I’m still not convinced. I had the audacity to lay into my mother yesterday, in part about the sex abuse of which I speak, yet I am still not convinced. How can these flashbacks of rape, sexual assault, indecent exposure and whatnot be correct? I accept that in traumatic circumstances, people (particularly children) are known to dissociate, but why then did I remember some of it? I’ve always remembered (part of) one rape quite clearly, and I remember various instances of ‘inappropriate touching’ (what a small-sounding euphemism that is) over a period of time. If the other incidents did in fact happen, why did I forget them?
False Memory Syndrome (FMS) is not included in the DSM nor any other official psychiatric text, and is considered a controversial ‘disorder’. In fact, the FMS Foundation sound, broadly speaking, just as mental if not more so than those of us that they seek to diagnose. Nevertheless, as the Wikipedia article says…
Human memory is…highly suggestible, and a wide variety of innocuous, embarrassing and frightening memories can be falsely created through the use of different techniques, including guided imagery, hypnosis and suggestion by others (From aforementioned Wikipedia page)
…so there is every possibility therefore that my memories could have been created. I do not trust myself to have recalled this accurately.
On the other hand…
[Doctor, therapist and child sex abuse expert Charles] Whitfield states that the “false memory” defense [in child sex abuse trials] is “seemingly sophisticated, but mostly contrived and often erroneous.” He states that this defense has been created by “accused, convicted and self-confessed child molesters and their advocates” to try to “negate their abusive, criminal behavior.” (From aforementioned Wikipedia page)
and he continues that
Child sexual abuse is widespread and dissociative/traumatic amnesia for it is common. (Source)
…which I can accept at an intellectual level, but – as stated – I still don’t get why, if this stuff is true, why I remembered parts and dissociated others.
One thing I’ll say in my defence is that no one seems to have elicited these memories in me, as the theory of FMS posits. C has never been suggestive about this material; it was me who brought up the issue first, and as a strand that has developed in the course of psychotherapy, there has never been anything more from him than reference to the last point I made on it. I did see a hypnotherapist a few years ago, and hypnotherapy is one of the means by which false memories can be created, argue proponents of FMS. However, in the end the hypnotherapist and I really didn’t touch upon the sexual abuse topic to any significant extent; I avoided it in all but the most tangential of ways because the therapist knows, and is known to, the McF dynasty. So I don’t think any form of therapy is guilty for these ‘creations’.
Furthermore, there are little details in the memories that would surely be irrelevant and thus not present if they were fabricated by my wild imagination. If you have seen the excellent sci-fi-cum-cop-drama Life on Mars, you may remember a scene at the end of the first episode between Sam Tyler, who believes he’s in a coma-like dream state, and Annie Cartwright:
SAM: What’s that on your hand? Grit…
ANNIE: Sand. I was running up here and I fell against the fire bucket.
SAM: Why would I imagine that? Why would I bother to put that kind of detail in?
ANNIE: You wouldn’t. There’s a real sand bucket and I really fell into it.(Source)
My version of the sand of which Sam and Annie speak in the above scene is stuff like:
- the sensation of the wood of the dog kennel and the angles at which the splinters broke from it
- the holes or gaps between the stones that they have in their yard
- a single bead of water running down the garage wall, having escaped from the drainpipe above.
Little things like that. Meaningless things. Why would my mind create them? What would the psychological function of that be?
The evidence may be in favour of the memories being (at least mostly) real, but I cannot escape the horrors of the severity of the allegations that I am making. I am talking about sustained, systematic child sexual abuse. That is Very, Very Bad Indeed.
If you met my uncle now, you would find him to be (mistake him for?) a benign, inoffensive man. I don’t remember what I thought of him as a child, but whatever the case, he certainly does not seem to me now to have been capable of these heinous acts. Even though this will not go further, in the sense that I will not bring the matter to prosecution or whatever, the mere act of making these accusations – however confidentially – when there is the slightest chance he might be innocent fills me with self-disgust and, frankly, terror. Such allegations as these are surely some of the most offensive than could ever be made.
When I told C this on Thursday, he essentially told me that I’m clutching at straws. He said that because I now see Paedo as a relatively benevolent figure, that I am going out of my way to justify this position and seek to defend him. It is easier to blame myself (in the form of accusations of false memories) than it is to blame Paedo, because I cannot reconcile my present “he’s alright really” thinking with the apparent knowledge of the evil of which he is truly capable. I would add to that, objectively speaking, that surely it is easier to believe I am a falsifying liar than someone who went through such systematic sexual torture as a child.
The worst thing about this whole thing is the bloody uncertainty of it. I want to know what happened to me as a child, and I simply have no way to establish the level of objective reality of most of the specifics. I can hardly walk up to Paedo and ask him; he’d deny any of it, I’m sure, and I would know that claim at least to be a falsehood. Maybe C and I can work through it a bit more, but I am left with the feeling as I type this that I may eventually be able to say that on the balance of probability this happened or that didn’t – but that I’ll never have real, definitive answers.
That profoundly fucking sucks.
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It is very, very common for children to identify with their perpetrator, hon. So as an adult you may be being influenced by those kids. As you know we went thru sustained child sexual abuse over a out a ten year period. Atrocious things were done to us. It is very difficult to realize that we survived it all. Seems improbable but it’s just not all that uncommon. As to the fragmentation of your recall, that is how a child’s brain works to protect you. It does no record information the same way non-traumatic events are recorded. It’s pretty much impossible for you to hav a nomal timestream of recollection. The fact that your brain has recorded things in this way is pretty much proof that you’ve been thru overwhelming trauma. For sxame, we have Sad. Sad’s job is to be deeply deeply sorrowful. It doesn’t know why I feels that way–but this is how she dealt with it all. All in all it is much simpler to avoid and detract than to realize how powerful we are to have gotten thru I all alive. So, that’s our take. No surprise we’re sure hah. xx
Oh sweetie, you are going through a horrible experience. I wish I could provide a map for you to explore these issues with to give you certainty. It’s so very difficult remembering things and half remembering things and wanting to forget things but above all desperately needing to *know*. There are things I remember clearly, things I sort of pixelate out and refuse to remember and things I know happened but don’t remember if that makes sense. It makes such a confusion of half memories, illicit thoughts and doubt. If I can’t remember what happened then how can I be sure it happened? If I remember in a wierd way is it just me making it up or worse, is it me wanting it to have happened? Am I that sick and perverted a person?
Your posts as you explore this have really touched me and I wish I could help. I hope C can guide you through what is a distressing and confusing time and enough sense of what happened is revealed for you to start to deal with it.
Much love and hugs xxxx
Pan, I don’t really have much to add, but i wanted to echo the others- the recording of traumatic memories esp in childhood- they are so very fragmented & disjointed like this. I wish it wasn’t so but the sad reality is that these awful things probably DID happen to you as you remember
I know thats an awful thing to contempltae, but I hope you will take some comfort from the fact we all believe you & don’t think you’re lying or anything like that. You’ve been horribly traumatised & this is just how it comes back.
This must be a horrible time for you like bourach says. I think youre doing remarkably well considering.
Be safe
Kate
Hi,
I think the level of sensory detail in your story would attest to a lived experience rather than an entire reconstruction. When you speak of false memory syndrome it’s as if your intellect is too suspicious to permit your own history to be plausible, as if the analytical approach must intervene…C did not prompt nor create these memories (nor their manifestation in feelings of guilt, shame and the like).
Memory is a pretty complicated and unreliable business anyway.
I also think you were incredibly brave to speak about these things in your session. Surely the struggle, and the sense of shame involved in raising your abuse must imply all the after-effects of trauma? I noticed, too, how close your own sense of castigation and presuming you haven’t experienced trauma or crisis and so on (which you’ve blogged about, feeling perhaps a fraud to be included as a victim of abuse) comes to what you wrote about when reccounting your mother’s dismissal of your experience (namely the notion that you don’t know ‘crisis’ with a subtextual suggestion that you haven’t actually suffered). I wondered if you’d thought of that?
Anyway, this rather long and rambling comment was actually just to say, I wonder if you’ve seen the US HBO show “In Treatment”, because I think you’d like it. It’s a remaking/adaptation of a drama series originally made in Israel about a psychotherapist (Gabriel Byrne, with a stunningly sexy Irish accent; scrap that, you’re in the UK, it might not be striking or attractive to you…I’m from the other side of the world) and his patients. It’s decently done and pretty fun.
Oh and I *love* your writing. It’s terribly funny. I don’t mean that to be trivialising, since you are writing about such intense and challenging matters here, but I do think you write very well.
Clarity will come.
Conscious rumination should be minimised as much as possible.
Purposeful activity, whilst letting the unconscious get on with it’s sifting of the past, brings rewards in the form of occasional floods of emotional insight which can be felt in the moment and let go.
It sounds like these memories have surfaced on their own, without any help or manipulation from others. it is true that memory is never completely accurate, but I’d suggest that these memories of yours do indicate pretty clearly what went on. I know it sucks, and it is terrifying, but let them surface in their own time, and try not to judge yourself for having them.
love and strength to you,
xx
This is my first time here and I have to say, your articles are all very helpfull and informative. I was diagnosed with BPD last summer and my treatment will begin the end of this month. I wish you all the best.
Just wanted to let you know that I am here, listening, and supporting you.
Thank you all for your support and kindness. It really means a lot to me.
*group hug*
Love and thanks. xxx