Thread by @jjfreydcourage

I do not think I exaggerate when I say I was the first target of the FSMF. Michael Salter's thread about this group is terrific. I would like to add a few comments of my own, so I am starting my own thread. I begin by RTing Salter:

https://twitter.com/mike_salter/status/1211442594821001216

I communicate passionately and publicly as an intellectual and activist. At the same time, I'm also an introvert and speaking publicly about private matters is very hard for me. However --

(However) I was outed by my mother in the early 1990s and that privacy violation was boosted greatly by the FMSF with its cloak of academic credibility and by the media.

Although the PR and media narrative focused on me personally, describing me as a "daughter," and frequently referring to me only by my first name, in fact I was a tenured professor, married with two children, and in my early 30s.

Seeing my public identity go from "Professor Freyd" (a person who had been known for her academic accomplishments and already won a Guggenheim Fellowship and more) turned into "Jennifer, the daughter" in almost every major media outlet in the country felt deeply disempowering.

I have long suspected that the fact that I was already giving academic talks about child sexual abuse and betrayal trauma theory, was why so many academic were willing to join the FMSF. What better way to silence a woman intellectual discussing the reality of sexual violence?

It was a hard time for me. But I'm not one to be silenced. And so I continued my work. I published papers and then Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse.
amazon.com/Betrayal-Traum…

I did a lot of research. I kept developing betrayal trauma theory and publishing papers. And I thought of DARVO; what a surprise!
dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARV…

I tried to keep my chin up and be true to myself. Mostly that worked but I did struggle with feeling guilty about what my parents and the FMSF were doing. The distortions of truth about me and my experiences were being used to hurt others. So...

In the summer of 1993, 8-months pregnant with my third child, I made the very difficult decision to speak publicly about my childhood. I gave two interviews and one speech. It was extremely difficult for me. I felt I had a duty to speak truth.

Despite what it took from me to give those interviews and that speech, my account largely "fell into a black hole" (journalist Katy Butler's words for what happened).

1993 was 24 years before #MeToo; I went back to my work and...

[And] with the collaboration of many fabulous students, I continued to research betrayal trauma and develop the theory to include institutional betrayal.
dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/institutio…

In 2013 I published Blind to Betrayal and included in that book some of the transcript of my 1993 speech. I wonder though: did it fall into the same black hole?
sites.google.com/site/betrayalb…

Yes we have #MeToo but has it extended to survivors of childhood sexual abuse? I asked this question in a tweet thread in early November, exposing some of my own vulnerability:

https://twitter.com/jjfreydcourage/status/1191790705829531648

And today I'm doing it again, because this issue is so deeply important. Until we can speak about childhood sexual abuse we will not stop adult perpetration and adult victimization. The end of the FMSF is ...

The end of the FMSF is ... not enough. We need to figure out what happened, hold people accountable, stop the DARVOing of survivors who do speak up, stop the institutional betrayal. We need to approach all this with individual and institutional courage. (1 more)

Okay (last tweet today) I'm going back to my work. I hope you will support survivors of CSA when they speak up. And I hope you will support me as I pursue, with my wonderful colleagues, the creation of The Center for Institutional Courage.
jjfreyd.com/project-on-ins…