The Silencers

Who are they?

First The Facts....

Disosociative Amnesia (often miscalled repressed memories)  is a common protective mechanism  when faced with the unbearable-with terror, helplessness, torture, horror, abuse, trauma, with that which would break the mind if held in consciousness.

The phenomena of what are called "repressed" memories ( more accurately called dissociative amnesia) is something that has been observed, well established, and recognized among segments of any population that  has experienced severed trauma, regardless of cultural, religious,  or racial make-up,   from Vietnam War Veterans, to survivors of Torture, Holocaust Survivors, to those who have endured Childhood or Adult Sexual/Physical,  or Emotional  Abuse.

Parts or all  of a trauma can be  forgotten. Even as it is happening many of we survivors of abuse "went someplace else", dissociated,  it is the way we were able to continue to live, to exist. You might also call it a 'spliting' off.

Then when it was safe, as an adult, many of us began to remember. .

With me, it came in bits and pieces, over a period of the last 8 years. I am still remembering.

I have remembered what was blocked from my mind until the age of about 37-that I had been sexually abused  between younger than the age of 2 and as old as 29. At first I only remembered one or two people, gradually over time, as I was stronger and ready, to my shock each time, I came to recall a total of six abusers.

The bits and pieces are often like still photos, often a small detail is all I see, other times  I see it as though watching from outside, seeing both myself and the abuser (s).Some of the bits and pieces are  loosely join together to form a sort of narrative, with gaps.

A smell,  a sound, the time of year, many things can  trigger strong reactions of fear,  revulsion, or flashbacks.  Other times, a raw emotion of pain, seemingly unattached to anything, will come at the same time every day for a period of time,  then I will remember  what the feeling is attached to, and later on, sometimes months or years later, more details may surface.

I can now remember sitting at my desk in grade school, doing my work, with no memory of the invasions that had happened the day or night before, or that might await me later that  day. I see myself sitting there, as though I am an observer of my childhood self. The protective mechanisms of the brain are amazing,  I like to think of it as God watching over our very selves.......

The recent  appearance of a group who denies the validity of these well established truths  is nothing new . There have been other times in the last hundred years  when the essential truth of recovered memories and related  symptoms of unresolved traumas were recognized-and then a backlash appeared, a way to try and stop the truth.  This latest group essentially says that horrors are never forgotten, never blocked off to protect the vulnerable mind from knowing the unbearable. In essence, the best that I understand them, they deny the very existence of dissociative amnesia, and of recovered memories.

"The conflict between knowing and not knowing, speech and silence, remembering and forgetting, is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. This conflict is manifest in the individual disturbances of memory, the amnesias and hypermnesias [inabilities to forget], of traumatized people. It is manifest also on a social level, in persisting debates over the historical reality of atrocities that have been documented beyond any reasonable doubt. Social controversy becomes particularly acute at moments in history when perpetrators face the prospect of being publicly exposed or held legally accountable for crimes long hidden or condoned. This situation obtains in many countries emerging from dictatorship, with respect to political crimes such as murder and torture. It obtains in this country with respect to the private crimes of sexual and domestic violence."

Herman J. L. Herman, from Crime and memory. In the Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 23, 5-17

The organization called "The False Memory Syndrome Foundation" is composed, I believe, mainly of accused child abusers and molesters, and their supporters, including a few scientific advisors. Since at the heart of abuse is the need to re-enact what was done to oneself, most if not all abusers are in a state of denial about their OWN original traumas, and about the devestation of the traumas they have or are inflicting on others.

"Ceci, Bronfrenbrenner, Eckman, and Shepard were among 17 researchers who coauthored a statement objecting to the term false memory syndrome as 'a non-psychological term originated by a private foundation whose stated purpose is to support accused parents.' They urged, 'For the sake of intellectual honesty, let's leave the term 'false memory syndrome' to the popular press'" -Kenneth Pope

My own view is that offenders are people who were traumatized themselves, and are acting out their inner pain, and are in need of intensive long term treatement. So long as there is even the possibility of continuing in denial, most if not all will stay there, and may be abusing others in the present.

The safety and well being of both adult survivors and of children who are now being abused are jeapordized by attempts to invalidate adult survivors and interfere with the very integrety and privacy of the therapist-client relationship.If ALL adults who have experienced dissociative amnesia and  recovered memories are disbelieved, if it is said that no such thing as Recovered Memories exists, and that is precisely what the FMS is attempting to accomplish, the message is  sent  to current abusers that when their victims, children now, later recall what was done to THEM, they will not be believed either. The very safety of children in the PRESENT and FUTURE are involved.
 

Who Started the FMSF?

Peter and Pamala Freyd are the founders of the FMSF. They had two daughters, Jennifer and Gwendolyn. As an adult, Jennifer  recovered memories of  her father sexually abusing her as a child. (1*)Their younger daughter (Gwendolyn) had long ago chosen to distance herself from her parents.  While Peter and Pamala are husband and wife, they are also step siblings, who briefly lived in the same house as such.  After watching a PBS Frontline documentary in 1995, which was biased heavily in favor of the FMS, William, Peter's brother,  wrote this letter to Frontline:

"Peter Freyd is my brother. Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law. Jennifer and Gwendolyn are my nieces.

There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters. Peter said (on your show "Divided Memories") that his humor was ribald. Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.  The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There is no such thing as a False Memory Syndrome. It is not, by any normal standard, a Foundation. Neither Pam nor Peter have any significant mental health expertise.  That the Flase Memory Syndrome Foundation has been able to excite so much media attention has been a great surprise to those of us who would like to admire and respect the objectivity and motives of people in the media. Neither Peter's mother (who was also mine), nor his daughters, nor I have wanted anything to do with Peter and Pam for periods of time ranging up to more than two decades. We do not understand

why you would 'buy' such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation you made of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own diificult reality...

I would advance the idea that 'Divided Memories' hurt victims, helped abusers, and confused the public. I wonder why you thought these results would be in the public interest that Public Broadcasting is funded to support."

After hearing of Jennifer Freyd's story, 2 professional FMS advisory board members quit. More telling still, two FMSF advisory board members (no longer part of the board ) were quoted in an interview as saying pedophilia can be a healthy lifestyle, in fact, the person who seems to have invented the phrase "False Memory Syndrome", Ralph Underwager, Ph.D,made this horrifying set of comments in the Netherlands publication, Paidika:The Journal of Paedophioia:

In answer to the question :"Is choosing pedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individual", he said,"Certainly it is responsible....Pedophiles can boldly and courageiously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a therologian and as a theologian I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A pedopile can say:'This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."

Once these comments were made known to the public, he resigned from the board, without the foundation giving specific reasons for this resignation.

"When victims now risk speaking the truth of their experience to any of their families, they not only run the risk of being invalidated and denied by their abusers and co-abusers, but some of these perpetrators will also receive support for their denial from the FMSF and other enablers with similar views. These enablers are subtle and sophisticated........

When the first few survivors of sexual abuse by Father James Porter told of their memories, Porter denied having sexually abused any of them. And he had numerous enablers and co-abusers who supported his denial, including many authority figures in the Catholic Church. Over time, 130 of his victims had spoken up, and in 1993 he admitted to having abused at least 28 innocent children. We could even say that Porter and abusers like him, who are dissociated from their own pain or who deny their behavior, are the ones with the real 'false memory syndrome.''
-Charles Whitfield, M.D., in Memory and Abuse

Various Sources Books and Links