Sometimes I struggle to recall things from my childhood in the cult. There are long blanks in my memory, or when I do excavate memories, I have to sit with them for a long time and ask “did I hallucinate that experience?”

These days, I’ve been talking to a lot of survivors, many of whom are actively sharing their stories online. But the theme of doubting our experiences is something that seems to come up again and again. I began to wonder why that is.

Could it be that many of us blocked out memories simply to survive?

Resources cited in this episode:

• The Falling Out Podcast.
• A 2018 interview Daily Mail interview with Dr. Alexandra Stein.
• The American Psychiatric Association definition of dissociation.
• Sharon K. Farber Ph.D.'s Psychology Today article.
• My post on love-bombing.
• The University of Washington’s Harborview Abuse and Trauma Center's description of dissociation.
• An old post of mine from the blog Summer of Cheesecake, describing a labor trafficking program in the Unification Church called "Special Task Force."
• Sharie Stines, PsyD's a post on Goodtherapy.com describing "abuse amnesia."
• Dr. Janja Lalich's interview on Change The Narrative with JD Fuller.
• Dr. Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D's video on "euphoric recall."
• The psychological term "rosy retrospection."
• IGotOut.org