Toxic Blood: 12 Steps Forward – 12 Steps Back
Chapter 7
If you were alive and cognizant in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and living in a middle-class urban or suburban setting in the United States, you might be at least vaguely aware of the fact that besides addiction 12 step programs, there was a proliferation of 12 step therapy programs for seemingly every kind of psychological issue or childhood trauma. They are intended as an organized way to approach healing trauma and psychological issues by breaking down the whole process into small, generalized, more easily understood, and (hopefully) less overwhelming chunks. Such programs are usually offered in a group therapy setting, and not conducted by a professional in psychology. Among other things, group therapy reinforces the knowledge that participants are not alone, provides a solid framework for approaching the healing process, and gives attendees the ability to help their fellows and see what is possible by continuing the work. Sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, the very first 12 step program, Alcoholics Anonymous, is mostly based on the Christian idea that addiction is a moral flaw, and without complete abstinence and submission to God, recovery is impossible. As a result, 12 step programs are often used as a tool for indoctrinating vulnerable people into a religion or religious sect, especially since one of the steps specifically says to hand over your life and fate to God (and usually by extension a church or religious group). This is where you get the saying, “First I was addicted to drugs. Now I’m addicted to Jesus.” The majority of 12 step programs are derived from that model, and instead of recognizing that spirituality can be a helpful tool for some people, most retain the emphasis on religion as the answer to problems, instead of actually working through the trauma or addiction in a tangible way.
Among other criticisms of most 12 step programs is overgeneralization of the steps that results in the inability to adapt to the unique problems of individual people, a refusal to change practices to reflect better clinical understanding of psychology, and the likelihood that such groups are led by individuals with little to no training in the field of psychology. It has also been suggested that many 12 step programs are intentionally configured for retention, so instead of genuinely helping members recover and be able to move on with their lives, they provide tools to abate the problem but require continued enrollment to be effective in most cases. The strong emphasis on powerlessness can also encourage ongoing victimhood and discourage personal accountability, making it difficult or impossible for members to find long-term solutions through taking personal control of their health or situation.
For a while in the late 80’s and early 90’s, where my family was living, step programs for childhood trauma were also a yuppie social fad, and I am not kidding about that. I wish I were.
Mother fell for that fad hard, especially since the height of the fad intersected with Mother seeing a memory regression therapist who helped her “recover memories” of previously unknown trauma from her childhood. In the early 90’s, recovered memories were usually treated as completely legitimate and factually true, and hundreds of court cases in the United States were even decided based on them, especially if the allegations involved sexual abuse.
In the years since, the legitimacy of recovered memories has been almost completely debunked except by those who are still practicing it or cashing in on the practice. It is usually impossible to determine if the “memories” recovered are objectively true, and if the severe trauma being “remembered” factually happened. It is extremely easy for the human brain to create vivid “memories” that never could have happened, especially when the subject is under hypnosis and already primed with suggestions. These risks are great even when regression therapy is conducted ethically. When not conducted ethically and very carefully, the patient is extremely likely to end up with vividly tangible memories of events that never occurred, and this can result in new traumas that never existed before the therapy. If you remember being assaulted or abused, it creates trauma, even if the assault or abuse never physically occurred.
Given that Mother was already estranged from her parents, I am certain it was easy and appealing for her to lean into memory regression as a way to solidify her convictions and justify the distant relationship with her parents. After all, it is extremely normal for estranged children to wonder if they are justified in keeping distance, and there is tremendous social pressure to reconcile and forgive family no matter what they have done or continue to do. In an era when not being close to your parents was a rarity, the pressure to justify her choices must have been tremendous!
When Mother started “recovering” memories, she wanted to tell the world! In 12 step group therapy she could do just that! She was also guaranteed that rare gem for estranged grown children of the era, sympathy and support from other people in the group. I’m honestly not sure if she found 12 step programs before or after she started seeing a regression therapist, but for Mother the two were intrinsically connected, and it was not long after she stopped seeing the regression therapist that she stopped attending her 12 step programs.
I watched in bewilderment as with alarming frequency she would “recover” a new heretofore unknown horrible childhood trauma and enroll in a brand new 12 step program to help her work through it. From my perspective as her child, it looked like whatever the fad trauma of the month was among her peers, it had “happened” to her. I had trouble taking her completely seriously because she treated her trauma with all the gravitas of a bunch of socializing people sitting around telling overexaggerated stories to prove who had it worse. It felt like her therapist had a list of Horrible Traumas, and was working my neurotic mother down that list, one at a time, instead of doing the genuinely beneficial thing and helping her to be less neurotic.
Honestly, it was so bewildering that I do not remember what most of the traumas she “recovered” were. Mostly, I remember that for at least a few months she seemed to be at a different meeting for a different trauma every night of the week, which is far too much! Even if she had genuinely experienced that many severe traumas, working on all of them simultaneously would not have allowed her to give enough energy and attention to any one trauma to genuinely heal it, especially on top of everything else going on in her life.
The two major themes from her recovered memory traumas that stood out the most to me were childhood sexual abuse from her adopted father, and satanic ritual abuse from both of her parents.
I believe the childhood sexual abuse was the first thing she “recovered”, and this was far and away the most believable of her recovered memories. Mother was adopted by the man who married her pregnant mother, but my grandmother refused to tell Mother who her biological father was. It had been an ongoing struggle for Mother to find her real father, and a source of genuine childhood trauma for her.
My grandparents did not intend to ever tell Mother that she had a different biological father, but when Mother was 16, she realized she had no physical traits in common with the father she knew, and they admitted he was not her biological father. Shortly after, he entered her bedroom one night and, from what Mother said, solicited sex with her. Thankfully, he left when she did not reciprocate, but she said she always remembered that encounter, and I could see the very deep discomfort she felt over that event. It would have been a very small suggestive leap in regression therapy to go from that genuine moment of sexual solicitation from a father figure, to “recovered” memories of earlier successful sexual abuses.
The satanic ritual abuse? Well, I have absolutely no doubt that was inspired by the Satanic Panic of the late 80’s and 90’s. I am sure it would have felt validating for Mother given her frustrations with and estrangement from her parents. It also gave validity and justification for her obsessive assertions that various innocuous things were “satanic” or “evil” in nature (D&D, most fantasy art, ghosts, magic in any form, Six Flags Magic Mountain, etc.). Even at the time I found the satanic abuse idea highly unlikely, as did Older Brother. Father just rolled his eyes and mostly ignored it.
When Mother came home from a session having “remembered” being abducted by aliens, Father had had enough. He straight up ridiculed and bullied her out of exploring that idea, no matter how vivid her new memories, and I believe she stopped seeing the regression therapist shortly after.
When she stopped attending her 12 step programs, I remember asking Mother why. All for my incredulousness, she had maintained that they were an essential part of her quest for mental health. She told me she had worked her way through all the steps for some of the programs, and others she would rather finish on her own. I also remember her mentioning that several friends she had made in those programs were no longer being so friendly. I cannot say I blame them, especially if their traumas were genuine and they realized Mother was mostly just neurotic and using trauma groups as social clubs.
Even if Mother did experience that many traumas (some people do!), doing the hard work of addressing and healing from each of those traumas in turn would have been difficult enough. Instead, she was supposedly intensively and successfully working on all of them, at the same time! No one can spread themselves that thin and expend that much energy on genuine trauma healing without melting down, and most likely inadvertently adding to their trauma response. That’s just not how the human psyche works! Yet, somehow, she claimed to be managing that level of healing without missing a beat, while also holding down a full time job as the family’s primary breadwinner, and raising children, and pandering to her co-dependent spouse, and socializing with friends, and whatever else she was up to that I was unaware of.
My dismissal of Mother’s “memories” does not stem solely from the unreliability of memory recovery, and the unlikelihood that she could heal so many severe traumas all at once in a short span of time. It also stems from her very real actions and reactions to the events she described.
At the time, my immediate family was living in Santa Rosa, which is more than an hour north of San Francisco. The majority of my extended family, including grandparents, were living in the Los Angeles area, a more than eight-hour drive away. That meant we saw them extremely infrequently. By the time Mother’s parents came for a visit, it had been at least a couple years since she had “recovered” so many memories of abuses and told her children about them.
I can say in no uncertain terms that if I knew someone was a pedophile, I would not allow them anywhere near any children, let alone my own. No exceptions. When you understand that sexual attraction is biological in nature, and therefore not something that can be changed, you have to accept that sexual attraction to children (pedophilia) is also biological in nature and an inherent, unalterable part of the pedophile. They can choose to not act on those desires, but they cannot change the fact that they have those desires. Pedophilia is inherently wrong because children cannot consent to sex, so in order for the desire to be satisfied, rape is required. It inherently causes harm to the recipient of the pedophile’s desire.
If Mother’s recovered memories were to be believed, she had unequivocal personal proof that her father was a pedophile. Yet, when my grandparents arrived, she was beyond dismayed that all her teenage children did not want to see him, that we found any excuses we could to be somewhere else. After her parents had left, she went so far as to bemoan that she did not understand why we did not want anything to do with him, even after we told her exactly why.
So, either she no longer believed the veracity of her recovered memories (and did not want to own up to it or apologize), or she did not care if her children were around a pedophile.
I would much rather believe she realized that her time working with a memory regression therapist was a farce, but the ramifications of that are also rather depressing. Supposedly, Mother was engaging with those 12 step programs because she believed in the importance of mental health, and she wanted to improve hers. However, if the things she was working on were farcical, then they were a diversion from working on those aspects of her psyche which could have made a real difference in her life.
In hindsight I am not surprised it worked out that way, because achieving mental health is a very difficult thing. It requires you to examine and change painful or frightening things, even when you are starting from a mostly healthy place. For someone like Mother, who was a neurotic, manipulative, selfish, habitual liar, in a troubled and emotionally abusive marriage, had a difficult childhood, and was prone to self-delusion? I can only imagine the demons which she would have to deal with, the upheaval and the massive changes she would have needed to make to her life. It is not surprising that she chose not to fight those demons or make those changes. It is not surprising that she chose to focus on fad traumas, so she could still have that mental health experience boost and hide her real demons under the sense of accomplishment spiritual bypassing gave her.
It is tragic, really. Genuine healing would have taken her time, far more than just a few months, and it would have been painful and difficult. Still, I would have gladly experienced that family upheaval if it meant Mother became the kind of person that she claimed she already was, if she had been willing to be accountable for everything she did and change her attitudes and behaviors for the better. That work probably would have consumed all my teen years, and probably longer, but later would have been better than the never which she gave to her children. It would have been better than the never which she gave herself.