The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F_ck

had sexually abused her as a child. It was a shock to her, a
repressed memory she had spent most of her adult life
oblivious to. But at the age of thirty-seven, she confronted
her father and also told her family what had happened.
Meredith’s news horrified her entire family. Her father
immediately denied having done anything. Some family
members sided with Meredith. Others sided with her father.
The family tree was split in two. And the pain that had
defined Meredith’s relationship with her father since long
before her accusation now spread like a mold across its
branches. It tore everyone apart.
Then, in 1996, Meredith came to another startling
realization: her father actually hadn’t sexually abused her. (I
know: oops.) She, with the help of a well-intentioned
therapist, had actually invented the memory. Consumed by
guilt, she spent the rest of her father’s life attempting to
reconcile with him and other family members through
constant apologizing and explaining. But it was too late. Her
father passed away and her family would never be the
same.
It turned out Meredith wasn’t alone. As she describes in
her autobiography, My Lie: A True Story of False Memory,
throughout the 1980s, many women accused male family
members of sexual abuse only to turn around and recant
years later. Similarly, there was a whole swath of people
who claimed during that same decade that there were
satanic cults abusing children, yet despite police
investigations in dozens of cities, police never found any
evidence of the crazy practices described.
Why were people suddenly inventing memories of
horrible abuse in families and cults? And why was it all
happening then, in the 1980s?
Ever play the telephone game as a kid? You know, you
say something in one person’s ear and it gets passed
through like ten people, and what the last person hears is