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How false memory of abuse almost destroyed Maxine's young life
FOR years Maxine Berry thought her happy childhood memories of playing with her father were a cruel trick of her imagination as her brain blocked out memories of his abuse.
A psychologist told her how the man she knew as "Daddy" had subjected her to ritualistic abuse. She also believed he had committed murder as a grand wizard of the Klu Klux Clan.
Maxine, of Harehills, Leeds, was finally found to be suffering from False Memory – an illness that affects over 1,600 Britons.
It was a chance remark to an American hospital therapist that plunged her into despair, led to a suicide attempt and caused her to undergo sterilisation.
Only now is Maxine starting to come to terms with her illness.
Maxine, 31, moved to the States with her Yorkshire-born parents as a child but they divorced when she was just six.
She said of her father: "I recalled him teaching me how to ride a bike, reading bedtime stories, kissing me goodnight and decorating Easter eggs together."
But Maxine's memories of a happy childhood were ripped to shreds when she saw a hospital psychologist for depression.
"For some reason I just came out and I had a feeling I'd been abused as a child, I regretted it as soon as I'd said it but as far as the therapists were concerned there was no going back. That completely set the pattern for my treatment."
Maxine was prescribed a cocktail of drugs and hypnotised once or twice a week to help to 'recover' her lost memory.
"It was during these sessions that I said I'd been sexually abused by my father between the ages of two and 10."
Between May 1991 and April 1992 Maxine was hospitalised more than 40 times.
She was also told to read books detailing real-life experiences of abuse so she could relate them to her "own" memories.
When she was 23 Maxine, who had already married her husband Brian, told her therapist that they were planning to have children.
Promised
"They said that was the worst thing I could possibly do because as a victim of abuse it was more likely that I'd abuse my own children. They really scared me. I couldn't bear that so I decided to be sterilised."
It was only while watching a Discovery Channel programme about False Memory that the penny dropped for Maxine and she decided to confront her father, of Ossett, Wakefield.
She said: "He promised he never laid a finger on me and I believed him."
After their US legal battle with the hospitals where she was treated was settled out of court the couple decided to leave the States.
Maxine, a blood collector at St James's Hospital, Leeds, said: "I have tried to forgive what those people did to me. If I hadn't it would have destroyed me,"
paul.jeeves@ypn.co.uk
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Thursday 23 February 2012
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