Oral History Interviews of Therapists, Survivors, the Accused, and Retractors. Also available in print in

Joe Simmons, Accused Father

Joe Simmons nearly represented the United States in the Olympics in judo. At 49, his barrel chest fills out his shirts. Despite his clean-cut good looks and physique, however, he spoke hesitantly. It's little wonder. Joe and his entire family had lived through a nightmare, mostly because of their involvement with Dr. Patsy Linter, their longtime psychologist. At Dr. Linter's urging, they institutionalized Johnny, their teenage son, for most of his high school years, though his “behavior disorder” never amounted to more than normal developmental issues. Eventually, under the therapist's prodding, Johnny recovered memories of sexual abuse at the hands of both his parents, and Joe Simmons, eager to help his son, came to believe that he had been a high priest in a satanic cult.
In the fall of 1987, we moved to a new city, and Johnny was very depressed over going to a new school. He was 16. So we ran to Dr. Linter, who told us his depression was serious, suicidal, and he should go back into the hospital. She said she wanted to really get to the core of the problem and didn't want us to see him for a time. She had begun to get into MPD and sex abuse issues, but we didn't know it at the time. We wilted like a leaf and went along with it. She told us not to have contact for 40 days. She put him on the closed unit, which we didn't learn until later, and pressed him hard. That's when he came up with the allegations.

Dr. Linter called Phyllis, my wife, and told her about it, but ordered her not to tell me. I was identified as the perpetrator. Dr. Linter called me and said she knew what was the matter with Johnny, and she wanted me to meet her at another hospital. She met me in the lobby and escorted me to the closed unit, which I thought was a little unusual. She said, “Well, we have some good news and some bad news. We know what's the matter with Johnny. It's a disorder, but it's completely curable. With this particular type of disorder, usually another family member has it. We believe you have it and want you to be tested for it.” Not a word about sex abuse or Satanism. I asked what sort of disorder, and she said dissociative disorder. She told me she wanted me to check myself into the hospital for a few tests.

I got kind of nervous, but I had a lot of faith in her. You see, I have a learning disability and didn't do well in school at all. I had a great respect for anyone who appeared intellectual because of my own insecurities. Patsy Linter was married to a psychologist, and she came on in a very caring sort of way, very charismatic and nurturing. She looks sort of like the actress Sally Field.

So I thought, “Gee, I don't want to do this. I'll have to be off work a couple of days. I don't think I have anything. They'll run these tests and they'll be negative.” But Dr. Linter convinced me it would help Johnny and I needed to do it. I didn't even have time to call Phyllis and ask if it was a good idea. She made me make a decision on the spot.

From there, it went totally to hell, a complete nightmare. They took me to the locked unit of the psychiatric hospital. A day goes by, nobody even sees me. I found out later that Dr. Linter had told the staff that I was a real dangerous character, had a black belt in judo, kept a gun under the seat of my car, and to be careful of me. Then I started going to group sessions run by Dr. Linter for patients who had been diagnosed as multiple personality disorders. During one of those sessions, she said, “Joe, this is the type of disorder you have.” There had been no testing. People came in to see me and talk. Oh, she might have had me fill out a questionnaire, but I didn't know what it was for.

At this point, I didn't know anything about the allegations of abuse. I pushed myself back in my chair. I didn't want this disorder. She said, “Don't fight the therapy, it will just take longer.” In the meantime, I found out later, she was seeing Phyllis, who was going frantic, getting information about Satanism, scared to death for Johnny. She was told not to talk to me about it. Phyllis was running from one hospital to another to see Johnny and me, after working all day.

Finally, Dr. Linter came to group and said, “Your son says you did some things to him.” She told me that my son cared about me, and no matter what I did, he would forgive me. “Don't worry, the memories will come back to you.” I began to think that maybe this was true, that I had this disorder. Dr. Linter assured me, “You didn't do anything, it was another part of you, and we have to get these other personalities to come out. Your memories are repressed and will begin to come out."

You have to realize that I was in a captive environment, and there was a lot of craziness going on all around me. Obviously, some of these people really did have major problems. I was afraid of take-downs. If you're not cooperative, they call a Code Green, and half a dozen orderlies jump the patient, take him and strap him down in four-point restraints and medicate him. I was afraid if they took me down, I might hurt somebody, might instinctively try to defend myself. So I went into compliance. That's the word I've learned for it now.

I realized that in order to leave the hospital, I had to get the doctors to release me. Oh, I could have left “AMA”—against medical advice— but they wouldn't have taken me back at my job without a release form. I was active in the union, and my boss didn't like me much anyway.

Once a week, a hospital psychiatrist, Dr. Cohen, came to see me. He didn't believe my diagnosis or what he read in my charts. He asked me if I'd heard of the Salem witch hunts. Dr. Linter told me, “You need to fire Dr. Cohen because he's jeopardizing your treatment. He doesn't understand MPD.” So I did.

After two or three weeks, my mental state deteriorated. My son said I did some horrible, terrible thing. Dr. Linter came out with it gradually. She told me that another doctor wanted me to be committed to a hospital for the criminally insane. “But don't worry, I'm not going to let him do that to you.” One minute, I was a responsible member of the community, trying to be a good father, and the next I'm like Charles Manson.

Now I was beginning to get paranoid, trying to make sense out of all this. Dr. Linter would have marathon sessions with me and my wife for two or three hours, trying to get me to recall stuff that was never there. Gradually, it came out from her and the other patients that my son said I was a satanic priest in a cult, that I took him to ceremonies where they sacrificed babies. I was supposed to have been involved in murders, eating body parts. I was one of six men who raped my son. At that point, Phyllis wasn't supposed to be part of it.

Dr. Linter tried to hypnotize me, but I just hyperventilated and almost passed out. She had me see a friend of hers, Larry White, a Christian counselor from a local children's services unit. He would explain to me about Satanists and how they worked, and he helped me to develop alters. Plato was the first one. I like intellectual people and was always attracted to those with an ability to write. So I started getting intellectual with Larry. That was Plato; Larry gave me the name. Another alter was the Comedian. When you're under stress, you relieve it in different ways. I would try to be humorous, and they would identify that personality state as the Comedian. That was acceptable to the group. Depending on the mood I was in, they would say, “Who am I talking to now?” And I'd say, “This is Plato.”

I began to believe that the way I felt and reacted was actually the alter pushing itself forward, and I began to develop this MPD mentality. They brought in a big-deal psychiatrist who had worked on the Hillside Strangler case. He videotaped me, asked me certain questions, looked at some of the paintings I had made. Yeah, I did basket weaving and painted whatever fit with the therapy. This psychiatrist wrote out a report confirming the diagnosis. It was a done deal. This took all of 15 minutes.

I was saying to myself, “Do I have to become like these other patients before I get better?” It was very frightening. My employer kept calling my doctor, saying, “When's he going to get out? We need him back at work.” My wife was getting frantic because we were getting way behind on our bills. I started pressing Dr. Linter about it. Finally, I went to the open unit for two weeks, and then they let me out, but I had to return for sessions twice a week. I got out after 74 days. I was a real mess when I was released. I had bought the MPD agenda completely by that time. Later on, Dr. Linter told me that the Satanists had deprogrammed me with electric shocks, that I had a rare type of MPD. She told me, “They know where you are, your phones will be tapped.” She created a very paranoid environment for everyone.

At that point, Johnny was out of the hospital. When I came home, I wasn't allowed to be alone with him; my wife had to be in the room. Then, in one rare session, Dr. Linter had Johnny and I together. Johnny said, “He didn't do it, he's not the one.” She flipped out and said to me, “Have you been talking to him?” So all of a sudden, I was asking myself, “If I wasn't this high priest, what's happened?” In the meantime, I'm still seeing Larry, who's convincing me of the reality of satanic cults. I'm really getting crazy with this stuff and still trying to hold down a job.

Then, at a special intervention session, Dr. Linter got Johnny to say that my wife was the one. Phyllis had been under tremendous strain already, and she couldn't handle it. When Johnny accused her, she lost it. I was thinking, “Maybe these things really did happen with her, not with me.” I didn't know what to believe. Maybe this was a case of mistaken identity. They put Phyllis in the locked unit right there at the hospital against her will. She was told either to walk over or be carried by three men. To save her dignity, she walked.

When Phyllis left the hospital AMA, Dr. Linter told me I had to get away from her. I sold the house, took the boys, and moved to an apartment. Phyllis moved close to us. Dr. Linter said, “Don't worry, she'll soon be homeless and dysfunctional.” Though she was a wreck, Phyllis left us alone and got on with her life, trying to heal herself. I began to see Dr. Linter less and slowly got my critical thinking back. Gradually, I began to realize that none of it was true. It didn't happen. I was frightened at what I had done. Eventually, I got the courage to call my wife. She was cautious at first, she was hurt so bad. I asked to see her over coffee. Together, we began to sort out what had happened to us.

Phyllis and I have been back together for three years now. We found that Dr. Linter's approach was actually like a cult itself, so we talked to a cult exit counselor and began to understand how coercion, compliance, and mind control work. I would try to talk to Johnny from time to time, but he had to make his own break from Dr. Linter. She just burned him out.

I feel extremely fortunate to win back the trust of my son. I had to take a lot and show him I was a decent guy after all. I acknowledge that I did do some stupid things. I used to really push my kids to excel at sports. I would pitch baseballs to Johnny, even though he didn't want to do it. I would get really upset. I threw the ball hard at him once, and another time I knocked him down at the net with a tennis shot. You also have to understand that my father was the oldest of 14 children in an Irish Catholic family. My Dad had a strap, and we got it. I had one, too, and I used to spank the kids with it. When Johnny was little, I grabbed him, picked him up by one leg, and spanked him upside down because he was covering his rear with his hands.

I know Johnny loves me now, though. It's strained, but our relationship is healing. Two years ago, knowing I love old cars, he gave me a 1949 Packard to tinker with. I'm concerned about the long-term effects on him, though. He still won't allow me or Phyllis to hug or kiss him. He told us once that he felt his emotions were dead. Looking back on this whole thing, I feel the worst about what my son went through. I was a grown-up, an adult, and it was horrible for me. But when it happens to your kid, you get the hair on the back of your neck standing up. That's what makes me so bitter.

Thinking you're crazy and evil is a frightening, scary place to be. It's like going insane slowly, not knowing you're insane, then trying to find your way back. I get hauntings from this. I went to get a newspaper the other day, and a young woman, obviously a schizophrenic, was in front of the store talking to herself. I thought, “There go I but for the grace of God.”

– • –

Gloria Harmon, Accused Mother

For Christmas in 1987, Gloria Harmon's oldest son, Robert, then 34, gave her an inscribed copy of the family genealogy which he had helped to write. “To my one and only mother from your grateful son,” he wrote in the inscription. “Thank you for life; I wouldn't have wanted to have missed it. May our line always continue. Such fine heredity has to be passed on.” It seemed a typical, thoughtful act from a wonderful son. Charles, Robert's younger brother, had gone through a difficult period in his teens, but Robert had been the golden child—always smiling and happy. Creative and enthusiastic, he married Beth, a soulmate who shared his values. They lived simply, ecologically, sharing Gloria's liberal politics. Robert taught music for a living and played gigs on weekends. The only dark spot was their failure thus far to have children, whom they desperately wanted.

Finally, a year later, Beth gave birth to Jessica. Just when everything seemed perfect, however, Robert became inexplicably enraged whenever Jessica cried too long. As a consequence, he entered therapy with Jane Foster in the summer of 1989. Five months later, in December, Robert called his mother (divorced in 1975), brother Charles, and younger sister Rachel together for a therapy session. Though Gloria Harmon, 66 at the time of this interview, did not know it at the time, this meeting would mark the beginning of a process which would culminate early in 1993 with a letter she would never forget....
I liked Jane Foster, Robert's counselor. She was very attractive, in her early 40s, and she seemed to really listen to you. I had nothing against therapy. In fact, I thought it was a good idea in general. We had sought out family counseling once before when Charles was having trouble in high school. But I wasn't prepared for what happened that December of 1989. Robert and I sat on opposite ends of a sofa, with him leaning away from me. For an hour and a half, everything I'd ever done to Robert came out. It was a real beat-up Mom session. He complained about things I never dreamed would upset him. He didn't like the way I patted him on the back when I hugged him. He said he hated the articles or tapes I'd send him.

I was so hurt and confused. He was an amateur astronomer, so I'd sent him Carl Sagan articles. We both enjoyed folk music, and I had brought a tape recorder to a music festival and sent him a tape of it. He said, “I don't even listen to those tapes you sent me.” There were lots of little complaints that just tore me up. I ended up crying and leaving the room. Jane came out on the balcony and apologized for letting the session get out of hand. That was nice of her, but it didn't take away my misery. Although Robert didn't complain about anything I could really feel bad about, I apologized profusely, as if it were my fault. I thought maybe I had overdone it, sending him things.

The whole next year, Robert would send pictures of the baby and short notes, nothing nasty. I stopped sending him anything, afraid it would be the wrong thing to do. In November of 1990, I had open-lung surgery for cancer, a tumor, and was given six months to live. My son Charles sent me Love, Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Siegel, which was right up my alley. Back in the late '60s and early '70s, I had developed an interest in reincarnation, past lives, and visualizations. Both Robert and I took a course in Silva Mind Control. I loved the Bernie Siegel book and was determined to take charge of my own health, to beat this thing with a positive attitude. Also, I was taking an experimental medication.

In January of 1991, Robert and Beth had a son, Richard. I wanted to see my new grandchild in case I died soon, so I went out there to Colorado. I was so excited about how well I was doing. I told Robert and Beth how I visualized my body killing tumors with natural radiation. Robert abruptly got up and left the room. I thought, “Oh, gee, he doesn't want to hear about tumors or think about poor Mom dying.” But in March, I got a letter from him. “You may have noticed that I've been avoiding talking to you lately,” he began. “I enjoyed your visit up until the afternoon when we discussed your goals and you pushed it too far, disregarding my obvious discomfort and unhappiness. You forced your will on me and I had to leave the room to get free.” I couldn't understand this, and the next few lines were even stranger. He said it reminded him of his childhood feelings from the first few years of his life. “I was afraid of you hurting me. My body felt constantly invaded and manipulated against my will. Any feelings of warmth and comforting had sexual overtones attached to them. I felt helpless and trapped.”

This was such a strange letter to get from a 38-year-old man! He talked about feeling all alone with no one to help him and how he left his body behind and retreated into his mind. He wrote he was grateful to have “begun the healing process” and to be in therapy, though he still had “huge reservoirs of anger which I'm draining as fast as I can. I feel more and more detached from you and am relieved about that.” At least he still said he loved me, though, and he signed the letter with “Love, Robert.”

I shared this letter with an old friend who had known Robert a long time, too. I told her, “I'm trying to figure this out. Maybe it's because we took his temperature anally until he was six.” My friend said, “But everybody did that then.” I asked her, “Did he really feel bad like this all those years? How could I not have noticed? Was he hiding all this?” I didn't think I was an insensitive parent. Even my sister-in-law , who doesn't much like me, always said she envied the way I took care of my children.

But I thought I must have done something. I still think that sometimes. What could I have done to bring this on? Maybe psychological abuse? Maybe I wouldn't let him go to a movie one night or something? It's true that we didn't talk much about negative emotions in our family, but Robert always seemed happy to follow our example, he seemed just naturally to enjoy himself. Was it my drinking, maybe? By 1989, when I quit and joined AA, I was drinking three martinis a day. But that was long after Robert was a boy.

Robert is a very expressive writer, but I had never heard him speak this way, as in this letter. A couple of my friends doubted that he even wrote it. I think he did. It's so bizarre, though. If he says this, who would doubt it? He's kind, loving, truthful. Me—I've not always been kind and truthful. I'm a normal, human, imperfect parent.

Then in August, I got a letter which Robert had apparently written back in June, on Mother's Day. He sent it to both my ex-husband and me. “Dear Mom and Dad,” it started, “You each caused me more pain and suffering in my childhood than you or I ever could have imagined. You each abused and neglected me so much that as a child I wanted to die myself or to kill you. I know this to be true to the bottom of my heart because my feelings are still there.” He went on and on, saying that he forgave us because we were acting out of our own unfulfilled needs, that we were both sick and couldn't help ourselves. He ended the letter, “Goodbye and good luck.”

This is so painful. To think he wanted to die? How could he look so happy in the pool with his grandfather? I don't understand it. Where's his common sense? For the first time, when I got this letter, I allowed myself to get angry. “I forgive you, Mom.” For what? What did I do? If you had only known this kid! There's a woman Robert grew up with who lives near me. She also happens to be a therapist now. I took both these letters to her and her mother, my friend June, and we all cried for three hours. They couldn't believe it. Two of June's friends, both therapists, had been accused by their children because of repressed memories.

In January of 1992, Robert called to tell me he had been diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy, which his father also had. I was full of questions, wanting to know if he was taking drugs for it, but I got perfunctory answers. I've done a lot of reading on this since then, and epileptics often have inexplicable anger. I believe that may be what sent Robert to therapy in the first place.

Then, that May, Charles told me on the telephone that Robert had said something about sex abuse. I said, “What?” He didn't know any details. I hung up crying. It had graduated from sexual overtones to sexual abuse. So finally, in October, I wrote Robert my first letter in a long time. I told him that I'd gone to see two professional counselors, and that their advice had been: “Acknowledge that Robert is entitled to his feelings. They are valid and he is hurting. Seek to understand what you did and are doing that hurts him.” I continued: “Where and how could I have been so insensitive, abusive, callous, unfeeling, indifferent, cruel and oblivious to you, my little child?”

Then I said that I had always felt bad about the difficult divorce, but that I always thought that his early childhood was happy and secure, filled with “playing with John Deere toys, building blocks, relatives for dinner, swimming at the club, fireflies and just normal everyday things.” Then I hypothesized that maybe his crib accident when he was two was behind all of this. He had to have three stitches when he fell against the iron bars, and no one discovered him for a long time. “You must have felt so abandoned and frightened and I didn't come to you,” I wrote. Then I asked if I could attend another therapy session.

The next month, I went to Colorado for the session. I had a few minutes alone with Jane before we began and I asked, “What's going on? When this first happened, I thought maybe he had regressed to a past life, or a babysitter had molested him, or a therapist led him down a path.” When Robert came in, the first thing Jane said was, “Have I been leading you down this path?” He said, “No.” Then he accused me of playing with his penis and said that the crib accident was actually a suicide attempt. He was sitting there so serious, so sad. When you see an adult child in such pain and suffering, your heart just bleeds to see it. You almost don't dare to say, “You must be crazy.” You're almost scared it will set off a rage or something physical. But I did say, “I never played with your penis. I may have brushed it when changing your diapers.” Robert talked about hitting pillows with his fist so hard he got bruises. Jane just sat there. Still, it ended well. Robert and I got into his truck together and we could talk about it, so I felt something had been accomplished. “Maybe your grandfather played with your penis or something,” I guessed.

The next major thing that happened was in February of 1993, when Robert went to a hypnotist. At that point, I believed in hypnosis. I would have suggested going to one to get at the truth. Charles called to tell me the results, which were bad, but he wouldn't tell me exactly what came out. “I don't know if I can ever feel the same about you or Dad again,” he told me. Shortly after that, I found out about the False Memory Syndrome Foundation from my new therapist. Finally, I got really angry, and I wanted to know what I was supposed to have done. So I wrote a short note to Robert asking for specifics.

In response, he wrote this horrible letter. I cried for a week. It took me eight times before I could read it aloud to anyone without breaking down. For the first time, there was no “Dear” at the beginning, or “Love” at the end. He wrote that he was enraged that I apparently couldn't remember what I had done. “Through hypnosis,” he said, “I have established contact with my unconscious. It has been keeping track of everything since I was born.” He said it provided the missing pieces to the puzzle, the key to the mystery. “When I was one and two years old, you and Dad had me play with your genitals as part of your foreplay ritual before intercourse.” He said we had sex while he was right there, and that I had kissed him sexually on the mouth even when he was a teenager. “But by far the worst sexual abuse you did to me was the ritual you called 'our secret.' As I said, you started playing with my penis when I was just weeks old. You continued this routine almost daily until I was seven years old, by first forcing me to have an erection and then stimulating me until I had a climax.”

Finally, he said that he was getting better “after four years of intensive individual therapy, recently with two therapists each week, two years of group, countless thousands of dollars and countless thousands of bad moments for my wife and children.” He ended: “It would have been better for me if you had both died when I was born or been locked up for your crimes and I had been raised by someone else, practically anyone else would have been better.”

In between my crying jags, I realized that at least now I knew what he thought. I know it's this horrible, bizarre confabulation. I was almost sorry it didn't include satanic ritual abuse. In a way, I was relieved to finally know the worst. A few months earlier, I had asked Charles, “Does he know I was unfaithful to your father once?” You know, that was actually the worst thing I could think of for my children to know about.

Since then, I've had some contact with Robert. I saw him at Charles' wedding, but we barely spoke. Robert called me recently on Richard's third birthday thanking me for his card. He said, “I'm baking a cake in the shape of a baseball, got to go, just wanted to let you know we appreciated it.” I hung up and started to cry. I couldn't get to sleep that night. It was a crumb being sent my way, just a crumb of love. It just reminded me of everything that isn't in my life now.

I've been trying to keep contact with my grandchildren. I send postcards for Valentine's, Easter. It's terrible to weigh every phrase to see whether it could be taken wrong somehow or other. I'm lucky, compared to some grandparents in my situation, because the cards don't get sent back. Sometimes I talk to them on the phone now. Jessica is five, old enough to throw me a kiss over the phone.

I'm 66 now, and with the cancer, there's a certain immediacy about everything in my life. I want to do everything today. I don't know if Robert will ever come out of this. I try not to think about a future that includes Robert and his family. If I allow myself to do that, to dwell on what could be, it ruins my entire day, and I become very depressed.

For a while, even my relationship with Charles and Rachel changed for the worst, but now we're back on track again, except that Rachel won't talk about Robert with me. For my granddaughter Jessica, I'm starting to write the story of her Daddy, in photograph and scrapbook form, starting with his birth. I hope it will remind me of who he really was.

– • –