In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.

~ Judith Lewis Herman

Judith Lewis Herman Abuse Abuse Of Power Abuse Survivors Abusers Allegations Attacking Attacking People Backlash Child Abuse Credibility Criminals False Memory Syndrome Myth Lack Of Accountability Perpetrators Power Rape Rapists Recovered Memories Repressed Memories Secrecy Sexual Abuse Silence Silencing Children Silencing Dissent Society Denial Survivor Of Abuse Survivors Survivors Of Abuse Trauma Memories

Besides stage magic props and settings, ritually abusing groups use technology, such as that described by Katz and Fotheringham. Military/political groups have the most sophisticated technologies, and much training or programming is now done with virtual reality equipment. Movies and holograms are used to deceive a child into believing in things that are unreal. When a client says to you “I don't know if it's real; how can it be real?” remember that there are several options, not just two: (1) It happened just as s/he remembers; (2) it did not happen at all; (3) something happened, but due to technology and/or trickery it was not what s/he thinks it was; (4) the thought that the memory must be unreal is itself a program, as described in Chapter Twelve, “Maybe I made it up.p55

~ Alison Miller

Alison Miller Alien Abduction Denial Disbelief Disinformation False Memories False Memory Misinformation Psychology Psychotherapy Real Reality Ritual Abuse Satanic Ritual Abuse Screen Memories Screen Memory Trauma Memories Trauma Memory Unreal

You’re not the same. You’re not supposed to be the same. You’re supposed to be different. This isn’t something you will ever forget.

~ Daisy Whitney

Daisy Whitney Memories Memory Ptsd Rape Trauma Trauma Memories Traumatic Experiences Violence

The traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal form of memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciouness, both as flashbacks during waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep. Small, seemingly insignificant reminders can also evoke these memories, which often return with all the vividness and emotional force of the original event. Thus, even normally safe environments may come to feel dangerous, for the survivor can never be assured that she will not encounter some reminder of the trauma.

~ Judith Lewis Herman

Judith Lewis Herman Flashbacks Memory Nightmares Ptsd Recovered Memories Repressed Memories Trauma Trauma Memories Trauma Memory Traumatic Experiences Traumatic Stress Traumatization Traumatized Triggers

She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why. Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.

~ David L. Calof

David L. Calof Abuse Abuse Survivors Abusive Childhood Abusive Parents Avoidance Child Abuse Child Rape Childhood Abuse Defense Mechanism Denial Denial Of Abuse Denial Of Child Abuse Denial Of Incest Dissociated Amnesia Dissociative Amnesia Fear Of Truth Flashback Flashbacks Healing Healing Abuse Healing From Abuse Healing Insights Incest Intrusive Minimization Minimizing Minimizing Issues Parental Abuse Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Psychological Defence Ptsd Reliving The Past Sadistic Abuse Subconscious Subconscious Mind Survivors Trauma Memories Traumatic Experiences Traumatic Memories Traumatized

The damage and invisible scars of emotional abuse are very difficult to heal, because memories are imprinted on our minds and hearts and it takes time to be restored. Imprints of past traumas do not mean a person cannot change their future beliefs and behaviors. as people, we do not easily forget. However, as we heal, grieve, and let go, we become clear-minded and focused to live restore and emotionally healthy.

~ Dee Brown

Dee Brown Abuse Survivors Emotional Abuse Emotional Health Emotional Pain Emotional Wounds Healing Healing Journey Healing Process Healing The Emotional Self Healing The Past Hearts And Minds Hope For The Future Invisible Wounds Recovery Restoring Happiness Scars Of The Past Trauma Memories Trauma Survivors Traumatic Experiences

Some of the experiences endured by human beings on this earth are virtually unbelievable.

~ Aphrodite Matsakis

Aphrodite Matsakis Abuse Disbelief Doubt Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Ptsd Society Denial Trauma Trauma Memories Traumatic Experiences Traumatized Unbelievable

Dissociation, a form of hypnotic trance, helps children survive the abuse…The abuse takes on a dream-like, surreal quality and deadened feelings and altered perceptions add to the strangeness. The whole scene does not fit into the 'real world.' It is simple to forget, easy to believe nothing happened.

~ Renee Fredrickson

Renee Fredrickson Abuse Survivors Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Depersonalization Dissociated Dissociation Dissociative Amnesia Hypnotic Trance Mental Health Mental Illness Numb Numbness Numbness Quote Perception Of Reality Perceptions Repressed Memories Surreal Surreal Quotes Survivors Trance Trance States Trauma Memories Trauma Memory Unreal Unreality

However, if you do not believe your clients, they may sense your doubt and never fully trust you. As Bruce Goderez (1986), director of a PTSD inpatient unit says, It is important for the clinician and counselor to be willing to be made a fool. In other words, it is better that you believe a client who is lying or distorting the truth than to disbelieve a hurting trauma survivor who may never seek help again if your attitude is one of disbelief or disdain. Even if that client were to continue in therapy, they would never fully trust you.

~ Aphrodite Matsakis

Aphrodite Matsakis Counseling Disbelief Disclosure Doubt Lying Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Psychotherapy Ptsd Trauma Memories Traumatized

People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory and fragmented manner.

~ Judith Lewis Herman

Judith Lewis Herman Atrocities Ptsd Survivors Survivors Of Abuse Trauma Trauma Memories Traumatized

Not knowing trauma or experiencing or remembering it in a dissociative way is not a passive shutdown of perception or of memory. Not knowing is rather an active, persistent, violent refusal; an erasure, a destruction of form and of representation. The fundamental essence of the death instinct, the instinct that destroys all psychic structure is apparent in this phenomenon. . . . The death drive is against knowing and against the developing of knowledge and elaborating [it].

~ Dori Laub

Dori Laub Dissociation Dissociative Not Knowing Trauma Trauma Memories Trauma Memory

Many survivors struggle to believe the abuse happened. They don’t want to believe it. It’s too painful to think about. They don’t want to accuse family members or face the terrible loss involved in realizing “a loved one” hurt them, they don’t want to rock the boat.

~ Laura Davis

Laura Davis Abuse Survivors Avoidance Child Abuse Survivors Denial Denial Of Abuse Denial Of Child Abuse Denial Of Incest Disbelief Facing Reality Parental Abuse Rock The Boat Survivors Survivors Of Abuse Trauma Memories

What most people call spontaneous recall usually involves memories that have been denied, not repressed. The survivor has always been aware that the sexual abuse happened, but he or she has studiously avoided thinking about it. A catalyst sets the memory process in motion, but the essential factor in the memory surfacing is the readiness of the survivor to deal with the reality of abuse.

~ Renee Fredrickson

Renee Fredrickson Abuse Survivors Denial Repressed Memories Trauma Memories

Yolanda Gampel utilizes an expanded concept of the uncanny to outline the results of violence: Those who experience such traumas are faced with an unbelievable and unreal reality that is incompatible with anything they knew previously. As a result, they can no longer fully believe what they see with their own eyes; they have difficulty distinguishing between the unreal reality they have survived and the fears that spring from their own imagination.

~ Nicole Waller

Nicole Waller Denial Derealization Disbelief Ptsd Self Doubt Trauma Memories Traumatic Experiences Traumatized Unreal

Richard Gardner (2004), the creator of ‘‘parental alienation syndrome’’, considers that the ‘‘parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is primarily a disorder of childhood. The false memory syndrome (FMS) is a disorder of young adults, primarily women. They share in common a campaign of acrimony against a parent’’. In reality, these so-called syndromes are both used to discredit the testimony of individuals who claim to have been abused, sexually or otherwise. When adults report that they have recovered memories of childhood abuse, others may claim that they have false memory syndrome. When children do not repress or forget the abuse, if there is no period of amnesia, then some may claim that they have parental alienation syndrome (Ceci & Bruck, 1995; Dallam, 1999).

~ Jenny Ann Ryberg

Jenny Ann Ryberg Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse False Memory Syndrome False Memory Syndrome Foundation Patent Alienation Syndrome Trauma Memories

While some accused and convicted child molesters have inappropriately influenced the media, the public, and many in the clinical and legal professions by claiming that traumatic amnesia does not occur in child sexual abuse, workers in the field of trauma psychology have accumulated solid empirical evidence over the past 100 years that it does occur and is common. Its existence and natural history are documented throughout the clinical literature. from:Traumatic amnesia: The evolution of our understanding from a clinical and legal perspective, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, Volume 4, Issue 2, 1997

~ Charles L. Whitfield

Charles L. Whitfield Amnesia Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Dissociative Amnesia Memory Loss Psychogenic Amnesia Rape Culture Rape Myths Recovered Memory Recovered Memory Therapy Repressed Memory Trauma Memories