PDF Summary:The Tell, by Amy Griffin

Can psychedelic therapy help you recover lost memories? Amy Griffin says it can, detailing how it helped her unlock repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. In The Tell, Griffin explains how a therapy session assisted with the psychedelic drug MDMA brought this long-buried trauma to the surface, setting her on a path to healing. She also explores the negative impacts of patriarchal Texan culture, the pitfalls of perfectionism, and the road to healing from abuse.

In our guide to The Tell, we explore Griffin’s story in four parts. First, we trace the factors that made Griffin the successful-yet-haunted adult she became. Next, we explain her foray into psychedelic therapy and the memories it revealed. Then, we detail the path Griffin took to healing, and finally, we discuss whether Griffin’s abuser may have had other victims. In our commentary, we offer insight into the long-term effects of trauma, the transformative potential of sharing one’s experience, and practical guidance for others seeking to support survivors or navigate their own healing journeys.

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Griffin writes that her therapist also explained why she hadn’t remembered the abuse before. Memory is a three-stage process; it involves encoding, storage, and recall. In the encoding stage, the brain takes in information and converts it for storage. The brain doesn’t convert everything—it only stores important information. This includes information about traumatic events, like someone’s experiences of childhood sexual abuse, which tend to be stored vividly and with strong emotional associations.

Sometimes, even though these memories are vividly stored, they can remain inaccessible to conscious awareness for years. In such cases, a person may only recall these memories when something in the present, like an emotion, reminds them of the past—and when the brain knows that it’s safe to remember.

To explain why she hadn’t recalled her memories before her MDMA session, Griffin explains that at the time, she met both of these criteria: Her mind recognized links to the past, and she felt safe. The anxiety she felt when starting the session mirrored the anxiety she felt when she was being abused. Additionally, her therapist noted, Griffin’s daughters were around the same age she’d been during the abuse; observing them every day likely reminded her of her own experiences as a preteen. Then, being in the company of someone she trusted to help her—the facilitator—made her feel safe, which allowed her brain to open its floodgates and release those memories.

How Memory Works: The Role of Triggers and Stress

In Remember, neuroscientist Lisa Genova breaks memory down into a four-stage process: encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval. During the extra step Genova identifies, consolidation, the brain links the new information it has just encoded to information that’s already stored. Consolidation may help explain why, as Griffin observed her daughters’ daily life, it triggered memories of her childhood abuse: Her brain linked the sights, sounds, and emotions of her daughters’ experiences to stored memories of her own preteen years, bringing her buried trauma to the surface.

Genova also elucidates how stress affects memory: During a stressful situation, like a single incident of abuse, someone might commit major details to memory while peripheral details slip away. This explains why Griffin could remember details like the specific acts of abuse she endured, but didn’t recall peripheral information like what she ate for lunch on those days.

Genova also notes that chronic stress, like ongoing abuse, can impair memory formation. Persistent stressors flood the brain with stress hormones that keep the body’s stress response system activated. This can kill off neurons in the hippocampus, which is responsible for the consolidation phase, and therefore reduce the brain’s capacity to form new memories.

Griffin says her therapist also told her why she should believe her memories were true. The MDMA may also have helped her feel safe, since it stimulates the release of oxytocin—a brain chemical that promotes emotional openness. The therapist assured Griffin that the MDMA didn’t make her hallucinate, explaining that MDMA doesn’t produce hallucinations. Instead, it promotes self-awareness and compassion—the qualities she needed in order to face her memories.

Notably, Griffin maintains that it wasn’t the MDMA itself that brought on her memories. MDMA takes about 30 minutes to kick in, but her first memory occurred only five minutes into the session. She believes her willingness to confront her memories, and safety she felt under the guidance of the facilitator, allowed them to surface.

Judging the Hallucinogenic Effects of MDMA

Though the US Drug Enforcement Administration classifies MDMA as a hallucinogen (a drug that causes hallucinations), some researchers note that it’s only weakly hallucinogenic—the visual, auditory, and tactile distortions it produces are negligible. The drug’s main effect is to stimulate oxytocin production and promote self-awareness and compassion, inducing a state of euphoria that has given rise to its street drug name “ecstasy.”

It’s hard to quantify the role MDMA may have played in Griffin’s memory recall—though she maintains the drug itself didn’t trigger her memories, and experts do agree that it usually takes about half an hour to digest it, metabolic differences and recent food intake intake can make that timing vary from person to person.

The Impact of Remembering

Griffin writes that after she began to remember the abuse, it became the only thing she could think about. New memories revealed themselves often, and they were always devastating. She felt a mix of overwhelming emotions about the abuse, including:

• Anger that no one noticed the abuse or stopped it from happening
• Fear that her children would be victimized
• Compassion for her child self’s suffering
• Fear that no one would believe her, since she’d never told anyone and hadn’t even been able to remember the abuse until she started psychedelic therapy

Processing her memories and emotions required a lot of time and energy. To help the processing along, Griffin’s husband (to whom she revealed the abuse immediately after her first session) recommended that she start journaling. She explains that she kept detailed records of her memories and the events that followed her remembering (like the criminal investigation we’ll explore in Part 3). This not only helped her make sense of her experiences but also provided her with a feeling of certainty—a way to anchor herself when she doubted her own recollections, feared she was imagining things, or worried others wouldn’t believe her. By documenting everything as it unfolded, she built tangible proof of her own story.

Because she was so preoccupied with her abuse, Griffin explains, she felt incapable of participating in normal, everyday activities. She couldn’t imagine having a mundane conversation with someone about ordinary topics while carrying the weight of such devastating revelations—and she was too exhausted to do so anyway. As a result, she withdrew from social events and daily responsibilities, and her husband supported her by taking on a larger share of childcare and household tasks.

The Emotional and Functional Impacts of Sexual Violence

The overwhelming emotions Griffin experienced after remembering her abuse are common among survivors of sexual violence. For some people, the intensity of these feelings exceeds their capacity to cope with them, which can lead to self-destructive behaviors. They may try to numb the pain through substance abuse, engage in risky sexual behavior, or develop suicidal thoughts. Others rely on healthier coping mechanisms or lean on social support and resources like therapy; these measures can help prevent survivors from spiraling into a pattern of self-destruction.

In either case, healing from sexual violence can easily take over a survivor’s life. Like Griffin, many people find that the process of working through their memories of abuse completely saps them of energy. This is why, as Gretchen Schmelzer explains in Journey Through Trauma, victims must establish a foundation of safety and stability in their daily lives before they start working through trauma. Although Griffin was able to withdraw from her social life and lean on her husband’s support, not everyone has the ability to pause life obligations or access a strong support system. As Schmelzer puts it, most trauma survivors have to run their lives on two tracks at the same time—staying in the present while revisiting the past.

Some therapists also caution trauma survivors against journaling about every detail of their abuse. Journaling about trauma has many benefits; it can help survivors process painful emotions, organize chaotic memories, and externalize their inner experience so it feels less overwhelming. But if the writing is too detailed or too frequent, it can become re-traumatizing, forcing the survivor to relive events without adequate support. Experts often recommend balancing trauma-focused journaling with grounding practices—such as writing about moments of safety, connection, or resilience—so survivors can process their pain without becoming consumed by it.

Part 3: Griffin’s Healing Journey

Being consumed by her memories left her feeling isolated and overwhelmed, and Griffin didn’t want things to stay that way. She thought of herself as a survivor, not a victim, and was eager to move forward with her life.

(Shortform note: Some people prefer the term “survivor” over “victim” because they associate survival with strength and victimhood with weakness. Experts say it’s best to use the term a given individual prefers, but some argue that defaulting to “survivor” can minimize the seriousness of the violence that occurred or pressure victims to project resilience before they’re ready. To capture the breadth of people’s experiences, we’ve used both terms throughout this guide.)

In this section, we’ll explore the four measures she took to heal and reclaim her sense of wholeness and agency: telling her story, pursuing legal justice, strengthening her relationships, and learning to trust herself.

Telling Her Story

The first step Griffin took toward healing was sharing her story with others. She explains that she started doing this as soon as she remembered the abuse. Initially, she only shared it with the facilitator, her therapist, and her husband. The facilitator and therapist cautioned her against sharing too widely or too quickly, but she felt compelled to tell others, too.

Griffin explains that telling her story was the only way to overcome the sense of fear and shame her abuser had used to control her. Mason had threatened her with violence if she spoke up and told her no one would believe her if she did, and these warnings had embedded themselves so deeply in her mind that she hadn’t been able to be honest with even herself about the abuse. Now she was ready to break her silence. So, she told her closest friends, who put her in contact with other victims of abuse she could relate to. She also told her childhood volleyball coach, who’d been friendly with Mason. The coach expressed regret for not recognizing the abuse—she felt she should have recognized it since she’d been abused as a child, too.

(Shortform note: If you’re wondering whether a child in your life has been abused, experts recommend watching for signs—like mental health struggles or behavioral problems—and choosing a safe, private place to start a conversation with them. During the conversation, you may want to use an easygoing tone, words they easily understand given their age, and reassuring phrases—this can help them feel safe enough to open up about the abuse. Experts also recommend that parents have candid conversations about private body parts and healthy boundaries from an early age—this can help protect children from potential abusers and equip them with the language and comfort level they need to describe their experiences to you.)

These first “tellings” were good practice; the other steps Griffin took toward healing, which we’ll describe next, required her to tell her story repeatedly. To pursue legal justice, she had to recount the abuse and how she’d recovered memories of it to lawyers and police. Strengthening her relationships with her family also required sharing her experiences, and reconnecting with herself meant articulating the abuse so she could integrate it into the story of her life. Writing The Tell was the culmination of Griffin’s long journey of disclosure—she explains that she wrote the book to give voice to her experiences while helping others who have faced similar trauma.

Why Survivors of Sexual Violence Tell Their Stories

Survivors have been telling their stories in droves since the Me Too movement, which began in 2017. Me Too followed the wake of accusations levied against director Harvey Weinstein, when actor Alyssa Milano tweeted a request for any woman who’d experienced sexual violence to use the hashtag #MeToo. Countless women participated and began telling their stories online, flooding social media with disclosures that made the scale of sexual abuse visible in a way it had never been before. In her memoir Unbound, activist Tarana Burke explains how this paved the way for victims who felt alone or ashamed to speak their truth and make healing connections with a community of survivors.

Griffin’s memoir, and the accounts of abuse she shared with family, friends, and others, fit this cultural moment. Like many survivors, she found that telling her story not only lessened her isolation but also gave her back a sense of agency. Each retelling echoed the Me Too movement’s central lesson: that speaking out can transform silence and shame into solidarity and strength.

But why is speaking out so healing, anyway? Psychiatrist Judith Herman sheds some light on this in Trauma and Recovery, one of the most influential books in the history of trauma studies. Herman argues that healing happens in three stages: safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection. Speaking out about abuse directly supports the second and third stages. By recounting their experiences, survivors can process what happened, giving form and context to memories that may have been fragmented or suppressed. At the same time, sharing these stories with others helps survivors reconnect with themselves and with society, restoring trust, agency, and a sense of belonging that trauma often erodes.

Pursuing Legal Justice

Griffin explains that sharing her story was a good first step, but it didn’t satisfy her need for justice. She felt she couldn’t heal without holding Mason accountable for the harm he’d inflicted on her, and she wanted to set a good example for her children, too—she wanted them to know that once she recognized something was wrong, she did all she could to make things right.

Griffin’s drive for justice led her to pursue legal action against Mason. She met with a New York lawyer who helped her get started. The lawyer’s team launched an investigation into Mason’s past; to gather evidence to support Griffin’s case, they interviewed people who might have known about his behavior, witnessed signs of abuse, or been abused themselves. Some interviewees remembered Mason fondly, but others remembered him as a creep. They could provide examples of behavior that they thought inappropriate, but nothing they reported was clearly criminal or legally actionable. No one reported having been abused by Mason.

Griffin says her lawyer advised her to hire a criminal lawyer based in Texas. She told Griffin that filing a civil suit against Mason might backfire—he could countersue for defamation—and that someone with knowledge of Texas law would be better able to represent her in court. Griffin’s father recommended a lawyer he knew, a defense attorney named Duke, who continued the investigation.

Griffin writes that Duke mishandled her case. She felt that he infantilized her and spoke condescendingly, that he made slow progress, and that he was frequently hard to get in contact with. However, she felt some hope when Duke connected her with a detective at the Amarillo District Attorney’s office. The detective wanted to hear her story so he could investigate the case, and when they spoke, he told her he believed her. He said that her account of the abuse was convincing, and he hoped to interview Mason soon after they spoke.

However, Griffin’s pursuit of legal justice ultimately was a dead end. She explains that a few days after interviewing her, the detective called to tell her the statute of limitations had run out on her case: Because too much time had elapsed since the abuse, Griffin couldn’t press charges. She was heartbroken, but eventually discovered that legal justice wasn’t necessary for healing—strengthening her family relationships would prove more effective.

Healing from Abuse Without Legal Justice

Many survivors of sexual violence pursue legal justice because they want the person who harmed them to be held accountable for the harm they’ve inflicted. Bringing an abuser to court can give the survivor a chance to confront the perpetrator directly in a safe environment, which feels empowering to some. And if the court finds in the survivor’s favor, it provides a tangible acknowledgement from society that what happened was wrong, which can restore the survivor’s sense of justice and control. In some cases, it can also help the survivor achieve important goals, like gaining custody of children they share with the person who harmed them or receiving financial compensation they can put toward their healing.

However, legal justice is often hard to attain—fewer than 3% of sexual assaults lead to the offender’s incarceration. Statutes of limitations, insufficient evidence, and procedural hurdles frequently prevent survivors from holding abusers accountable in court. Even when cases proceed, survivors must repeatedly recount their trauma to lawyers, police, and juries, which can be emotionally draining. Many survivors also encounter skepticism, victim-blaming, or retraumatization during legal proceedings, leaving them disillusioned with the justice system.

Many experts agree with Griffin that it’s possible to heal without legal justice. In Truth and Repair, Judith Herman argues that often, victims of violence want public acknowledgement of what happened more than punishment—they’d rather have their communities hear, validate, and respect their experiences than have the person who harmed them go to jail. Recognizing this, some survivors hope for transformative justice, which gives offenders opportunities to rectify the harm they’ve done and work toward a future without violence.

Strengthening Relationships

Though Griffin had shared her story with a variety of people at this point, she hadn’t yet told many of her family members. However, her pursuit of legal justice required her to talk to some of them about it. She had to tell her father about it so that he could recommend a lawyer, and telling her father required her to tell her mother and sister, too. Griffin says she was reluctant to share her story with them because she feared doing so would hurt them. It did, in fact, hurt them—they took the news personally, blamed themselves for the abuse, and expressed strong emotions that Griffin felt responsible for managing. But they also believed her, which she found relieving, and offered to support her however they could.

(Shortform note: Experts say that family members can best support survivors of sexual violence by putting survivors’ needs first. It’s normal to have strong, negative emotions when you hear that someone you love has suffered serious trauma—and your reactions may range from anger to fear to sadness. But it’s important to manage these emotions effectively, by leaning on your own support systems and resources like therapists, so that these feelings don’t overshadow the survivor’s experience. This allows family members to listen without judgment, avoid pressuring the survivor to act or disclose more than they’re ready for, and provide consistent emotional support.)

Griffin also decided to tell her three oldest children about her experiences (but not her fourth child, who she felt was too young to understand or cope with such a distressing topic). She explains that her children had noticed something was going on with her; they sensed that she was anxious and distant, and they expressed that they struggled to connect with her. This motivated Griffin to tell them she’d been abused—by telling them, she could close the emotional gap that was separating them. Telling them about the abuse also opened the door to broader conversations about consent, trust, and safety, which she hoped would help protect her children from suffering the abuse she’d endured.

(Shortform note: Many parents avoid telling their children about the traumas they’ve endured out of a desire to protect them. However, experts say that sharing your life story with your kids can increase their confidence and resilience. It can also help them understand that when you’re struggling with your trauma, it’s not because of something they did. However, experts also warn against relying on your children to meet your emotional needs. In Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsey Gibson explains that leaning on your kids for emotional support can burden them, create role reversals, and make them feel responsible for your well-being—potentially undermining the resilience you’re trying to foster.)

Although telling her family about the abuse was difficult, it strengthened her relationships. Griffin’s therapist helped her understand why: Being abused taught her that she couldn’t be vulnerable. To protect herself, she needed to pretend that she was always OK, which fed into her perfectionism—she felt she had to appear flawless and in control, even when she was hurting inside. Opening up about the abuse allowed her to let go of that coping mechanism and embrace vulnerability. That vulnerability—the freedom to be herself and to trust others to love her even if her life wasn’t perfect—helped her form deeper, more authentic connections with her family.

(Shortform note: Social science researcher Brené Brown supports Griffin’s idea that vulnerability can strengthen relationships. In The Power of Vulnerability, Brown explains that when we avoid vulnerability, we wear “emotional armor” that prevents us from connecting with others and living “wholeheartedly.” The perfectionism Griffin describes is one form of emotional armor. By telling her family about the abuse she experienced, Griffin was able to shed that armor and allow herself to be seen authentically. This openness invited empathy and support from her loved ones, which Brown says are cornerstones of strong, healthy relationships.)

Developing Self-Trust

Griffin says the final step in her healing journey was developing self-trust. She explains that the abuse she endured taught her not to trust herself. To survive the abuse, she’d had to remain polite and obedient, suppressing her discomfort and overriding her instincts. To overcome this, Griffin says, she had to learn to trust her body. She stopped pushing herself so hard, a pattern that, as we’ve discussed, had made her more susceptible to illness and injury. She gave up running and learned to embrace rest, and she got better at setting boundaries—for example, she stopped engaging with a man who’d raped her in college but with whom she’d since kept in contact.

(Shortform note: Many survivors of sexual violence struggle to trust their bodies. One way to recover this ability is through somatic therapy. Somatic therapy helps people reconnect with their bodily sensations, recognize signals of safety or danger, and release tension or trauma stored in muscles and posture. By tapping into their bodies in these ways, survivors can rebuild confidence in their instincts, feel more grounded, and get comfortable resting and setting boundaries.)

Griffin writes that she also had to learn to trust her memory. The fact that her memories had only emerged after psychedelic therapy did make her question them to some extent; as each memory unfolded, she felt strongly that they reflected reality, but in the intervening moments, doubt sometimes crept in. She assuaged her doubts by reminding herself that the memories were vivid, consistent, and detailed, and that the emotions they stirred were real. She also revisited the school where Mason taught her. There, she noted that although the rooms where the abuse occurred had been remodeled, they felt eerily familiar, which affirmed that her memories were authentic.

(Shortform note: Survivors of sexual violence often struggle with self-doubt even when they’re certain, like Griffin was, that they’ve been abused. In many cases, what survivors are struggling with isn’t whether the events in question occurred—it’s their interpretation of those events. For example, someone might doubt whether what they experienced qualifies as abuse or question whether they’re somehow responsible for the abuse. This is because sexual violence often shatters the victim’s belief in a “just world.” According to just world theory, most people believe the world is fair and that people get what they deserve. When something unjust happens, like abuse, survivors may doubt their interpretations of the event in order to reconcile this belief.)

Finally, Griffin learned to trust in her strengths. Mason had used her strengths against her—he had praised her leadership skills, her kindness, and other positive traits to gain her trust, and he used this to manipulate her. To heal, Griffin needed to reclaim these strengths for herself. She continually reminded herself that these traits made her valuable, which was an effective antidote to the shame that being abused made her feel.

(Shortform note: Positive psychologists like Martin Seligman affirm that focusing on personal strengths can help trauma survivors rebuild resilience and self-worth. In Flourish, Seligman explains that discovering and cultivating your strengths—the traits that come most naturally and energize you—counteract feelings of helplessness and shame. This can allow survivors to reclaim a sense of agency and purpose.)

Part 4: An Unanswered Question

Griffin’s healing left her in a happier, more grounded place, but one major question still loomed over her: Did Mason abuse anyone else? She hoped not, but she suspected he had, and she knew that finding other victims would prove that the abuse she remembered really happened. She reached out to several childhood classmates with the hope that they’d reveal their own accounts of abuse, including a woman she calls Claudia.

Though they weren’t close friends, Griffin had once loaned Claudia a dress for a dance. She wondered if she had done this because, on some level, she knew that Mason was also abusing Claudia. So, she met with Claudia to discuss her experiences and asked if she’d been abused, too. But, Griffin explains, Claudia maintained that she’d never been abused and said she was sorry she couldn’t help Griffin more.

Shortly after their meeting, Griffin received a postcard in the mail. The postcard implied that someone she had spoken to had also been affected by Mason’s abuse but wasn’t ready to come forward. Griffin assumed the postcard came from Claudia, but Claudia denied it. Griffin never found out who sent it—but, she writes, it suggests that Mason did have other victims, just as she suspected.

What Stops Victims From Coming Forward?

Griffin had good reason to suspect that she wasn’t Mason’s only victim—studies show that most people who sexually abuse children have multiple victims. On average, they abuse three to four children, and some admit to abusing up to 25 children. The number of victims an offender has may depend partially on their access to children; someone who works with children every day, like a teacher, would have more opportunities to abuse.

If it’s likely that Mason abused multiple children, why wouldn’t other victims come forward? Although, as we’ve discussed, victims of sexual violence often find it cathartic and empowering to speak openly about their abuse, disclosure also comes with risks. These risks include:

• Fear of not being believed: Many victims worry that others will doubt their accounts or blame them for the abuse. This fear can be compounded by societal myths about “ideal” victims, which often exclude those who know their abusers.

• Uncertainty about what constitutes abuse: Some people may not recognize certain behaviors as abusive, especially if they involve manipulation or grooming by the perpetrator.

• Embarrassment, shame, and self-blame: Many victims of sexual abuse feel that the abuse was their fault or that being abused means there’s something wrong with them, which can lead them to keep their experiences private.

• Fear of retaliation: Concerns about potential harm or retribution from the perpetrator or their associates can deter victims from coming forward.

• Concerns about confidentiality: The possibility that their identity or details of the abuse might be exposed without their consent can make victims hesitant to report.

• Cultural or community pressures: In some communities, there may be a strong emphasis on protecting the reputation of the abuser, the institutions they’re associated with, or the victim’s family, leading to silencing of victims.