False memory syndrome

[pjthompson]

When I was young I had a traumatic experience. And no, I’m not going to talk about it here because it’s my experience and deeply personal. I kept it to myself for three decades until after years of therapy I finally built up enough trust to speak of it. This was not a repressed memory, it was one I had always had, I just didn’t tell anyone about it because of a toxic mix of shame and fear. After telling my therapist, I told the people I was closest to and they helped me heal, but I’m done talking about it. Because if I am allowed to speak of it if I want to, to whomever I choose, then I am surely allowed to keep silent about it.

I only bring it up now because I want to talk about false memory syndrome. You see, there are things about my traumatic event that I know absolutely happened. But the tricky part is, there are other things surrounding this event that I know absolutely never happened. The insidious part is, in my mind and in my spirit, when those images and memories pop up, they are as real as the stuff that really did happen, even though I’ve proven to myself they are false. Because I’ve lived with this for a long time, when they pop up I can tell them firmly, “You’re not real.” I try to “gray them out” in my mind’s eye—but I accept that they will be there for as long as I live. Or at least until this current configuration of my brain exists.

It’s pathetically easy to plant false memories into almost anyone’s mind. The younger a person is when the attempt is made, the stronger and more tenacious the false memory will be—but even adults are not immune to false memory creation.

I hate it. It calls everything I’ve ever experienced into question. That’s why, whenever I have an incident, I go over it again and again, obsessively. I return to the place where it happened to make sure I was seeing the terrain correctly. If possible, I call in other people to either verify or deny, confirm or shrug helplessly. I pick everything apart, endlessly.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more accepting. I accept that the human mind has more in common with a hall of mirrors than a straight look into a glass. As far as I know, I only have the one false memory—but that’s the tricky part about them, isn’t it? Still, I try not to live in denial of all my experiences because that way lies madness. These days I accept, verify if possible, and move on.

Yes, I know I’ve spoken of having a number of extraordinary experiences, and admitting to having even one false memory calls them all into question, even to myself. Fortunately, I’ve had a number of these experiences in the company of others, or confirmed by others outside my own head, or confirmed by subsequent events, to know that sometimes weird stuff just happens to me.

But there will always be that niggling kernel of doubt, that gray area in my mind and spirit, that says this happened when it most assuredly did not. It’s a peculiar agony. It’s also my hedge against being a true believer in anything. Or anyone. I have yet to figure out if that’s a tragedy or a fail safe.

Comments

[mount_oregano]

I've kept a diary since I was a teenager, and I've discovered that my memory is faulty. Exactly how I lot my virginity, for example -- not a traumatic story, but what I recalled was nicer.

I think that's the thing. Sometimes we remember things as they should have been, maybe better, maybe worse, but the more fitting story. We are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and there lies the truth about ourselves. Who are we? The rest of "reality" exists only for that purpose.

[pjthompson]

Oh yes, we've all done that. We tend to round off the corners of our memories. Make a smoother narrative, as you say. I don't have any problem with that kind of unconscious conflating, and those are not the memories that make me question my reality.

What I was talking about here are memories that are implanted in us, sometimes by a leading line of questioning by someone who is helping you deal with the trauma. Humans tend to lean into that kind of questioning to give the questioner what they want and once that imaginal process happens there's a kind of "that must be the way it happened" response. Once that's implanted in the imagination, it can become just as real as the rest of the experience. That's why I provided the click through to show the process of false memory creation leading to false confessions in criminal cases. Given the right situation and the right stressors, "fake news" can be planted in human brains quite easily.

And that's not even counting rationalization. I read a study once (and unfortunately, I couldn't find it when I looked just now) that said the average human being begins rationalizing any piece of received information within around 15 seconds of receiving it in order to make it fit their worldview.

Which explains Trumpism, I guess.

[wayfaringwordhack]

It’s a peculiar agony

That is an apt way of describing it. And it is very frightening.

[pjthompson]

Who we are is a thin crust over a vast abyss.

I'm making it worse, aren't I? >:-D

[notasupervillain]

Hugs. I can't even imagine how that would be.

Would it help to think of it as a dream? I have some memories that I'm pretty sure were dreams that I stored as memories, but it's been so long that I no longer know. And a dream is a real thing that didn't happen in the real world. To quote a movie that I quite love, dreams are real as long as they last.

I dunno. Sometimes reframing the tricks my brain plays on me helps. Sometimes it doesn't.

[pjthompson]

Actually, for decades I put the memory on a shelf, not forgotten, but oblique, only glimpsing it out of the corner of my eye. It was only when I turned around and faced it head on that I began to heal. You don't ever heal completely from trauma—it will always drive my behavior somewhat—but now I recognize the cause of those behaviors and have overcome many of them.

The false memory syndrome causes me more chagrin at this point. I will never get completely beyond that feeling of having to constantly question and verify certain memories.

[notasupervillain]

I agree, I didn't mean to treat your actual trauma experience as a dream. I meant that a dream might be a good analogy for the false memory. Dreams are real in that you remember them, and they affect your waking life, but unreal in that no one else experiences them.

Acknowledging actual experiences is good if that is helping you heal.