Posted by Carol (AG) on March 16, 2004 at 20:22:23
In Reply to: Re: hmm... very interesting - what do you think about this? posted by susie on March 16, 2004 at 14:06:53:
Due to some things going on behind the scenes to which I recently became privy, I felt a strong need to say something cautionary about the danger of making accusations without corroboration.
I realize that talking about false memory syndrome was coming out of far left field, but I had to start somewhere, so I started with something I knew about and could easily intellectualize. The processes of childhood memory formation and related issues of adult memory recall were the very first thing I was asked to study when I told my graduate advisor I wanted to do research in childhood trauma.
And this is the truth about who I am: When I talk about things that strike as close to home as child sexual abuse, I will at times distance myself from the feelings (desensitize) by intellectualizing & objectifying. It's a way I have learned to cope with intensely emotional topics.
It isn't easy for me to talk in a forum like this about my own experience of sexual abuse in childhood. However, I do know how to set myself to be challenged, and when I am challenged--I am able to drop the defensive posture and talk more directly from the heart and less from the head.
There is so much history and so many personal sensitivities that I do not know about, and it truly scares me at times to be involved in this level of discussion with people I have not met face-to-face and cannot look in the eyes when I share my thoughts and concerns.