Dealing With False Memory – 3

To explain false memory; this is an example.

Harriet had a great relationship with her older sister.   When the sister married, every Sunday Harriet took a long bus ride to be with her sister.

When her sister moved farther away, there were phone calls, letters, gifts.

This went on until Harriet went for psychological assessment.   Her therapist decided that her sister abused her as a child.

Never having met the sister, unaware of reality, the therapist made her determination.  Leaving the therapist, Harriet went home and wrote  a ten page vicious letter to her sister.

Communication ended for the next thirty years.  

A mutual friend emailed both and then Harriet’s sister emailed her.  Harriet immediately went into attack mode, going through all the ‘abuse’.

When her sister could prove that certain things never happened, there was silence for a few days. 

Then a peculiar set of cut and pasted comments done so badly that it was clear they were taken from emails Harriet had shared with others, arrived as the ‘conclusion’.

Harriet preferred her false memories of an ‘abusive’ past to reality.