Fake memories?

[Aydel]

I was chatting with DD2 the other day about bringing up children, specifically her and her sister when they were little. She said to me “You used to hit us all the time to make us behave.”

I was horrified - the only time I smacked either of them was DD1’s hand with the fish slice when I was cooking and she was trying to touch the frying pan. DD2 “remembers” me pulling down her trousers and smacking her bottom. She claims this happened at home and specifically when I picked her up from nursery on a few occasions. I said that it categorically didn’t happen. She just said “OK, if that’s what you say.”

She also said she used to scream and cry and refuse to go back to boarding school on a Sunday night. This also isn’t true! She was always quite happy about it, and slept all the way to school. It was never an issue.

She’s 23 now. I asked her what other “discipline” she remembered, and she remembered being taken home from a restaurant when she was about 4, because she kept getting down and running around (true). And also being made to clean her bedroom wall when she had scribbled on it (also true). But I’ve never hit either her or her sister! I asked her sister, and she said that neither I nor DH ever hit her or her sister, and confirmed that DD2 didn’t cry when she went back to school. Yet DD2 is adamant that this happened, and it makes me sad and worried.

Memory is indeed a strange thing. I had conversation with my late mum about when I had to cycle to work everyday when I first started work. She said that I didn't, I went on the bus. I was convinced that I did. She said just think about it, it would have been 20 miles each way and just not doable. When I thought about it I realised she was right, I couldn't have managed that five days a week as a 16 year old. But my head still tells me I did and I can still vividly remember parts of the journey.

I did cycle to work after I married but that only took me 20 minutes each way.

And remember there are 3 sides to every story...

Your side, her side and the truth which will be somewhere in the middle

My sister is the exact same. She literally just enjoys being the victim in every scenario and enjoys making up awful stories

Even in situations shes created, shes the victim in it. It's ridiculous and I wont spend time with her because she lies about so much stuff

@ButWhatAboutTheBees I can say that she didn’t cry before going back to school because I was with her and she didn’t. We used to cook lunch, bake a cake for her to take back to school, pop up to Oxford Street if she needed anything for school or wanted to go shopping. Then we’d come back, she’d pack, we’d get in the car and go. She’d fall asleep because she had spent most of the night before Skyping her mates in the US, so she was almost jet lagged. If she had said at any time she wasn’t happy or didn’t want to board, we’d have listened and moved schools.

And I really didn’t ever hit her! My mother wasn’t averse to giving me a good walloping and I was determined never to do the same.

@YoureALizardHarry11
Your parents are amongst your earliest influences yes. But they can't protect you from all other influences. Scary things on tv. Mean sibling, scary looking aunt. Some random thing that happened at nursery that for some reason stuck in your mind in a twisted way. A house move that had some peculiar effect on you even though it was very standard. A hallucination you had when you had a virus. So many Thungs.

That's such an over used bit of nonsense. There is her truth. The ops truth and THE truth which may be the same as hers or the ops or in the middle. Or nothing resembling anyone's recollection.

You were not with her 24/7 to know for certain she didn't cry alone at night before going back...

You also don't know for certain that she would have spoken up. Just because she did when she was younger doesn't mean that being older she felt the same. Maybe worried about telling you because of the money you spent. Or maybe because what was happening at the school was something she felt ashamed about.

You're convinced she's lying about memories she's sure of but won't entertain that maybe your memory is the one wrong. Maybe because you were so determined you'd never hit your own children that your mind protected you by "deleting" the memory.

So there are 3 sides...

The truth will be where the truth is. There is no stating that it will be 'somewhere in the middle'. It might align with her version or the OPs version or bear no resemblance to anyone's version.

The OP says she never hit any of her dc because she has always been very anti snacking due to being smacked herself. So it WOULD have been a big deal to her.

Memory is notoriously unreliable - look at the work of Elizabeth Loftus who has spent her academic career looking at how memory can be influenced.

The most striking thing I remember is an experiment she did where she interviewed college students, and their families, and then invented a scenario where the student had been lost in the shopping mall as a young child. In no cases had there been any incident like this (confirmed by the family interviews). But all of the people in the group exposed to the false narrative started reporting 'memories' of it. And by the time it had come up 3 times, the 'memories' had become really elaborate - people reported remembering being allowed to wear the hat of the security guard who found them, or the colour of the jumper they were supposedly wearing.

The other seminal work is the Ramona case in California where someone 'remembered' sexual abuse by her father and the therapist working on uncovering these repressed 'memories' with her ended up being sanctioned.

I think it is best to just say to your DD that her memory does not match those of anyone else but you are sorry if she feels upset about anything in her childhood.

Almost all drug addicts have a history of trauma.

Exactly! They can protect you, and if they somehow don’t, or didn’t respond to your needs then that’s how people end up so screwed up etc.

People always say it’s not always the parents fault, which while true, they don’t realise how much of an influence upbringing has on your life trajectory.

Like in my situation, I was bullied in the family home, which meant I grew up with no self esteem, feeling worthless, I then picked shitty friends and relationships and the disrespect continued, which then shaped me further. That’s how it happens. I’ve since (thank god) realised this and changed my whole perspective and changed as a person, but not everybody can, or understands how.

If she had said at any time she wasn’t happy or didn’t want to board, we’d have listened and moved schools.

She's trying to talk to you now and you aren't listening though? Crying before going back to school doesn't mean she regrets her whole schooling experience so could it be you're reading into her comments too much and extrapolating things she didn't say.

Don't get me wrong, I believe you about the smacking and I believe you didn't know she cried but your version doesn't really add up either. Teenage girls cry loads. If you never heard her cry then she must have done it quietly away from you. But it's bizarre to think she just didn't cry any weekend of her teenage years.

Absolutely spot on.

Could she have heard about/ seen these things happening to someone else, and mixed them in with her own memories? That does happen. I remember reading about someone who was convinced that his earliest memory was of how, at about 18 months, he had pneumonia, was very ill, and there were constant visits from doctors. When, as a young adult, he mentioned this to his mother, he learned that this had never happened to him, but had happened to his older brother, before he himself was born. Evidently, he had heard a lot of conversation about it as a child, and had integrated it into his own memories.

@Oneofthesurvivors - That may be so, but the stories he tells about our family are complete fabrication. Including homes & cities we never lived in, and family members that don't exist

My kids sometimes say things that just didn't happen. To them it's a 'memory' but I actually think it's their perception/imagination/something they saw in a movie or wished happened. DD particularly - sometimes it's outright bullshit 😆

They absolutely embellish things. Like today my son said how I 'always' forced him to eat his dinners. He said 'You know, When it was eat or die' 🙄

One of the biggest bones of contention between me and my husband when they were growing up was that I wasn't very strict with mealtimes at all and to this day I often make three separate dinners so who knows? He must be traumatised by the time I said 'Three more pieces of pasta then you can be done' 😆

Please don’t quote Elizabeth Loftus, she is an apologist for paedophiles.

Which OP said AFTER this comment was made so...

What is your evidence?

@ButWhatAboutTheBees so what? Just because someone says something after something else it doesn't make it untrue.

Whatever I say @ButWhatAboutTheBees you are going to twist things and make out thatI hit her. I said in my first post that I had never hit either of them and I stand by that.

Yes, teenage girls cry, but her crying was always about falling out with friends or not being invited to parties. She never once mentioned school as an issue in itself.

Anyone genuinely interested just needs to google false memories. There is a plethora of information about it. Why and how it can happen. Studies into it. Experiments and studies into it.

Similar to false witness reports where people are categorical about what they are describing they saw when it is proven they couldn't have seen what they describe because a)their physical position made it impossible for them to have actually witnessed the event b) they were proven wrong.

Sorry, to add to my earlier comment, no they can’t protect you from everything, but provided your needs are mostly met then you build the resilience to not be as affected by outside influences. If you know your parents are there to protect you/ you can tell them your worries and they will be supportive, then when you do experience bad times you are more equipped to deal with it without being traumatised to the point a scary film sticks in your head and makes a false memory about your parents being abusive.