

Alice’s alter helped me see that Jesus was not going to harm me; that he was not like the abusers and rapists who have hurt me in the past. She said Jesus suffered for us that he may take in his own body our pain, hurt and every wrong thing we have ever done. Having suffered so much, he knows exactly what I feel like and more. He has been there.

The thought that Jesus wants to take my pain away, however, scared me. I thought I only existed to bear pain, so I was afraid I would disappear if Jesus took the pain. And even without that thought, I was terrified just to be near Jesus. How could he love filthy scum like me? Didn’t he know that I had all this filth on me from the rape? It felt like the mess was still on me physically, just as it was immediately after the rape. I would try to clean it off but it would not go away.

Alice’s alter told me that Jesus didn’t care if I came to him with a bra or boxers. She would tell me on the phone that Jesus died for my sorrows and was gentle and would not touch me if I didn’t want him to.

One of the other alters that share my body also helped. We call him Twelve because he was twelve when he was formed. He whispered in my ear about the love of Jesus. He would tell me how much Jesus loved him. He said how gentle Jesus is and that I had no need to fear him. I really didn’t want to hear about Jesus but I craved that kind of love. Because Twelve was an alter, I believed him.

My real turning point, however, came when I decided to make Jesus my Lord. I had always wanted to die, but I now decided I wanted to live, but did not want the torment of body memories to continue. It felt like being raped over and over. It was so painful. While on the phone to Alice’s alter I asked Jesus to be my Lord. And you know what? Jesus took that body memory away. He became my Alter, taking my pain, just like he took my sin on the cross.

I had come to exist as an alter to take my host’s pain and carry it for him. Jesus, however, came to take my pain. He died for my well-being, as it says in Isaiah 53, and to carry my sorrows.

It was surrendering to Jesus – the one I had greatly feared – and letting him bear my pain, that finally gave me freedom. The body memories stopped and so did feeling like a woman being raped.

Whenever I have other memories I immediately cry out to Jesus and drop them at the cross, and then I find peace. He died to bear my pain, so why should I carry it anymore? I want to live! I want to be alive!

Although the following is a personal word to the woman who has suffered Satanic Ritual Abuse, it is insightful – Grantley

Dear friend with alters, I am sorry that you have had to endure all that you have suffered. I have been praying for you and continue to. So have my host and Six (another cute alter who shares my body). Six just loves God and he knows that God is his Daddy who is perfect and will never harm him. It is good to get Six on your side praying. He never wants to stop. He just loves talking to Jesus.

Alters can really feel like dying, but in truth we want to live. We want our host to live, or we would not have carried the pain. Jesus wants us to live or he would not have died and carried our pain. He loves me and his love is so gentle and tender. Why should I carry that pain when he already died for it? I like being free from pain!

Like me, your alters want to live, no matter what they tell you. It is just that they do not know anything else yet. But you will teach them. Jesus will come down and be tender to them.

May the God of all comfort, comfort you in all your tribulation. May his peace that passes all understanding be your guard forever. May you and your alters find healing and rest in him and in him alone.

Father God,
Come down with your healing touch and touch all the wonderful alters that my friend has. We know you love alters and we thank you for that. You do not cast us away. May my friend’s alters know that with deep assurance. Daddy, comfort them and keep them. Make your face shine upon them. Be their true Counselor and Healer. Minister to them in ways that only you are able. Please take their fear away and let them see that your love is truly and utterly amazing. We love you, Daddy. In Jesus we come.

It is important to help alters feel safe. Not only will this lower their distress, the safer they feel, the more of their secrets they will share so that they can find healing.

One of the things that I have found so very helpful is to talk to other people and to alters so that I don’t feel so isolated. On the other hand, some of the alters who live in the same body as me, used to look to Grantley to heal them. That is toxic thinking. A good friend or counselor can help a lot, but healing comes from Jesus. God will not share his glory with another. It is Jesus who heals and he alone. It is Jesus who has paid to take alters’ and hosts’ pain, no one else. Good counselors are brothers and sisters who, like the rest of us, are still growing in Christ. We can learn from them, but grace and strength come from our loving Father’s hand alone.

Finally, I would like to ask a question of those who think alters are demons. Even my host used to think that way about me. Such accusations are devastating. Does Jesus love demons? Does Jesus minister and talk to demons? Does Jesus heal demons? No!!!!! NO!!!!!! NO!!!!! Do demons call Jesus Christ their Lord? Never! They hate Jesus. There is only one thing that Jesus does with demons: he casts them away. He fights them. But he tenderly and gently loves us alters. He brings us life. He is the alter’s Alter, as my friend said.