In my blog entry yesterday, I kicked off the topic of whether it is possible for a child abuser to “forget” or repress memories of abusing a child. My mother is a person who does not appear to have any conscious memories of having been an abuser or of delivering her own children to a group of ritual abusers. However, I have no question that she carries memories of the abuse at least at a subconscious level.
I wrote about one incident here. I (through an alter part) confronted my mother when I was in graduate school about the sexual abuse. I yelled at her, “You already f@#$ed me as a child. You are not going to f@#$ me as an adult!!!!” Her response was to hang up on me, get out a gun, and strongly contemplate killing herself. That does not sound like a woman with no memory of what she did. If she truly had no memory on any level of what she did, her reaction would have been very different.
Here is another example: During the summer after I graduated high school (after my mother’s sanity snapped from my father’s sudden death), my mother broke down crying at the breakfast table and told me that my 15-year-old sister had been raped a few months ago. Here was the story she told me: My sister and her best friend were at a male friend’s house. He tickled both of them and chased them into the bedroom. He tied them both up to the bed. He raped one while the other was forced to watch. Then, he did the same to the other one. She begged me not to tell my sister and told me that she was getting my sister help.
Several years later, I asked my sister about this incident, and she swore up and down that it never happened. My sister pointed out that both she and her friend were the size of adults and that the friend was a black belt in Judo. A man would have a difficult time restraining both of them without a weapon.
My world was turned on its ear. My mother had provided me with a very detailed accounting and was crying when she told me (something she rarely did). Then, when I recovered a flashback, it all made sense. I wrote about the incident in detail here. Here is a summary of what I recovered in the flashback:
I was three years old the first time my mother performed oral sex on my baby sister in front of me. She took us to the basement and tied us to chairs with my father’s ties. First, she performed oral sex on me while my sister watched. Then, she forced me to watch her do the same to my sister.
Sound familiar?
My therapist strongly suspects that my mother has schizophrenia based on the symptoms I have shared with him. I am also pretty certain that she suffers at the very least from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from child abuse that she has shared with me that she recovered through flashbacks. I don’t know what information she retains in her daily memory about the horrors she inflicted, but I know the truth is in her head based on these incidents as well as others I won’t go into here.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
It is kind of strange but I never thought about abusers not remembering.
My ex-husband once asked my father if what I said about my fathers actions is the truth. My father answered that he was comforting me about my mothers cancer illness and by accident he touched the “wrong” parts. Well what father does that???? He knows exactly what he did but build a wall of lies and excuses around it to make himself look not as guilty as he really is.
That’s how I always thought about abusers. They know what they did but make it look “good”. But I think it is right what you wrote that many react in the way your mother does. “Forgetting” about it is probably a way of dealing with their actions because on one or the other level they must know it is wrong.
I believe my mother tries very hard to forget, but she has called several times and simply shouted on the phone, “You were the experiment! It’s not like you came with a book or anything!”. She has done that at least 5-6 times in my adult life, but doesn’t seem to remember when I’ve asked her about it. I believe she doesn’t remember, but obviously she has her moments of lucidity about what she and my father did.
Lisa
Faith,
Your mom’s reactions sure do seem to indicate that there is strong subconscious knowledge there.
I know a woman who teaches in a school district where apparently there is a lot of child abuse… she says she and the other teachers are constantly having to separate children on the playground who are acting out their abuses on each other.
I sometimes wonder if it is possible that like you described about your mom telling the story of your sister’s rape, that the details of what happened and to whom get all mixed up in their brains due to their own “acting out” and abusing, and then also being the victims when they were young and never working through their own trauma. It seems like there is a good chance that it all get’s mixed up in their subconscious like some kind of bad stew.
The important thing to remember though I think, is not to focus or speculate too much on what “they” are doing or remembering or feeling or what they have gone through. It’s time to quite expecting rational behavior from people who are clearly disturbed or mentally/emotionally broken, and focus that energy into our own healing.
Peace,
mia
I had no success not trying to get into the abusers head. For me it was a “old” desire of the young ones to understand so that they could change and the abusers would love them.
I got out of the way and they explored this desire and not only did we all understand they were not the cause of the abusers being the way they were we were not the cause of what happened to us.
We then understood that we were the cause of us not becoming abusers although it took no effort it is the way we are, we are not like abusers.
That being said it seems to me that abusers create external companions to do what they know is socially unacceptable yet they do not feel is wrong. They also externalize their guilt. That is why they say that I abuse because I was abused.
I expect that no abuser is driven to come forward with what they experienced while abusing. I discount those who get caught and it then becomes in their best interest.
The difference is the “amnesia” is a choice not a result of trauma.
I have no doubt that your mother remembers everything about abusing you and your sister. What is common about her behavior with getting a gun and trying to kill herself is that a lot of people (especially parents) who abuse, realize at some point that the child actually remembers what’s going on, so – busted. The parent then doesn’t know for sure just how much is remembered so, the parent stops the abuse and doesn’t talk about it, or forbids the child to talk about it hoping the child will forget it – cause the child is a child, right? My mother never abused me herself, but I’ll never know if she knew what was happening or to what extent she was involved with “handing me over”. What I do know is that every time I try to discuss it, she creates a huge family crisis, chaos ensues and I’m made out to be insane. She even looked at me once and said, “Oh, come on, how do you know you were hurt, you were just a kid?” When there’s no crisis, she acts like the perfect mother, like nothing ever happened. I believe when I try to talk about it, it’s a reminder to her that I remember, that I know what happened and that scares the crap out of her. My 2 cents turned into a quarter – sorry.
You are the last people that I need to tell how complicated the human mind is. Ultimately it seeks to protect us. Of course if someone actually has something like scizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder, all kinds of things get confused in the brain, and perceptions are so far off what is really happening. Even without having a psychotic disorder though the mind needs to protect itself- even if it is protecting itself from things it should face- because it is just too much, too hard. Does that let the person off the hook? No, not at all. Even if they don’t remember because of the repression/supression of the mind, they will be tormented in one way or another- because they DO know, and it takes so much energy to keep that stuff buried out of their awareness. Aside from the horror a person would have by having their abusive actions come into their rememberance, their is the sheer function of self-preservation at the basic level of “self.” If a person has to admit what they have done, it risks bring on a sense of devastation and disintigration- so they continue to stuff it all, and remember it differently until they can no longer stand the inner dissonance of knowing and not knowing at the same time. I know for people who have been so terribly abused, the desparately need to have that acknowledged by their abusers, and hopefully even see them being repentant. For the abuser though it comes down to their own need for self-preservation. I know all that sounds like the abuser is just choosing their own welfare over the ones they abused again. In many ways that is true, but now it is much more gut level subconscience, survivalist at this level. People dissociate at all ages, they just don’t necessarily develop it into DID after a certain age. Not remembering consciously is highly likely- but they do still know.
I have had to put a great deal of thought into this dynamic for a very different reason that all of you are. I am a therapist, and I work with people with DID. I worked with an amazing lady for a lot of years who had DID. I saw all kinds of wonderful healings happen. My goal was to provide a buffer zone- a safe space in which she could heal. What that meant is that a lot of the “crap” that would have came at her, i took instead. (I’ve always been a strong advocate for my clients). It was a great working relationship with mutual trust and respect. I stood by this client through thick and thin because i believed she had a right to be given a chance to have a life before her life was over (she is around 60 years old). It was the most amazing work of my life, and a solid relationship. Then she integrated. At that point I because enemy number one, and she has done things that have been very hurtful to me- with no explaination, no understanding. I long for there to be some resoluation to this. In many ways it devastated me, not just because of the loss of the positive working relationship, but because I gave up so much to give someone else a chance. So in that sense I feel abused and alone. (And remember that I have a history of PTSD too, with all my own set of triggers) -And I have been left with no answers about what has happened.
So what does this have to do with the subject of abusers not remembering? After spending nearly a year trying to find some peace within myself without having any answers, I think I have come to understand that there are some things that people just can’t face, and because looking at those things feels so threatening, they will distort reality in their minds to whatever extent they have to to protect themselves. In this case i have come to believe that once this woman experienced some level of integration she became aware of so much more about herself and the things that had happened in her life, and to even think about doing the deep work of facing the pain is overwhelming for her. So it is me she has to reject and villainize because of the stuff I know about her, and what she must feel is the risk of me wanting her to look at things she doesn’t want to look at. Of course I wouldn’t do this, but none the less she fears it. I have learned from others that even the mention of my name triggers her.
So the parallel to the situations you are talking about is that you know that someone has something all mixed up in their heads. They have made up different stories to tell themselves to help them not “know” what they already “know,” and anyone who presents a risk of having what they don’t want to remember coming into their consciousness are going to receive further abuse/rejection.
In my case, I desparately want it to be different. But there is nothing I can do to make it different. If the people who abused all of you have now blocked it out of their awareness, it is because they needed to in order to survive. That doesn’t make it OK. The types of abuses that you have experienced cries out for someone to take responsibility for it. But you are not going to be able to make it happen. Maybe they really do remember, and are just being self-protective at the level of pure selfish irresponsibility, or MAYBE they have had to distort, repress, dissociate, etc. becaues if they had to “know” what they “know” they fear they couldn’t even survive. For those of you though who really need your abusers to have accountability, rest assured that they are having their own kind of accountability- within themselves. The dissonance of knowing and trying to not know at the same time is excruciating, and zaps energy. It makes their lives and the images they are trying to present all a sham. Whether finding justice is an overt direct process or something more dark and insidious, it does happen to those who have perpetuated abuse. The opening line in the book “The Road Less Traveled” is “Mental Health means facing as much truth as possible.” So those of you who are seeking your own truth are much more healthy than the abusers who are hiding from it.
Sorry for being lengthy. You hit a point of passion for me.
I have been thinking about this all day. The abusers that I know of never do anything wrong not just the abuse. They may get caught at something and admit it for a while and then they rewrite history so that they have never made a mistake.
A classic is when someone says “I was not living up to my values.” Yes they were and it is your values that needed to change.
They never come out and say. “I screwed up.” As close to sorry as they get is I am sorry you see it that way.” Or in a pinch “I over reacted”.
I promise to be brief this time. My understanding of this, both professionally, and in myself because I have struggled so much with sense of self issues, is that when someone feels like nothing is their fault, it is really much the opposite- they fear that things are not only their fault, but that there is something deeply wrong with them, and facing that is just too much. People who are diagnosed with narcisstic personality disorder really don’t believe they are all that perfect- they are deeply insecure and fear that it will be seen, so they act just the opposite. People who are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder often act “wacko” in a variety of ways, but get triggered by criticism, or even a simple comment taken negatively. That is because doing something wrong is basically the same thing to them as “being” something wrong. – And that is so totally devestating. In either case you get a lot of what sounds like defending or excuses. What it really is is protecting the “self” that feels so vulnerable. Even in people without personality disorders, they often feel they must “live up to something”- they tend to be judgmental of others. As soon as they act in a way that they are normally judgemental of others, they get very defensive, and then will use statements like that they weren’t living up to their values. What they really mean is that they can’t admit that they are really like those “other people” whom they judge.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the source of all hurt (toward ourselves and toward others) comes from a basic fear that we are flawed or inadequate in some way. I may be talking like a therapist, but I am really speaking from the part of me that knows my own dark side, and has experienced the dark side of others. There is healing from this stuff, but we each have to find our own path. Blessings to all.
[...] an Abuser to “Forget” the Abuse? but only introduced the topic. Yesterday, I wrote about the Evidence of My Mother/Abuser’s Subconscious Memory of Abuse. Today, I am going to take my best stab at the [...]