Did Emdr Create False Memories? (first Post And My Story)

[Tropic Loner]

Hi, this is my first post, forgive me if I'm not doing this right. When I was 17 (I'm 20 now), I started going to therapy for some sexual mishaps that had happened with my first boyfriend. When I was telling my therapist my story, it also came up that my father had been verbally and emotionally abusive, I have not seen him since I was 13. She asked if he had ever abused me sexually, and I said no. But for the rest of the week I couldn't get the question out of my head. I obsessed over it. It just made so much sense. At my next session, I told my therapist about my worries, and per her suggestion I tried EMDR for the first time. Through EMDR, I remembered him standing in my room, then he pushes me over (I'm laying in bed on my side facing him when he comes in), and gets on top of me. Although nothing else came up in the emdr, this was enough to convince me that I was indeed sexually abused. Since then, I have done brainspotting around the same memory, but only to process it, and it did not lead to the recovery of other memories. I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was hospitalized for being suicidal. As time has gone on, I have had memories come up of single moments in which I am being raped, but they feel more like a dream than reality. I have also experienced memories of being whipped across the back, but I do not have any scars, so I know this is memory is false. Recently, I have become concerned that I may have never been sexually abused. The same week I started obsessing over it, my girlfriend disclosed to me that she had been raped, and I almost wonder if it was a kind of sick copy-catting. Furthermore, I wonder if my therapist could have been "leading" me through the emdr to make it seem like I was sexually abused (Other therapists have told me it was unwise that she push me into emdr so quickly, and I wonder if she just wasn't the best therapist. I don't know though, because I have had more therapists than I could count and she was the only one I liked). Like I said, I have no evidence. Last year I fell apart, and had to learn to live with my PTSD. It's hard not to still wonder though, if I've made the past three years infinitely harder for myself by making up a sexual trauma. I have always known that my father used to come into my room, I know this for sure, because he broke a small statue in my room one night, and one night he spilled thumb tacks all over my floor. The statue still has a crack, and that is my only proof of my trauma (Although I know I did not repress the memories of the broken statue, I did not think about them or realize what an integral part of my story they were until I was 19). When I look back on my story in my head, it seems like so obvious that I made it up. But even as I type this, I realize it does sound like it could have easily been real. And I guess at the very least, the fact that it's believable at all sucks a lot. My father was an alcoholic, and my mom told me that he used to come into my room because our doors were right next to each other, and he was just drunk, sleepy, and confused. I'd like to think this is true but I have a hard time believing it. Thoughts? Do you think that emdr and my therapist could have convinced me that I was sexually abused when I wasn't?

 

[Deleted member 20280]

Welcome to the forum @Tropic Loner .

I personally (and this is only my own perception) do not believe that EMDR creates false memories, I feel that some of the details may be mixed up and that parts of the memory may be distorted but I firmly feel that EMDR unlocks the repressed memories that we find too hard to face or deal with.

EMDR for me was life threatening as it unlocked way too many traumas all at once. I had several memories surface that were distorted in detail before I had to stop taking my sessions.

I also send a :hug: from the UK if you accept them.

Laurie

 

[Tropic Loner]

@Mr Laurie thanks for responding. I guess I have to say I agree with you. I just don't know how to trust what comes up, I think distortions happen really easily. I also completely understand not being able to have emdr sessions, after three brainspotting (basically emdr) sessions I was in the hospital on suicide watch again. Sometimes I think trauma therapists try their best, but simply can't handle trauma that's too heavy. It's pretty pathetic on their part, in my opinion. Thanks for the love!

 

[Ronin]

Well, I'd ask myself, if what you remember was made up (not saying it is, not saying it isn't), what have you gained from it, and what can you gain from it to the future?

Unless you're in the middle of serious consequences dealings and / or ruining relationships based on false accusations, how you interpret your history and how much has something traumatized you is imho rather personal thing.

Doesn't mean it's useless for discovering options and moving through life succesfully. There can be something to be gained that's very realistic & life altering even in the wildest mess brains can come up with.

 

[Rainydaiz]

Hi Tropic Loner. I am struggling with similar issues- I had flashbacks and night terrors and a strong aversion to being around my dad and lots of other small symptoms that made me start to think he has sexually abused me. And I swing from thinking definitely this happened to I'm making it up. Everyone who I have told believes that it happened based on what I have told them and I find it very helpful when I struggle to believe it to ask them did it really happen. And they say yes and usually say why. They say it is obvious from the outside. Now reading your post was extremely helpful to me because it is so obvious from the outside that it happened (in my opinion). And it is so obvious from the outside why you would struggle to believe it. And it's so easy for me to believe it for you. I believe you. Trust yourself and your instincts and listen to that small voice inside telling you it happened. Thank you for posting. You've helped me to believe myself. I will take my own advice and come back to this post every time I'm struggling to believe it. Take care.

 

[Vanilla1983]

Hello, I had my first session today and she mixed it with a simatic therapy which was less intense. I am trying to deal with anxiety. Anyway, it was all fun and games as this is new and with my eyes closed I made jokes And was serious at times. I was told to say what pops into my head and how I feel. So about 40 minutes in ended up describing my childhood home which as a child I was convinced was haunted. This was not my intention. But as I described what I was seeing (dark basement and a shadow) my eyes went crazy twitchy and I started to say "what is happening?" And before I knew it, my eyes were wide open and I started to cry. I looked at my therapist and she had wide eyes because of how fast it all happened and confirmed that I didn't intentionally open my eyes. I asked her why my eyes opened like having a nightmare and she responded "it was something my brain wasn't ready to process and my body's way of coping". Does this sound right?

 

[Broken-hearted]

Hi, this is my first post, forgive me if I'm not doing this right. When I was 17 (I'm 20 now), I st...

Hi Tropic Loner,

While I've experienced PTSD myself, I actually ran across your post while researching if there was any connection between EMDR and false memories for other reasons– a dear friend, who I know very well, is getting slandered by someone who believes they were abused by him. It is heart breaking because HE is the actual victim in all of this. It's devastating his family and close friends. Because it's first hand, I know it's possible for false memories to form. The woman is accusing him 20 years after the alleged abuse. The woman took her story to social media and is being vocal, destroying his reputation bit by bit under the hashtag "#meetoo". For a long time, I was trying to figure out this woman's motive, because she seemed to actually believe what she was saying. I found out later that this woman did undergo EMDR therapy, so I decided to research more on it, finally coming across a link of a woman doing a TED talk on how false memories can form (just search "false memories and emdr therapy"). It solidified my suspicions.

Later, we learned that the accuser woman did have abuse in her past that predated anything she is accusing my friend of. We also believe its possible she was always infatuated with him, but never showed that outwardly (it might explain how the false memory got super-imposed on him. She was looking for a father figure in her life). Every single person who knows my slandered friend stands by him, but we feel helpless because it's almost like witnessing a child shooting a close friend....taking revenge wouldn't feel right in that situation.

At the end of the day, if you have any question about your memories, my suggestion is to be as objective as you possibly can. In your original post, you did explain that some memories were falsifiable (i.e. there are no scars on your back, for instance). Try to focus on the memories that can be tested for being true or false. If you can identify one for being a false memory, you should take the examination of the rest very seriously, maybe even going to a different therapist who might have experience in this phenomenon. This advice is coming from a very broken-hearted friend, who is feeling helpless to help a friend who is an incredible man of integrity, but still being thrown around by the waves of the social climate, where accusers are believed by default, and the accused have their careers destroyed, or worse, are sent to prison.

 

[arrow]

I’ve been looking online for sources about EMDR and false memories because I’m watching an acquaintance’s family self-destruct over social media based on memories of sexual abuse that were recovered (or induced) during EMDR.

Last year I went to a talk by a therapist who does EMDR with all her clients and said that 80% of the women she sees report having been sexually abused (if I’m remembering correctly). She brought a friend with her who was one of the patients who’d recovered memories of hitherto unsuspected childhood sexual abuse under EMDR. She also told the story of a client who under EMDR had an image of ritual child abuse in a church, which involved another child’s dismembered body, but she was interrupted and I couldn’t quite tell whether she was going to say this was a “symbol” of how the client felt about religion and her childhood, or whether she thought this (unlikely) story was a true memory.

Based on that talk, I’m pretty damn sure that at least some practitioners accidentally induce false memories using EMDR techniques--which seems unsurprising since the technique does seem to bear some relation to hypnotic techniques. But I also think that puts everyone in a really difficult situation--because it’s really not possible to tell whether something’s a true recovered memory or a false one without outside corroborating evidence.

Real sexual abusers have friends who stand by them, too. The fact that you trust someone doesn’t mean they didn’t abuse someone else. But the fact that someone recovered memories under EMDR doesn’t guarantee those memories are true either. :/