Written by Jen, April 2025
Trish Fotheringham (1960-2020) was a mind control survivor and activist. Her passion was spreading understanding, hope, and inspiration by educating people about the powerful tool of Understanding Dissociation and the Spectrum of Dissociative Effects.
I was blessed to have Trish as a close friend on this earth for 20 years.
Background
In her mid-twenties, Trish attended college to become a social worker. She had no idea she was a survivor of mind control. The social work program required students to work with their own beliefs and trauma, in the hopes it would make them more effective social workers and less likely to cause harm (for example through racist beliefs, or unconsciously projecting their own unhealed trauma onto clients). Soon, Trish was overwhelmed with flashbacks of mind control and other abuses. It was only through sheer determination that she finished the course work and graduated.
Trish’s mother was part of what Trish called a “matriarchal healing magic cult” with a shadow side. Her father was part of a Scottish patriarchal, clan-based, Druidic cult. Growing up during the Cold War, Trish also had mind control programming that she suspected was done by the CIA and/or a military group.
Trish referred to herself as a demonstration model. She believed her inner system was created to show other perpetrators how thoroughly a person could be split into numerous personalities, unaware of each other, who were trained to do exactly as they were told. She was forced to take part in torture and abuse including sex trafficking, child porn and snuff films, and horrific rituals.
Throughout her life, Trish suffered from a variety of health challenges deliberately created by the abuser groups. Lung collapses routinely put her in the hospital as a child and young adult.
One of her favorite stories was how, at the age of 12, she organized a protest at the hospital where she was staying. She led the other children on the ward in a march for better treatment and conditions. Her activism started young!
The Path to Healing
Trish desperately tried to find support when her flashbacks started in college. However, like many survivors, she found that good help was hard to find. She thankfully refused to give up. Eventually, Trish found LIFE Seminars (Living In Families Effectively). She credited their parenting programs with helping her learn how to be a better, loving parent to her young son. In the 1990s, a handful of years after she started looking, she also found the first of several therapists who helped her in her healing.
Through her healing journey, Trish came to a deep understanding of programming and how it works that is unusual in survivors. She also had the ability to describe dissociation and programming in accessible language anyone could understand.
Activism
Trish and I met when we co-organized Reaching for Rainbows: An Educational Art Show many years ago. The show’s theme was art as a tool to heal from trauma, and 11 trauma survivors shared art and writings from their healing journeys. Trish exhibited her journal art in the show – she also created a series of posters on what dissociation is, how to recognize it, and how to help. She believed that understanding dissociation was key to solving many of the problems in the world. Little did she know that Reaching for Rainbows would shape the focus of her life for the next 18 years.
A number of opportunities to educate about dissociation came Trish’s way after Reaching for Rainbows. One particularly empowering experience was when she had a booth about dissociation in a Mental Health and Recovery Fair. It was in the lobby of a psychiatric ward where she later realized much of her programming had happened.
In the years to come, Trish wrote pieces for a variety of books on RA/MC, including:
- Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century, edited by Randy Noblitt and Pamela Perskin Noblitt
- She also made a YouTube video of a portion of her contribution, The Moral of the Story
- Becoming Yourself by Alison Miller
- Healing the Unimaginable by Alison Miller
- We Have Come Far by Ani Rose Whaleswan
She also created a series of DVDs with Ellen Lacter, which can be viewed for free online:
A Survivor Speaks Out: Healing from Ritual Abuse and Mind Control, Survivor Trish Fotheringham Speaks Out
In the years before she died, Trish started a business consulting with therapists and RA/MC survivors called More Than An Idea (MTAI). The core of her website, with some great information on dissociation and how to help, now lives on through GrassRoots:
Understanding Dissociation and the Spectrum of Dissociative Effects and
Dissociation-related Support
Legacy
Trish helped many survivors start to understand and undo their programming. She also made significant contributions to the general public’s understanding of dissociation and trauma, including RA/MC.
However, for me, her legacy is much more personal. Trish deeply believed that ”Love is the Answer.” And, like so many survivors, including myself, Trish struggled to love herself. Because of her health issues, she spent much of her life outside of the workforce, living on PWD (Person with Disabilities) payments. She often felt inadequate and worthless, saying she was contributing little to society.
Shortly before she died of lung cancer, Trish’s friends held an online celebration of life for her. They told her how much they loved her and how much of an impact she had on their lives, and she was finally at a place in her life where she could fully receive it. I still remember her looking me straight in the eye and saying that, unlike for her, she hoped it didn’t take me until I was dying to love myself.
Whenever I feel worthless or inadequate, like I am not doing enough, I remember Trish. And I remember how we never truly know all the light and love we spread in the world just by being ourselves. Regardless of whether your contributions to the world are public, like some of Trish’s, or private, where you are simply trying to heal and perhaps treat yourself with a little more love, you matter. May Trish’s legacy live on: May you also come to know your inherent worth, and to love your own unique light.
The information in this article was taken from Trish’s A Survivor Speaks Out DVD series, a private video of Trish’s celebration of life where she shared an overview of her life, and from conversations Trish and I had over the course of our friendship.
BY OURSELVES | ABOUT OURSELVES | FOR OURSELVES | FOR EACH OTHER | 