WRITTEN BY MANY BUT ONE ON TUMBLR AND TIKTOK
HC-DID stands for “highly complex DID” and is a community term to describe a system who has undergone mind control programming, derived from a therapist who used the term “highly complex” to describe her client’s programmed system structure and hierarchy. HC-DID is ONLY meant to describe how the structures and hierarchies of a programmed system differ from an organically created C-DID system. This is due to the fact that their systems were created on purpose by the abusers/abuse group and not created “organically” as a system normally would be. Due to this, the system is not made to benefit the survivor, but rather, the abusers. What does it NOT mean? HC-DID does not mean “worst trauma ever” and is not meant to be used to play “trauma olympics.” There are non-programmed systems who have gone through very extreme traumas that are similar to that of a programmed system, and a programmed system doesn’t have to go through the most extreme trauma in the world to become programmed. It simply is meant to describe that the structures of the inner world and the hierarchy of alters are typically much more complex than that of an organically created system. To add, in the book “Becoming Yourself” by Alison Miller, she describes programmed systems as having very complex structures that are typically not seen in an organically created system. While she does not use the term “highly complex DID” specifically, she makes it very clear that programmed systems have a complexity to their structures that are not really seen in a non-programmed system, which means the term “highly complex” has actually been used to describe programmed systems for even longer than that therapist who used the term, as her book was published in 2014.
Programming is a type of trauma under the MC (mind control) acronym in RAMCOA. It is done to systems, usually by larger groups but not always, to create a desired action or result from the system when a certain cue or trigger is performed. i.e. a certain word will trigger out a certain alter to do a certain task. These tasks can be extremely varied and will usually be tailored to fit the specific group’s needs. This is done via TBMC (torture based mind control, sometimes also referred to as trauma based mind control), where the child is put under significant duress and forced to dissociate and split off alters, who are then manipulated to believe or do whatever the abusers want.
RAMCOA stands for Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse. A system does not need to go through all three in the acronym to have RAMCOA abuse, though it’s common for them to intertwine.
Ritual Abuse does not have to be religious in nature, though that is the most common mode to carry out ritual abuse. A ritual by trauma-related definition is the same thing happening at the same time to create a ritual. Holidays are very common uses for rituals, and holidays are often tied to various religions, which is why you usually see religious aspects in ritual abuse. However, this is not the only way rituals can be used in abuse. If a child is hurt at the same time every single day, (like, getting abused every day after breakfast) that child will now have a ritual in their mind that every day after breakfast they are going to get hurt. Typically there is a reason given for this behavior by the abuser, which reinforces the ritual. (“This will make you stronger” or “[insert deity here] says this is necessary.”) Because of this, it can even be just a single parent or family that does ritual abuse on a child, and not an entire cult group.
Organized Abuse is most often seen in trafficking rings, whether that is sex trafficking, CSEM production rings, drug trafficking, or labor trafficking. Organized abuse typically does involve large groups, and typically involves very illegal activities. This does not negate the fact that a single family member can indeed traffick their child for whatever reason, but that would be unlikely to be considered organized abuse. A common non-trafficking OA instance I’ve heard of are things like Institutionalized Abuse, such as private schools hurting children, or a group like ABA who abuses autistic children to get them to become “normal.”
This is a difficult question to answer because who hurts children on purpose? Why would they do such a thing? Their justifications are often pretty messed up and are hard to understand, but the simple answer to this is “to create a desired result” and “to create someone who will bend to my will easily, no matter what harm will become of them.” Obedience is often the core concept in programming trauma.