Hey strangers.
I’m never the best at self-promotion (writing-wise at least) but my latest article is definitely an exception.
Last summer, I traveled to Michigan to investigate claims of recovered memory therapy (RMT) being haphazardly performed in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It’s a topic, as anyone aware of my career would know, that I’ve had experience covering in the past. To say that this story took some unexpected twists and turns, though, would be the definition of underselling. Check out an excerpt below and the full piece here.
Elsa believes that her mother is sincere in her belief that RMT caused Kristi’s estrangement. But she also thinks Joan has continuously rewritten the family’s past in order to excuse her and Lale’s behavior toward their children — in part by shifting blame onto shadowy secular forces. “My mother, in her twisted way, does love her children, I think,” Elsa said. “[But] she’s just an abuser and she covered for my father’s abuse, or rather tried to not see it.”
In later emails, Joan warned me not to take Elsa and Aaron’s words seriously. If I did, she advised, I would risk forsaking the crucial task of eliminating the remnants of RMT that exist today. “Perhaps you should reconsider the timing of the article,” she wrote. “That way you would not inadvertently print something that would hurt the overall cause.”
