Predator

During my decade long of practice on hypnosis, I was always amazed on how much hypnosis can be beneficial for our everyday lives. Occasionally, I even encountered some unusual cases to reveal the truth that was hard to uncover by any other means. Here’s a case that came to me not too long ago.  For privacy purposes, I name the people involved in letters. 

L contacted me for her 15-year-old daughter M. L is a single Asian mother. Over the phone she’s a bit vague about what happened, just mentioned M had some behavior problems. From what she said, to me the daughter sounded like one of the spoiled kids - Argumentative, mood-swinging, depressed, even self-mutilated. I normally turn down this kind of cases, since most of the time the problem was not the kids - Kids just reacted to their parents. It’s the parents who created their kids that way, and they were desperately looking for someone or something - like a therapist or pills, to “fix the problem” for them. L was focused on finding out what had happened instead of fixing anything. I’m good at finding things out. 

Upon arrival, L told me separately that she had a white boyfriend S when M was 12 years-old. At the beginning everything was perfect and little M got along very well with S. So things moved fast, pretty soon S moved in with them. Over the next 2 years things started to change, and it got worse when little M went back to Asia to visit her dad during last summer. She came back like a different person - ignoring and even hostile to S, also arguing a lot with the mother. That’s when the mother started to notice, she thought maybe it’s due to M feeling the gap between what her dad showed to her with a wealthy lifestyle and what S could provide for her as a working class. Until one day during an argument, M blurted out that she really hated to live in the house since S had sexually assaulted her. L was shocked. She couldn’t tell if that’s true or not, since M shut her mouth right away and wouldn’t say anything further. So L came to me and hoped I could help her to find the truth.

During the pretalk, I told M that since she’s only 15, I’m obligated to tell her mother about the session, but I would only tell her what I find, not the details. That seemed to release her resistance quite well. She went into the trance nicely. Back in time, after her parents divorce she sensed her mom’s sad and lonely feelings. Then S came to the picture. She’s happy because her mom was happy. She enjoyed walking with S’s little dog. S told her that he was so happy to know at the beginning that her mother has a daughter, and that made her feel special. After he moved in, one late night after her mom was asleep. S went into her room - S convinced her mom that she shouldn’t lock her door for safety reasons. He laid on top of her and touched her. As a 12 years old girl she has no idea what just happened and how she should think about it. But instinctively she felt shame and scared. He didn’t say a word about what happened to her whether it’s during or after. She didn’t tell her mother. She didn’t tell anyone. Over the next 2 years it happened again and again. She became scared of night time. She hated but was scared of him. She feared if she told her mother, she would either not believe her or believe her and kick him out, then the consequence will be her mother being lonely again. For her mother’s happiness she decided to keep her mouth shut, and that took a toll on her psycologically. She’s struggling and depressed. 

Last summer she went back to Asia to see her father. She had a great time with her father and the rest of the family who love her dearly. The first time in nearly 2 years, she said, “I felt safe to sleep at night.” That’s when she realized what had happened to her was not normal and how much she has been negatively affected by that. When she came back after the trip, she said, “I felt so sick to see his face!” As a 15-years-old adolescent, she got the idea that what had happened was sexual abuse, but the shame and fear was still there, so she still kept everything to herself. He attempted once since she came back and she fiercely defended herself, so he never dared to try again. That’s my main concern - If she felt safe at the moment. She said: “I”m good now. He’s a coward. He won’t go too far. He knows what will happen to him if I tell others.” 

Next I spent more time going deeper into her feelings under the trance. I asked her to give a score from 1 to 10 on how much she hated him. She said, six. I asked what she felt when she was always angry toward her mom. She said she felt her mom owed her since she kept it quiet for so long for her mom - She sacrificed her own happiness in exchange for her mom’s. I asked how she thought he feels about all of these - In the trance it’s all intuitively connected. She said he doesn’t feel sorry, he’s just afraid of getting caught. She also said this is not his first time, since he told her that his ex-girlfriend also had a young daughter and it ended up that the little girl hated him and that led to their break-up. By now I can see the pattern of a predator - A pedophile who’s specifically searching for single vulnerable mothers with young daughters.

I went on did some therapy with M. She needed to understand that she did nothing wrong with what had happened and she has the choice to talk to the school teacher or counselor if things get worse or she feels that she has to talk to someone. I also talked to her about the choice to go to the police. She said she just wants to grow up and leave home. 

After the session, I had a conversation with the mom. L was quite surprised about what I told her and she said, “I can’t believe he’s that kind of person. He seems totally normal.” I wanted to tell her that he’s just a “normal” human with a specific interest, from a psychological point of view, but seeing how much damage that he has done to the innocent girl, knowing that she probably will spend a very long time of her life fighting with the shadow lurking in the darkness - The depression and shame, I was filled with disgust and sympathy. I told L if she cares about her daughter’s wellbeing, she has a choice to make. These people are the pest of society. Maybe they should get treated instead of being put behind bars, but letting these people roaming free is definitely causing damage to the young and innocent. They are the dark side of the forces.

Let there be lights.