Well first of all its in the headlines every single day (thank you, Newscorp, for making a celebrity out of this man). And secondly, I started looking into his adopted son Matt. Matt has now testified that his adoptive dad, Jerry, had indeed molested him, and the only reason that's interesting is because Matt originally testified that absolutely no molestation had happened.
I think it makes perfect sense changed his mind about whether or not he was going to help send his adoptive father to jail, so I kept reading, and I came across this nugget in the Detroit News.
On the recording, Matt Sandusky says he was sexually abused off and on between the ages of 8 and 15. While being questioned by an investigator, he says Jerry Sandusky would blow raspberries on his stomach and touch his genitals.When asked if he recalled engaging in oral sex or being raped by the former Penn State coach, Matt Sandusky says "at this point I don't recall that."
"At this point I don't recall that." I found that a weird answer to what seemed to be a pretty straight forward question. Apparently Matt went into therapy and began recovering repressed memories from his childhood.
Repressed memory is a psychological theory that basically says that some people can push memories of pain, abuse, or trauma out of their minds for years or decades, that can possibly surface years or decades later.
Turns out, this is a still a psychological theory, and it doesn't have proof of being true. I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know, maybe its one of those things like gravity, or evolution, where "its just a theory" but anybody who actually knows what they are talking about knows its a pretty bankable theory.
This repressed memory stuff could be totally legit, but something is very very strange about what Matt Sandusky said. "At this point I don't recall that yet." It sounds like he's expecting to just one day remember, "oh yeah, you know what, my dad did use his mouth on my junk a couple times". Is that really how the brain works?
To me, it sounds like these "repressed" memories are just like normal memories, and we're probably just not thinking about them. For example, I just saw an advertisement for another sequel to Ice Age, and it reminded me that when I was a kid I watched the movie Inspectory Gadget 2, and it was terrible. I haven't thought about that for years; how is that different from a repressed memory?
I know I don't know the guy, and I don't actually know very much about any of this. I have no experience with the psychology of child abuse victims. But guess what, neither does the Detorit News.
All I'm saying is that if suddenly, three months from now, Matt "remembers" that his father anally pentrated him, I'm seriously doubting the validity of that memory, especially if it leads to another "Today Show" appearance. We know that memories are not perfect, and are usually fabricated in part. That article that I just linked to explains that a lot of times, some of our most vivid memories, such as "where we were on 9/11" will develop details over time that If our brains can completely imagine certain parts of our most vivid memories, I totally believe that sometimes our brains will completely make up entire memories, right?
Something weird is happening with this Jerry Sandusky business. His defense attorneys were trying to drop his case, which I think has to be weird. Lawyers don't drop cases just because they know they are going to lose, do they? I mean they're still getting paid aren't they? Why would they give up money?
Also, there's this guy, Ray Gricar, the DA who was right in the middle of building a prosecution against Sandusky he had been working on for years when he mysteriously disappeared in 2005. He told his girlfriend he was going for a drive, ditched his car, threw his laptop in the river, and was never seen again.
Something smells, and its not just Sandusky's fingers. If anybody out there knows a little something about child abuse, tell me what you think about all of this, I just can't help but be interested.
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