And Jenny: Why do I feel like my skin is crawling? Like I want to peel it off my body? Why do I keep rubbing my scar where he carved my skin with that stick? Why is my stomach always burning with acid? Like Sean, her body was producing chemicals in reaction to an emotional response that had no particular trigger, and certainly no trigger that resembled her attack.
There is a world of controversy around memory recovery. Some researchers (and I use that term loosely because the people who have inserted themselves in this arena range from celebrated neuroscientists to convicted sex offenders) claim that memories cannot be recovered and that any so-called recovered memories are necessarily false. Indeed, I am sure you have heard about cases of emotionally damaged adults receiving treatment from therapists and suddenly “remembering” that they were molested by a parent or a teacher or a coach. There is even an organization dedicated to stopping memory-recovery therapy.
There are just as many researchers on the other side, and they, too, have compelling stories about successfully recovered memories that are later verified by confessions or physical evidence.
I have read every research study, news article, anecdotal story, and legal brief that has been made public over the years, and I am comfortable with my conclusions. There are two issues: The first is that memories are stored. The second is that stored memories must be retrieved to be “remembered.” Both processes involve brain hardware and brain chemicals. Memories can be stored and subsequently lost or erased. Memories can also be saved but misfiled and therefore difficult to retrieve. Both these events are forms of “forgetting.” I believed, and still do believe, that the treatment given to Sean and Jenny and now countless other trauma victims does not “erase” every memory from the trauma. Some are saved but misfiled, and are therefore capable of being found and retrieved. And remembered.
I did not presume to know which memories were hiding in Sean’s brain, or Jenny’s. It was a fact-finding mission, and it had to be done carefully. I have alluded to my concerns about suggestions becoming memories themselves during reconsolidation, and how this can corrupt the process of true memory recovery. You can see how this could happen, can’t you? What if I told Sean his friend died in his arms before he himself lost consciousness, how blood was flowing from his mouth as he tried to speak, and how terror flooded his eyes? A hand reached out and grabbed hold of his left arm, and maybe a cry of pain made him shiver with his own fears of death. And then he looked down and saw his right arm mangled, flesh spilling out between shattered bones and ligaments, and he knew he would never be whole again. You can see how he might come to think these to be true and then to wonder if he witnessed them and finally to feel and see them as actual memories.
Sean and I gathered the facts. We collected reports from the field, interviews with other soldiers who served in that area and had been inside that town. Sean spoke to the marines who saved him and the interrogators who eventually captured some of the insurgents and could describe what they looked like. We even had pictures of some of them, the ones who were killed. Sean had low-level security clearance. But the soldiers were willing to bend the rules for him. I believe the process of talking to these soldiers, of reconnecting with “his people,” was therapeutic in and of itself. He felt he had them on his side. He also had his wife and his son and his family. Now he had me.
Soon, he would have Jenny.
We were able to reconstruct the mission from the original plan. Sean remembered much of the plan, and we presumed that he had followed his orders in the field. We used a computer program to construct a virtual image of the town—like a video game. It is amazing how realistic these images are now. And then we worked, sometimes for hours at a time, walking Sean through the virtual village, his comrade beside him. We played audio taken from documentaries, the sound of the dirt crunching beneath his boots, the short, concise messages coming through the radio. The audio re-created what was heard during his actual mission. Sean would fill in the blanks with actions he knew he would have taken. I would read from the script we’d re-created using every piece of information we had gathered. Nothing else was added.
“You turn the next corner. There’s one shot heard in the distance.”
The audio would play the shot being fired.
“Medic! Medic! Oh fuck! Fuck! Miller down! Miller’s down, man! Medic! Oh, fuck no! No!” I would read the script.