by Wendy Walker
The course of therapy is not a walk in the park, but it has a methodology and a path involving desensitization—in a sense, refiling the memory. Every time we recall a memory, it is altered and then returned to storage in the altered state. This is called reconsolidation. Soldiers are exposed to combat stimuli in a setting that is safe and comfortable. Over time, they can make their brains take down the neon lights and alarm bells and recognize the difference between a balloon popping and sniper fire. The patient’s brain actually begins to recall the memory in a different way that does not associate the facts of the memory with pain or fear.
This was not possible for Sean, because he was not dealing with a response to a filed factual memory. He was dealing with a physical and emotional response that had no “remembered” facts. I have had clients who believe in reincarnation. They tell me that they feel things that they should not feel, given the course of their lives. They tell me the only explanation is that they experienced things in their prior lives that left these feelings in place.
I will not go further afield to comment on my views of the supernatural. I have developed a tolerance for the views of others so that I do not inadvertently disparage them. It takes tremendous effort. However, I think these clients serve as a fine comparison to what Sean and Jenny experienced. Powerful feelings that do not have a file. Why am I so afraid of the water? Why do I gag when I smell grass? Why did I feel déjà vu when I went to New York City for the first time? These are some of the questions from my clients. Of course, I usually get to the answer without resorting to the absurd, but we do not need to concern ourselves with that.
Sean had different questions: Why do I want to pound my fist into the wall when I’m holding my son? Why do I want to throw my wife across the room when she touches me? Why do I feel like screaming all the time, for no reason and at no one? The triggers were benign and held no resemblance to anything he would have seen on his mission. He called them ghosts—the feelings that roamed inside him, looking for a place to rest.
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.
My heart jumps out of my chest, but I keep my shit together. Stop dead, back against the wall. Look up to the rooftops, look in windows. Shooter couldn’t be this close, but there could be another one. They know we’re here. Maybe knew all along and were just waiting. That thought must have come. Valancia would be shitting his pants. This was his first real mission, and he was a little bit of a pussy. We keep moving.
The session would go on like this until we got to the place where the bomb went off. We had an actual image of that street and the red doorway where he and Hector Valancia were found. The marines did not find any debris indicating where the bomb had been hidden. There was speculation that it had been cleared before they arrived. It had taken close to twenty minutes to secure the area. They were both presumed dead.
“There are people on the street. You’re getting close to the red door. The red door is the location of the insurgent you’ve come to capture or kill. It’s just you and Valancia now. Six men are down. The marines are on the way.”
Valancia’s telling me to pull back. I know he is. I can picture him, his face. He’d be tugging at my sleeve, saying something like, “This is no good, man. No good.”
“Let’s be clear, though. You don’t remember him saying that, but it’s likely he would have wanted to leave.”
Yeah. More than likely. We’d been in there for five minutes, and we had six men down. Valancia would cut and run. I know what I’d be thinking.
“What is that?”
Kill this motherfucker or die trying.
“And Valancia would follow you?”
S
ean would pause here, close his eyes, and swallow it down. Yeah. He would follow me. And then he would get his fucking head blown off.
We would go through the data we had, reliving each moment the best we could. Looking for these memories, these files, was maddening at times. It was like looking for lost car keys in a cluttered house. You retrace your steps, try to recall the last time you used them. You tear up the place, looking under couch cushions and carpets and in the pockets of every jacket and pair of pants. Sometimes we found traces, the equivalent of loose change. He remembered Valancia tripping in a small hole along the dirt road. And the smell of meat cooking, though he could not recall looking for its source, something he surely would have done. An open window, perhaps. But the big event had evaded him. Evaded us. At least with car keys, you know they didn’t “vanish into thin air.” With Sean’s memories, and later Jenny’s, there was always that possibility, and so we never knew when it was time to stop and give up the search. I will just say that the process of looking seemed to help both of them, and this made it easier to continue the work.
There were fifteen seconds between Sean’s radio report that they had a visual on the red door and the next communication. That second report, the last one, indicated that there were seven civilians in the street, women, children, old men. Sean said this would have made him extremely nervous. That he would have been tempted to turn back then.
I would have thought it was off, you know. Every other street empty after the sound of the gunfire. But on this street, the street where our target was supposedly hiding, no one’s afraid? Mothers don’t bring their babies inside? Even after they see us, they don’t run and hide? I reported it, so I must have seen it. And if I saw it, I would have thought about leaving.
“Would you have? Or would you have died trying to kill that motherfucker?”
This was the question he couldn’t answer. His conscience wanted to believe that he had tried to retreat; that he hadn’t let his ego and his anger at knowing these people had killed six men in his unit cloud his judgment and put Valancia’s life on the line. That he would have considered his wife and son and even the war, because surely he was not going to get inside and complete his mission if they knew he was coming. He would be another dead soldier to drag through the street. A dead soldier can’t fight. Yet, he could feel himself charging for that door, screaming and firing his gun and not caring how many of those people he killed. He could feel that rage. And he had been found there, by that door and not several yards away.
We were stuck in this place, and I became convinced that it was this place we needed to stay in until he remembered enough to know what had happened. Would he have to learn to forgive himself for leading Valancia into a death trap? Or would he have to learn to live with his decision to retreat, and not take out some of the insurgents who had killed his friends? I came to believe that his anger, his rage at his wife and son, was grounded in guilt. He felt unworthy of being loved, of having these gifts, and so being with them triggered self-hatred. Without knowing, without remembering, the “ghosts” would keep roaming.
The look on Jenny’s face when she heard him talk of the ghosts was beyond satisfying to me professionally.
They met in my therapy group for victims of trauma. We meet every week. Sean had been coming to the group for several months, which was about a year into his treatment. He had been far too volatile before then. The decision to allow Jenny to come had not been easy, but I knew from the onset of her therapy that I would advocate for this course. Yes, her circumstances were complicated, but she was still a victim of trauma, and it is my experience that every victim of trauma needs a community of support.
Tom had objected. He was concerned that she would be exposed to “adult” content and language. He was not wrong about this. The conversations can be graphic and crude at times. But it is a group of mixed company, and this tends to keep the tone more civilized. Charlotte thought it would be helpful. She told Tom he just didn’t understand that women needed to talk, to tell their stories and listen to others tell theirs. Two of the other patients in the group were rape survivors. This disagreement had taken place before I started my work with the Kramers, before Tom had found his voice within their marriage, so Charlotte had prevailed. This was one time I was thankful for her dominance.
I had told Jenny about Sean and Sean about Jenny. They were eager to meet in this setting. Because Jenny was new, she spoke first. She was not at all afraid, even though she was half the age of most of the patients in the room. She said, simply and concisely, I’m here because I was raped. I’m the girl you probably all read about. I was given some drugs to help me forget what happened, and now I don’t remember it. It was hard not remembering. Too hard. I tried to commit suicide.
I did not press her to say more. Instead, I let each patient speak to make an introduction, which is our policy when we have a new member. Sean was somewhere in the middle. He was jumping out of his seat to tell his story to her. After he recited the facts, he admitted to his own suicidal thoughts. And then he explained about the ghosts, roaming inside him.
I know I can’t live with them. The only reason I’m still here is because I choose to believe that I can get them out. Kill them or scare them or satisfy them somehow. If I didn’t believe that, I would be dead.
Jenny’s hand slowly rose to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide. As Sean went on, explaining about the ghosts, about how he needed to remember what happened in front of that red door, I could see the hope rush in her, almost plumping up her veins, filling her with the blood she’d spilled on that bathroom floor.
I do not have a strict policy against patients meeting outside the group. But I do advise that boundaries be established. I suspected that Sean and Jenny would connect somehow to share their stories in more detail. We can get sidetracked in group, with so many people and so many urgent needs. What I did not foresee was the depth of the connection and the series of events that would unfold. Jenny and Sean shared something unique, something no one else in this community shared. The treatment was not widely used then. There was no open forum to find others who had received it, who might be suffering in its aftermath. They understood something about each other that I could not; that their families could not; that the group could not.
“What about the other rape survivors?” I asked Jenny. “Do their stories, their feelings, resonate with you at all?”
Jenny shrugged. I dunno. I guess. A little. But I don’t get a lot of it. I mean, I get it, but I don’t think I have the same problems. I mean, I don’t really feel afraid of guys. I don’t feel ashamed. Not even for cutting myself. I feel mad about it. I feel mad that I feel so bad all the time that I want to die. But not the way they do. I dunno. It’s different.
“But it’s not different with Sean?”
She smiled and looked at the floor. I feared she was embarrassed. I feared it because it meant she was developing a crush on him.
It’s like we get each other. And he makes me laugh.
“He’s very dynamic. Very expressive, isn’t he?”
Yes.
“How do you communicate?”
Texts mostly. Sometimes we Skype. He doesn’t have iChat. He’s too old.
“Ouch.”
Sorry … I didn’t mean … you know, it’s a teenage thing.
“I’m kidding, Jenny. I know what you meant. How often do you text and Skype?”
Most days I wake up to something he’s written in the middle of the night. He has trouble sleeping. It’s usually really sad. I text him back before I get out of bed. I tell him to come back from the dark side. It’s an inside joke we have. We have a lot of them. Mostly about the treatment and not being able to remember. He calls me Grandma. Stuff like that. Then it just depends on what we’re doing. It’s just kinda normal, like with Violet. Only Violet doesn’t get a lot of what I say.
“But Sean does.”
Yeah. He gets everything. Like, every single thing.
“You sound relie
ved when you say that.”
She didn’t answer except to nod her head. I could see she felt like crying, but she held it back. I want to work now. Can we start?
The human desire not to be alone in the world is powerful. More powerful, perhaps, than reason or conscience or fear.
I should want to take it all back, to support Tom Kramer in his objections and reconsider my plan to put Sean and Jenny in the same room. I should want that. But I don’t. That image of Jenny, of the hope, the life rushing back inside her, is not something I would ever wish to be gone.
I started the memory-recovery process with Jenny soon after she met Sean. He had shared with her the small progress he had made and how he believed he was going to remember more. Jenny came into the process with high expectations, which I tried to mitigate to some extent. I had no idea what we were going to find.
Still, we forged ahead. First, we focused on our plan, on how we were going to collect our data from every source we could find. Her friends. The kids at the party who saw her, spoke to her. The couple who found her in the woods. And, of course, the forensic report. We discussed how we would walk through the night, starting with the parts she did remember. We would get the playlist from the kid who hosted the party and we would play the music. I would let her smell the drinks she consumed, and we would get the exact ingredients. Vodka, we knew, had been in all of them. She would bring the body spray she wore that night, and the cosmetics and even the clothes. And then we would walk through each stage. From the party to the lawn. From the lawn to the woods. And then, the most difficult part, each stage of the assault. The report was quite detailed. And there was a trail of blood and clothing.