Video Transcript: Worthy Marriages with a Healed Wound Base Part 01


Welcome to the class that is entitled wanted worthy marriages with a healed wound base. I certainly want to preclude before we start this class, that this information is going to be the most deepest, and probably the most disturbing, and not a way that is going to be dysfunctional or not helpful. However, their information in this class will best be referrals to a licensed therapist, and hopefully a Christian therapist. The reason that I wanted to include this as a class is because often as these issues could present themselves in some type of marital counseling, at least I want the counselor or the therapist to understand what they might be dealing with, and how to make appropriate a referral or what to do in terms of intervention. Let's look at a couple of beginning statements. You're about to be married, and are looking forward to a married life of satisfaction, happiness, and eternal love. You have been married for years and continue to encounter the same conflicts and hurts. Therefore comfort and safety rarely exists in a relationship. Now there could be a very significant barrier that is now stand in the way for the wholeness of this marriage. It is the unresolved issues from the past that are still affecting and influencing the marriage. This is a quote that I thought was very profound. You had to decide whether you're going to let your past destroy you, or whether you're going to let it build you into the strongest person you've ever met. When my folks come, whether it is marriage or an individual conflict, and they are willing to work on issues that represent trauma, abuse wound from the past, I call them the most courageous people that I've ever worked with. It is very crucial that you are honest with yourself about who you are and why you are that way. This kind of honesty disagreeing with God about our faults, which the Bible calls confession means understanding where we are in life, his standard, once we understand where we are broken, and where we fall short, we can work with God to reclaim those lost parts of his image and experiencing healing, where we have been wounded. If we cannot successfully connect with others and our struggles to cope with trauma becomes less effective. 


Our main resources, our love relationships, began to sink under the weight of the trauma. This is because when life gets dangerous and unpredictable, we know how much we need the help of others and meeting the challenge fate has delivered. Please know that as a therapist, Pastor counselor, we often can be a bridge in this kind of a situation to start the connection. Perhaps the spouse may not be the one to start this connection as many times in our marriages, we are recreating some of the wounds of our past. And when I say that we could start that process. I pray every morning, that as soon as my clients and my marriages come through the door of my office, that they will know immediately that they are safe. And that this is a place where they finally can relax and find comfort and be listened to with complete unconditional regard. Many of my clients say that and as they start to learn that safety, the goal is with prayer, with the therapy processing, with setting goals that they can then bring that into their marriage. So it is often a wonderful place of honor to be one of the first people as a counselor or a therapist, where resistance can be helped and to get beyond. This picture is because if resistance is not dealt with, there is an issue about the spouse becoming the secondary victim from the spouse that has the trauma or the abuse. Men or women can be second victims, secondary victims of their spouses childhood abuse. Without restoration there's disappointment, frustration and dysfunction. Virtually every marriage or one of the spouses has been victimized. These marriages unfortunately often end in divorce, remarriage and then divorce again, the spouse will feel like a victim and the relationship desperately needs the healing process of the Lord. Emotions are often are felt when a woman base is present are intense sadness, shame and fear. These are the primary emotions. 


The emotions that often emerge from the primary emotions are called secondary emotions or secondary issues. These emotions or behaviors are depression, anxiety, addictions, sexual dysfunction, self destruction, physical complaints and anger and rage. Now, these issues with emotions are not always tied to a wound base. But I would say whenever I'm working with a wound based or some kind of trauma, there are one, two or three or more of these issues present. Some of the signs and symptoms of depression are the following, fatigue, thought processes slow down, and there's very little energy to get up and about and get done what used to be able to be accomplished. There could be sleep problems either way, a person could find it difficult to become relaxed enough to fall asleep, or will sleep for 12 or more hours each day and then still feel tired. General irritability could be short tempered, or irritable and particularly common in men. Inability to concentrate, this is known as psychomotor retardation, meaning that the brain is unable to process information as quickly as it used to. Suicide, that's one of the most serious symptoms of depression, trouble making decisions, if a person suddenly has trouble making decisions. And they have never acted like this before in the past, that could be a sign of depression. Poor hygiene and difficulty with daily life skills, and general stress, it becomes more difficult to go about your life, and if you're at work, you're going to find it even more stressful to do what the boss requires. And again, not all of these specifically or right away mean depressions. But as many of these symptoms are present, then I would start looking for a diagnosis of depression, and wanting to address this issue. 


Because if the marriage wants to thrive, these underlying issues which could be secondary emotions, secondary activities have to be addressed. How about anger as a secondary emotion, it's an a very appropriate reaction of an adult who suddenly faces the reality of abuse in childhood. If this is a source of anger than awareness is the first step to freedom, you have as much right to be angry for a crime that was committed against your body and your emotions as you would for a crime that was committed against some other innocent little child. Let me give you an example of secondary emotion in a marriage. I had a husband and wife and many sessions, they would come to me and there was a continued scenario that was always happening within their home. If there was a disagreement, and if the emotion started to get heated, the husband was more at prime risk to become angry. And when he did, he would take his fist, and he would go in his wife's face like this. And he would threaten to do things to her and cause bodily harm. Now, during our therapy, it never actually happened that it became physical. And of course, that was an a big focus in our therapy, to learn coping skills to have that happen. However, it continued to come up. There was my sign to say, look for something deeper. So I started to ask some questions. I started to probe. I wanted to understand what this stronghold for anger was about. I wanted us to pray and have the knowledge of anything that might be deeper. He ended up having a light bulb moment and he started to talk about a memory. He had come into his home, he was 19 years old, and he was with his girlfriend at the time. And this is the first time that his girlfriend was visiting his home. His mother was at home at the time, but his father was sitting at the kitchen table. And his father was an alcoholic. And the night before he had been out very late and had been drinking.


My client thought perhaps the father was even seen at the table right at that point in time or somewhat of a hangover. The key is that they were hanging up usually on the wall, were not there. And my client had borrowed the parents car before to go places to run errands and he needed to borrow the car right then to go somewhere with his girlfriend. So he came over to his father and he said, Where are the keys? He said normally, the keys are on the wall. I bet they're not there because there was some drinking last night. And now where'd they go? Well, the father did hear that as somewhat disrespectful, even if there was some truth. And I'm not exactly sure how my clients said that to the father. But the father stood up and he gave him a hook underneath his jaw. And he said some swear words. He told him he was a no good you can about imagine And my client was down for the count in front of his girlfriend. When he came to and shook his head, he got up. And he looked at his father and he said, You will never do that again to me. And he walked out. And he did not see his parents for two and a half years. And he ended up renting an apartment, and he created an inner vow. What's amazing is that when he started to feel anger, his body actually was recreating a scene that has happened to him. And he often had said in therapy, he did not want to be like his father, however, his mind had already created the imprint. When we were able to find that stronghold and that original imprint, we were able to pray, and that type of body movement and that way that he used to intimidate his wife stabbed, and then we were able to do much more healing therapy. How about addictions, drinking and using drugs by the trauma victim can be used to shut off pain and fear and rage experienced during the abuse. The abused child learns to evoke the numbing and disconnectedness necessary to endure the violations. 


The adult survivor wishing to recreate this experience of escape searches for other avenues to the state of oblivion. In a strangely paradoxical way, chemical abuse provides pleasurable sensations of excitement, and at the same time induces numbness and a sense of being outside one's own body and mind. And you know, often that is very much what the original trauma or abuse caused the person to feel like. What about sexual dysfunction. Sexual boot distorts the normal natural sexual mechanism of any boy or girl. It arouses at a totally inappropriate age a natural sexual feelings that would be perfectly appropriate at a later time. sexual feelings are normal for a preteen and usually start at puberty. Somewhere between 10 and 12. Sexual struggle within a marriage is almost an expected symptom of sexual abuse. Sometimes a struggle will not be evidence, because they're so lost, meaning the ability of their mind to be present. And I would call that the soul is radically absent during physical acts of sexual intimacy is a concept a term called dissociative, which I will explain a bit later in this class. The absence of the soul and mind does not experience and direct overwhelming effect. Therefore the body is felt like a zombie to perform. At times with high arousal sexual feats. New problems can develop when one partner begins to explore his or her past. And especially if there was sexual abuse. I'll have some of my clients tell me that during memories that are returning about sexual abuse or sexual trauma, that they'll see themselves outside of their body, it's almost like they are next to the wall, or they're floating on the ceiling, and they're looking down. And then when they start to tell me about what happened, they'll remember things such as the color of the paint on the wall. Maybe it was in a bedroom that remember what the bedspread look like, they'll remember a smell, but they won't have any feeling for the abuse, because the mind has taken that somewhere else. And that is usually in the process of the dissociative realm. I'll give an example of something in terms of this was experience between a husband and a wife, and their marriage, in terms of their sexual relationship had been very healthy and very normal. This dear woman has started to do some work with abuse and trauma. It wasn't what she started her therapy doing. She had a fair amount of depression. She had some eating issues. 


She was feeling anxious. However, as the therapy progressed, there became the evidence of a deeper wound. And what took place. After that was found out as she started to be different within their sexual relationships. She no longer felt as open, she no longer felt their freedom. And now there became more of an issue to bring the husband in and to start to talk about what was happening. And this lady was willing to share with a husband. I'll let you know what took place and it will make perfect sense of why she started to change. She had a memory of a little girl that she was molested by two hired hands on separate occasions when she was between the ages of three and eight. She was also according to her memory raped by her father when she was 11. Now she managed to bury these events in her mind for 35 years, even though she was not consciously aware of her victimization, as started to uncover, she started to feel more issues with her body with her nakedness. She had always struggled with getting undressed or dressed for bed, she would prefer to undress in the bathroom rather than in front of her husband. And she even had problems she even admitted to disrobing in a department store, even in the changing room. That was very, very difficult. I suggested that she do some journaling. And as she does her journaling, she started to notice, there were things that would even happen at night that she hadn't totally remembered. She would wake up, and she would still have her clothes on. And one night, she even still had her shoes on. And her husband said, yes, she did. And when we started to understand this, she said, I needed to stay dressing keep my shoes on in case I had to get out of there, and I had to run. Now this precious woman was no longer caught in the past. But her body and her emotions brought her into areas of sexual dysfunction now because of that memory. And it was very interesting because we started to do work, where she and her husband were very much in the present. And they worked with that she could know that she was in her own bedroom, that she was safe. 


I helped the husband to have comforting, soothing words for her to hear. We worked on the ability for her to be with her pajamas or without her pajamas, and know that her husband would listen to every word that she said in terms of what she was comfortable with in terms of touch, or what she was not comfortable with. And he listened. And at that point, her brain started to heal. To be able to know that in the present, it was going to be very different in what a precious precious person that she had. The key phrase associated with many sexual problems is lack of interest or discuss. That's another issue that may come off a man or woman may have little or no desire for sexual pleasure, even though there is an ability to experience arousal during sexual contact, and even orgasm. This can be directed towards a sexual act for the sexual partner. Sexual addictions or compulsions could be a way to work to find relief or workout revenge. Now revenge is the working out of deep soul hatred towards others, others centered contempt or toward oneself which would be self contempt. Revenge exacts payment against both the perpetrator because of the past harm or, the victim of his or her suppose cooperation and then all this ambivalent pleasure. What do you do when the body still might respond, but the mind is saying, I hate this. This is not right, especially in an incest type of an experience. At times the symptom pattern can be self contempt, or could be predatory with sexual promiscuity or seduction. But you know what, the relief is often short lived because the other side of all of that is shame, self hatred, and pennants. You know, the psychiatrists Bessel Vander kolk. And Christopher Perry and Judith Herman, they found a high correlation between severe childhood abuse or neglect, and adult self destructive behavior. They could link the adult patterns to a lack of secure attachments in childhood, into the tendency of the severely traumatized individual to disassociate for the number of studies you can go. This is another study by Lan Decker in 1992. And to view self injurious behaviors and attempt to escape to totally disconnect to that reality. 


It's a way to punish the body almost to not be able to have any expression or responsibility for that abuse again. When I think about the self destruction, one of the most poignant time when I was working with a couple and how this impact of the marriage was this was a precious woman who had had memories of very severe abuse. And she remembers that her mother was associated with a group of people that I think they actually were very sadistic. She believes that they were into something with a called issues and with Satanism, and they would do things to her and hurt her body and cause pain in her body. And then there would be sexual abuse issues that would happen trauma issues. She, in her mind and accompany with her body became so confused, and she was a child, pre puberty. In fact, there were times There would be sexual feelings that would happen sexual arousal. And at the same time, there was punishing hurtful, painful things that were being done to her body. Therefore, as she was going through this healing, she started to experience in the privacy of her bedroom with her husband, in an a place where that sexual intimacy and oneness, of course, is a direct connection to that oneness, and correlation with our relationship with the Lord. 


She brought those issues into the bedroom, and now wants her husband to inflict pain on her body, and still have sexual pleasure. Now, her husband was uncomfortable with this. And I know there are things now like 50 shades of grey and some of these type of multimedia and movie productions. I'm saying though, I believe that this is an example of issues where there's a lot of confusion between pain, and then what can be pleasure. The husband was not comfortable with this at all. He wanted to be able to hold his wife to comfort his wife to give soft, caressing touches. And that's exactly what we had to work on. We started to do some reframing and some reorientation and if she wanted to be pinched, or to be poked, or to even, she had even wanted to have maybe a sharp object. With instead allowed for a nice, gentle caress, we actually brought in more warm washed cloth. My suggestion, they did it in the privacy of their bedroom. It was amazing watching the body start to recondition. And the closest started to bring to the couple, and the awareness that happened inside of her when she realized that she could have sexual pleasure and arousal, and there could be comfort at the same time. It was really very amazing. Because otherwise, this is continued self destruction. This is a pitcher. And how about the hope that's in the middle of the hand because I do believe there is hope. Even if this is a secondary symptom that happens in relationships, and not just with sexual dysfunction. In fact, there can be other things that can happen. This sex self destructive behavior that has characteristics or many trauma survivors attempt to alleviate inner rage. When feelings cannot be expressed verbally, also to provide a sense of control over the body into Express shame and provides biochemical relief. Because endorphins are stimulated, when there are cuts put on the skin. And in that moment, there could be a momentary relief, but it doesn't last, the body will have scars. 


There is remorse, embarrassment and shame when that self destruction continues. Sometimes the self destruction takes the form of an eating disorder, about anorexia, refusing to eat and playing with a food given. I've watched some of my husband's really struggle when their wife is wasting away and still sees herself as unlovely in the mirror, and as to heavy in the mirror. Because this will cause the person to lose weight rapidly. Initially, the victim may be praised for dieting successfully, and this much needed affirmation encourages her to continue until she's extremely thin and it is dangerous. Telling the anorexic to eat more seriously turns her away from foods as the person pleading with her becomes a potential controller. Anorexics resist any kind of outside power. Anorexia can often approve if the initial causes on earth and brought clearly to the surface. Then there's the other issue a bulimia that says the dynamic of relief and revenge a model of compulsive behavior, the relief assembles and maintaining a certain body weight consistent with a woman's vision of beauty. And that's why to the outside world, it is often not known because the woman still could look very much within a normal weight range. And also this isn't a beauty but in connection with the experience of instant gratification through binging. There's a feeling of being physically satiated for the binging. Then comes the purge, and even this word implies removing something that is an action an undesirable. Many bulimic state that hidden away in their fantasies as the whole, something violent shameful will be discarded other than food when they vomit. More often than that, that it is the unknown. The relief, however, is present in the moment it has been removed. Interestingly enough, I had a couple that the wife admitted to having a bulimic issue, but it was sporadic. It was not something that happened all the time. But when it did, which was a couple times a week, it was immediately an issue. She would leave the table. The husband knew what was happening, he felt quite helpless. And when she returned, she felt very shameful. However, there was a feeling that came over her physically. And in that moment, she could not even stop the feeling to have to go binge and then purge. Well with doing some more questioning, wondering is there a deeper wound here, this is not going away, even with the husband support, doing some coping skills, talking about prior proper diet, it was not going away. We came upon again lightbulb moment, she started to talk about a memory. And actually this was more than one memory. She had a very emotionally physically abusive father. And what he said he ran their family like a Marine Sergeant. And it better be done. Whatever he said, one of the biggest things that happened with this father was at mealtime. And anytime there were vegetables on that table, the father would put a certain amount on every one of the children's plate, and it did not matter what or how much, they better eat it. And they better eat all of it. 


She did not particularly like corn and green beans. And anytime they had corn and green beans, he would make her eat. And if she didn't eat, he put more on her plate. She remembers there were a few times that she would leave the table and unbeknownst to the family, she would go and vomit because it was creating her to feel so ill. Now what was interesting is that as we continue to talk about these issues, there became a connection, that the times that she now in her current life with her husband would go to the bathroom was whenever they had certain vegetables on the table. And that was a huge trigger. So what we did is we created a new imprint. And we brought in a session some of the vegetables within canned form to this session and allowed her to have the ability to say no, I don't care for any, no thank you. We allowed her the ability to put some on her plate and then share with both me and her husband. It was wonderful seeing the look in her eyes when she felt that she actually now had some freedom of choice in what she was going to eat and how it was going to affect her. And it started to make huge improvements on some of their meal time and what was happening when she started to feel like she wanted to binge or purge. It was amazing. How about physical complaints? It has long been known that the division between the body and psyche is an artificial distinction. There are differences between the two but there was a clear bridge between our inner health and our physical well being. physical symptoms are often a sign of deep inner struggle. 


Please know that I'm not saying that our physical symptoms have an emotional base. If there are abuse issues, the physical armor that protects against possible abuse memories, our body produces a rigid and exhausted frame. The body was never meant to be at war with a psyche. And when it is physical symptoms occur. So called stress related disorders including ulcers, intense smell problems, lower backache, stiff neck, tight jaw, and often a very chronic headache. You know, with this, I was thinking about a client that did realize that she had abuse memories. And she came to a session and was having these shoulder issues. And she had talked to her husband about it. In fact, he couldn't even put his arm around her anymore. He couldn't even take her into his arms when they were in the bed just to have some comfort. She would just withdraw and horrible demonstration of pain. She went to the doctor and they did some workups they didn't find anything wrong. She went to a massage therapist. And the massage therapist could hardly even do a little tiny gentle touch, because it was so painful. Well, that again brought us to the possibility was there something else going on. This is a woman who previously to this had enjoyed the comfort of her husband's touch had enjoyed being able to have that cuddle time at night. So we went into a prayer time and one of our sessions. And what is very helpful is to ask the client to be in touch with that physical symptom, I would ask them to either put their hand on the shoulder, or perhaps I could put my hand on top of their hand. And they were very much asking Jesus to lead and guide and what this might mean, because the body often will give us the information if we allow ourselves to ask the right question. So that's what we did. We started to pray. And in that moment, she had a memory of what she said, happened when she was a little girl. She was in the truck with her father. And evidently, the father got upset about something that she had said or something she did not do. And she felt she was around elementary age. 


So he stopped the truck, and they were out in a country road. And she was trying to get away from her father, she started to run. And he caught her and he grabbed her by that arm, and he dragged her into the woods. And what he did then, was an abomination. And her body remember that through that shoulder, it was amazing what happened then, in fact, I did the same thing. I went and got a warm on paper towing and we put like that warm compress on her shoulder, I asked her to buy some some of that aspirin cream, to put on her shoulder and talk to her shoulder and bring messages to the memory of the little girl. And after a few days, that pain was gone. Because the physical complaint was really an issue from the trauma and the wound. Now, if you spend your life denying you have a problem, you'll really be denying yourself a life. And you know why I say that is because the next issue is denial or absence of memory. Now sometimes a person with a warned actually will be very much in denial, and on some level realize they are, but say I'm not gonna deal with it. Sometimes, they may have no idea, because the brain has put it so far back, that they cannot even open up that place where the brain has stored the water, the trauma. I'm a therapist that believes that children internalize or respond to trauma differently than adults. Childhood trauma can result in problems with memory. And that would mean in the storage and the retrieval. Disassociation is a likely explanation for a memory that was forgotten or later we called. Actually, when talking about this, I was reading about Dr. Carlin, Lyons, Ruth, she's a Harvard attachment researcher, particularly interested in the phenomenon of disassociation, which is manifested in feeling lost, overwhelmed, abandoned, and disconnected from the world. And in seeing oneself as unloved, empty, helpless, trapped, and weighed down. 


Now with her research, what she said before we go on to the type one and two trauma, in fact, let me go back for just a second. What she says is that, and what I have experienced in terms of my work with with clients, is that when a client is feeling this much loss and this much abandonment and disconnected from the world, there could be that process of disassociation. It is almost as if there's a file drawer, or let's say, a computer chip in the brain, and where that information is, it does not come to the mainframe anymore. Now, if it's supposed to come to the mainframe, I find that the Lord Jesus will lead us to that information. And I don't want to plant anything. I don't want this to be my agenda. I will just start to say to the person, are you willing to pray about issues of anything that is back from some of your childhood? Some of the things maybe you might remember, there could be things that are maybe more difficult to remember or talk about, and I certainly don't know what these would be as your therapist, however, are you willing to pray? And we could ask Jesus for the tapestry? And they often say yes. And then that's quite amazing. Now I'd like to talk about a little bit more distinction with these trauma issues. Dr. Lenore tear who was an MD was the first to make a distinction between type one single event, now this could be like a car accident, a single beating, a fire in a home and type two repeated events a clear difference in children. Type two trauma is common to have the following symptoms, denial, self hypnosis, an intense anger, denial is necessary for a spouse who has experienced repeated trauma. Now that could be like physical abuse, or witnessing a loved one, maybe it could have been a brother or sister that was repeatedly abused or sexual abuse, the denial becomes evident because it is very difficult to let go the image of a good parent, it's almost as if a child understands that a parent is to be there to protect them. And when that doesn't happen, when the parents or parents become abusers, what is their little brains supposed to do? 


Imagine the confusion of a child that is looking to the abusive parent for security, denial can still produce that security, they actually can still put that parent on a pedestal and have belief for the enjoy such as getting ice cream. So even in an abusive family. And if it has been a parent that, at times has been extremely hard on that child has abused them physically, emotionally or sexually, there might be other times within the family that they do very normal activities. And in do taken from that child, they no longer have the same ability to trust, they no longer have the same ability to be carefree. It is definitely a loss of innocence. And if a child cannot tolerate what they know or what they feel, the only option is to deny or disassociate infants who live in secure relationships or to communicate not only their frustrations and distress, but also their emerging selves. The person who has memory gaps, oh my goodness, they built a wall around that painful, hurtful experience a childhood, they have suppressed those hearts deeply into their subconscious. They have covered them up, I would call it the garbage can of their early life and they put that lid on so tightly, so as never to be confronted. Because if your caregivers had ignored your needs, or resent your very existence, you learned to anticipate rejection, withdrawal, you cope as well as you can by blacking out, maybe it was a mother or father's hostility or neglect. But your body is likely to remain in a state of high alert, prepared to ward off close, deprivation or abandonment. This association means simultaneously knowing and not knowing. This brings such havoc in marriages, this precious person who did not have the childhood that allowed them to trust and express, they will be very, very guarded with their spouse. 


They often will put some of those emotions on the spouse, which I'm going to talk about in a moment. And they keep their emotions often tightly inside, like the lid of that garbage can. There was a experience and this is based on very much an incident that happened years ago. And as I'm speaking about this, this is going to give an example of what happens when there is a significant trauma. And it is so absolutely painful for a child that there becomes no memory whatsoever. It was a legal case that became a landmark legal case. And this was bad quite a few years ago, but it is still so significant that in my profession. This is a case that could be referred to because of trauma issues and how the brain brings trauma to places that no longer there is conscious memory. It was in 1990 and it was a case that went to trial in Redwood City, California. The defendant George Franklin, senior he was 51 years old to trial for a murder that occurred more than 20 years earlier. The victim eight year old Susan K. Nelson, was murdered on September 22, 1969, Franklin's daughter, Eileen, only eight years old herself at the time of the murder provided the major evidence against her father. What was unusual about this case is that Eileen memory of witnessing the murder had been repressed for more than 20 years. Eileen's memory did not come back all at once. She claimed that her first flashback came one afternoon in January 1989 when she was playing with her two year old son Aaron, and her five year old daughter Jessica. At that moment, Jessica looked up and asked her mother a question like isn't that right mommy? That was the trigger. Now when I say trigger, that means something that's happening in the current situation of a trauma survivors life, lights up the places in the brain where these memories have been stored and they become accessible, but the memory or the trigger have to be pretty tightly connected. The reason that this became a trigger for Eileen is because her daughter, who looked up to her reminded her of her friend, something that the daughter did when she looked at the eyes of her mother, a memory of sue the Nadir came to Eileen, this was a little girl Susan, who had been murdered. Eileen recall the look of betrayal that was in Susan's eyes just before she was murdered. Later, more fragments are returned because once the memories are opened, it is very possible that more will start to come.


She remembered the father sexually assaulting Susie in the back of a van she remembered that Suzy was struggling and saying no, don't, stop. She remember her father saying now Susie, and she even mimics his precise intonation of his voice. Next, her memory took the three of them outside the van where she saw her father was his hands raised above his head with a rock in them. She remembered screaming. She remembered walking back to where Susie lay covered with blood in the silver ring on her hand was still there and smashed. Eilen's memory report was believed by her therapist by several members of her family and by the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office, which chose to prosecute her father. It was also believed by the jury which convicted George Franklin senior of murder. The jury began his deliberations on November 29 1990, and returned a verdict the very next day. The jury began his deliberations all within that amount of time, and they found her father guilty of murder in the first degree. Now, again, within my community, still, was this a true memory. This is now 20 years later. Here's what really came to cause my heart to know and believe that this was true with the information that Eileen had given, they went into some more investigation on where she said to said I'll take in place. And you know what they found, they found the body, they found the remains of this little girl, and they found a skull where it had been impact. And they had been damaged. And they also found a silver Indian ring on her hand. Now, that to me, and to the court gave the belief and this was 20 years later. Now, part of what I have come to know about these type of memory issues is that many times I will have dear ones in my office, this could be man or could be women. And they are now starting to talk about issues from their childhood and this is 20 or 30 years later. I don't think that their emotions have been willing or able to do this work until they become very much into their adult years. And that's okay. I think the good Lord knows that as they get older, and they do have more maturity, with their emotions, that it is now time and especially if The Lord says, if the truth is going to set us free, it is time that they will now be able to have their healing. Even if some of the information is very difficult. It is still issues that we can work with because it is their story and then to bring more healing.



Last modified: Monday, August 2, 2021, 1:17 PM