The intimidating decision to take the first step toward validating a reality which had been stolen from me since early childhood caused me to force myself to forge through fear and pick up a phone and call the Iranian Embassy in London England. Because I had experienced the horrible reality of having been kidnapped as a child then used for years like a valueless pawn the fact that I had the mental, emotional and the physical capacity to one day pick up a phone call the Iranian Embassy to make an appointment demonstrated an inner personal deep need which most often went unacknowledged.
Prior to leaving for England, since I have always made it a habit to arrive early for appointments, one day, as I waited in a doctor's office, I noticed a starling headline on a magazine laying on a table in the waiting room which stated that during the then current war in Bosnian that Muslims women were being raped to death or until they became pregnant.
Stunned, I suddenly felt the same paralyzing effects of a bee sting, I took the magazine from the table planning to read the full article but the horrifying details of what was happening to these Muslim women caused me to become nauseous and slightly dizzy. I knew at that moment that a trip to England was essential for me. It was terrifying to read the details in the article but realization of the inhumane treatment being endured by those women prompted for me the decision to go to England and within a few weeks I was landing at Heathrow Airport.
The few months spent in England, mostly, the time was in Cambridge, England. I stayed in a hotel for a month or less before renting a suite in a private home. For me, the time spent in Cambridge was quiet and quaint. There were a few other renters in this house yet since they were students they were up and out of the house before I got up most of the time.
I think it was my landlord who told me there was an Islamic mosque in Cambridge. I don't currently remember how I got to the Mosque the first time I attended Friday prayer. Cambridge wasn't a very large town but after my first visit at the Mosque, I tried several times on my own to locate the building again but never was able to find the Mosque on my own. One Friday after services, I jokingly asked one of the women where they hid the Mosque once Friday services were over. Smilingly, she stated, "Ah!" "That's our secret."
Surprisingly, ironically, mysteriously, on my own, I was never able to locate the Mosque. Once I began to interact with the women in the Mosque I learned that one of the ladies was an attorney. When I learned that one of the female members of the Mosque was a practicing lawyer, somehow, years of stagnant dormant emotions found the ability to breathe. The year was nineteen ninety four, and at that time I didn't remember how many years had passed since I had been forced from my home, my marriage, my child, my career and my life as I knew it at that time. My then six year old son and I were home alone when two men in American law enforcement came into my home unannounced and unexpected. Both surprised and annoyed at the unwelcome intruders, my immediate inquiry was to question how the two men had been able to enter my house. The men didn't feel it necessary to answer my question even though I repeated the question a number of times with various degrees of intense. The only response the two men offered was the statement, "Something is about to go down and we don't want you in the middle of it." They then inquired about my son who I had instructed if given a certain signal that he was to hide until he felt safe when someone he knew and trusted had arrived. The men asked again where my son was and having been kidnapped myself at the age of six, I was most definitely not going to tell them where Patrick was. When I refused to tell the men where my son was they told me that I might want to think about the decision of not telling them where my son was since I might be gone from my home for at least six months or much longer, perhaps never to return.
Angry, and determined not to leave my home, I told the men that they needed to leave the house. The men did not budge but instead began to threaten me. They told me if I didn't go with them that they would arrest me for a crime they knew I hadn't committed. Heated, verbal altercations between the men and myself as I continuously asked for the reason they were at my house and why they wouldn't leave.
After a while it became obvious that the men were not leaving my home without me. I asked if they would at least let me call my husband and was told no. Since at the time I was a practicing attorney, my next request was to call my law firm, again I was told no.
My determination not to leave my home caused the men to become aggressive. They told me I had the choice of leaving my home with or without being handcuffed. Once again they mentioned my son. "You might want to reconsider leaving him as it might be a long time before you are allowed to come back here if at all."
I was very unsure about the situation that day, but one thing was certain, I was not going to expose my son to an unknown.
The men did allow me to stop by a friend's house. While there I asked to use the bathroom and I left a note inside the towel paper roll. To this day, I don't know what year it was when the men intruded into my home and to this day, I don't how many years passed from the day of that intrusion till the day I arrived in England and found a connection with the Muslim Community in Cambridge.
Because of the childhood trauma of having been kidnapped there is a section of me which is guarded by me and from me. I was kidnapped at the age of six, brutally ripped away from my parents, my cultural heritage.
Once I got in contact with members of the Muslim community someone would kick me up for Friday prayer. Some of the ladies in the Mosque had started a Quran study group and I was invited to join. The group met once a week and joining the group helped make me feel more comfortable with the community.
I don't know how many years had passed from the day I was forced from my home till the time I spent in England. Once I had been taken from my home placed in a facade called protective custody it was decided that I fit the profile to be used as an Mkultra subject. There are so many blank days and hours and years missing from my memory from the day I was taken from my home till now. There is a hollow space somewhere within me where water activated paper doll images are saturated in pools of unknowns.
Trauma based amnesia. Medically unnecessary electric shocks treatments. Hours and years of psychic driving, sensory deprivation and medically induced hours of sleep. The audacity, the chicanery, the arrogance, the total disregard for a persons' legal, moral, human rights.
Once I became comfortable with a female attorney at the Mosque I began to confide in her. I don't really understand why I began to trust a person I had only known for a few weeks but trusting someone at that time was essential for my mental health. Perhaps, my feelings of trust and comfort with my newly found community had more to do with my personal needs.
Prior to my trip to England I had been visiting a psychiatrist because I sensed that I had gaps in my memory. Someone I worked with at the time suggested, Dr. George Ulett, once he learned I was struggling with loss the doctor used several techniques in an attempted to help me retrieve my memories.
From the day I was forced from my home till the day I arrived in England everyone in my life supported the lie I was forced to live with. I don't know if the constant barrage of falsehoods which surrounded my daily life in the United States was orchestrated to deceive others or for the purpose of calcifying the prevarication so deep within me that I would never uncover the truth of my own identity.
Dr. Ulett exemplified intelligence and confidence wherein exemplified for me someone who could be trusted. The lighting in the doctor's office was a little dim which I found very comforting. On my first visit the doctor asked if the lighting in the room was bright enough I then explained that I found it relaxing. When the doctor asked me what brought me to his office, I explained that I had major gaps in my memory. I further noted that it felt like there was a gigantic internal magnet trying to pull me toward an unknown which needed to be known. I told him how confusing and disorientating I felt and that whatever it was that I had forgotten must have been very important. On that first visit the doctor and I decided that we would do what was necessary to retrieve my memories and that we would attempt this without using medication. Dr. Unett explained that medication would only mask the symptoms.
Dr. Ulett's treatment was somewhat unorthodox. I think he had decided that it was necessary to have me become as completely relaxed as possible before he started more traditional therapy. The first few visits with him we would talk for a few minutes then he would attach me to a device which had needles and a slight electric charge would be emitted. I don't think the treatment was exactly acupuncture because the needles did not puncture my skin. But in any event, the method was effective because by the time the doctor came back into the room I felt no tension and could freely talk with him.
The mental prison of blocked, suppressed memories is suffocation. For years, I had no idea that I was not the person all the people in my immediate surrounding told me I was. I sat in Dr. Ulett office, a mother who did not remember that she had a son. A daughter who did not remember her parents. An attorney who didn't remember that I had a law degree. The person seated in that doctor's office was a survivor of one of the most viciously inhumane government funded human experimental programs of the twentieth century. The callous indifference of governmental officials who would never want or allow a person to do to a member of their own family that they so matter of fact did to me.
The sessions with Dr. Ulett were ironically effective as I started to experience anxiety attacks. Wisely and with empathetic patience the doctor taught me how to control the attacks through self-hypnosis and meditation. At this time I had not regained any memories from my past but I had begun to process trauma memories.
Prior to learning how to control my anxiety the intensity of the attacks caused me to call for the emergency nine eleven services often. I had contacted these services so often that one day one of the ambulance drivers jokingly stated, "you know we are not a taxi service." The driver then informed me that it had been decided that since I did not receive medication even when taken to the hospital that the EMT's should try and talk me down. The EMT stated that if I wasn't transported to the hospital that I would not be charged. So I was placed in the back of the ambulance and both of the EMT's asked me to talk about what had caused this particular attack. I told them that in my mind I had heard a gun shot and that the gun blast was very close to my ear and that I could smell the sulfur from the shot.
I told the women that I was confused. I further stated that I had never been around a gun and most definitely not close enough to a gun shot to smell the sulfur. One of the EMT's seemed a little irritated and she said to me, "you have to remember what happened in California." " After all these years are you telling me you still don't remember what happened." The EMT said a name but by then something within me had closed down; when I heard that statement something inside of me turned off. Subliminally, the woman words must have connected with a deeply buried traumatic memory because as she continued to talk I could not hear a word she was saying. The other EMT had taken notice of my mentally retreated state. The power of the protective self. I could see the movement of the EMT's lips but could not hear their words. After a while, the amount of time I could not tell you, I saw one of the EMT's hand being waved like a pendulum in front of my eyes. I don't remember the ambulance attendants walking me into the house or just letting me out of the vehicle but I do remember hearing the phrase, 'boy!! I have never seen someone zone out quite like that."
When Dr. Ulett explained to me that anxiety attacks void of the remembered trauma were ways of processing the emotions. What I didn't know at the time was that in the intensity of anxiety's grip that the processed emotions although experienced, did not yield any memories. Since Dr. Ulett and I agreed that I was to try to retrieve my memories without the use of medication, the doctor explained that in order to get on the other side of the trauma I had to walk through it.
The method Dr. Ulett affected took a little time but proved very effective. The doctor made me a few relaxation tapes, taught me deep breathing, meditation and self hypnosis. With the attacks being at bay, I was looking forward to getting my memories back.
Trauma based amnesia. Phantoms, ghosts, images without forms. Sadness detached from a known cause. Dizziness, nausea, blankness, a paralyzing stare, symptoms.
On my first visit to Dr. Ulett's off he asked, "what brings you here." My reply, "A brown leather suitcase."
The months I spent in Cambridge were like respites. The sessions I had with Dr. Ulett had not elicited any past memories. The doctor did suggest that I go to places I thought I had visited before my memory loss. Between the disturbing magazine article and the nagging feeling that I had something to do with England I took the doctor's advice and left for England.
The inexcusable audacity of ripping an individual from their home, their family their life. The inhales, the exhales, the right to inhale and exhale without governmental infectious incisions.
She saw something we don't want exposed. We have to make sure she never tells One of the ways we can handle this is to discredit her. Then the only people allowed near her are those who will reinforce our lies.
With these covert and cover-up constrictions on my life it is no wonder that when I was making plans to return to Iran that the treat was verbally made to me by a men who had gained entrance into the Iranian Embassy by shadowing me so when I was buzzed into the embassy he was able to come from the place where he had been hiding. The landscaping which surrounded the front entrance of the embassy included large bushes. The bushes were obviously a perfect place for a person to hide.
Once in the embassy, when upon seeing the startled look on the face of the diplomat whom I visited weekly, I immediately became confused. "How did he get in here," the diplomat asked? "He just came in directly behind her when I buzzed, the receptionist answered.
In an indifferent and somewhat nonchalant voice, the stranger looked directly at me and stated, "if you try and go to Iran we will kill your son, then we will bomb Iran."
