Stephanie Soo

This isn't real.

You cannot have repressed memories.

The people who say they do, you know, they're lying and the memories are false.

They're untrue.

That's why we call it false memory syndrome.

Now I will note, this is not like a real syndrome that's recognized by the DSM-5 or anything, but I guess you could throw syndrome behind anything.

They say this is real.

False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

This is a non-profit organization that believes that people are following the trend of recovering repressed memories for all sorts of reasons.

attention, to feel special, to feel traumatized, to feel victimized.

They're accusing their incredible parents who have birthed them, who have raised them, of being abusers.

Church leaders are losing their positions in their community because someone recovered a memory 20 years later of abuse.

And if it's not stopped, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation says the world is going to be ripped at the seams because this is pretty much, I mean, an epidemic.

They state on their website that they created FMSF for three reasons.

One, to seek the reasons for the spread of false memory syndrome that is so devastating for families.

Two, to work for ways to prevent it.

And three, to aid those who are affected by it and bring their families into reconciliation.

The foundation argues that we can never really know what happened so many years ago, but without independent external corroboration, nobody can really differentiate between a true memory and a false memory.

And without evidence, I mean, it just can't be real.

Either the abuser must admit it, or someone must have witnessed it to have seen it, which is a very interesting outlook considering if someone is abusing a child, they typically don't like to say so, and they typically don't like people to be around watching, but nevertheless.