Can You Handle The Truth?

The air is heavy, carrying a salty breath. The night is dark, and drifting fireflies light up under the open sky. We lay just the four of us, taking in the last summer before it all changed. This is how the show We Were Liars reveals the fragile memories of four friends and their summer vacation through Summer 16. While reading the book and watching the show, I was intrigued by the reconstructive nature of memory, especially under the weight of trauma. Cadence, the main protagonist, is left alone and unconscious on a beach, unable to recall the events leading up to the accident. She decides to visit the private island the next summer (Summer 17) in hopes of unfolding the lost memories, creating not only narrative suspense for the audience but also showing us how the brain often suppresses distressing memories as a protective mechanism.

During periods of intense emotional stress, the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for consolidating long-term memories, can be disrupted, leading to incomplete or distorted recollections. Cadence suffers as she questions whether her memories really happened or if they are something she is misinterpreting. Caused by the amplification of the amygdala, the emotional intensity of certain moments can blur factual and contextual details.

This selective amnesia also relates to the concept of motivated forgetting, where the mind unconsciously alters or erases details that would otherwise cause psychological distress. Cadence’s mind creates a narrative that she can live with, showing how memory could be actively reconstructed and shaped by what we can handle emotionally. Over time, memories continue to decay or merge with imagined details, leading to what psychologists call confabulation. We tend to fill the gaps with fabricated or altered information that feels true to us.

Watching the plot unfold made me reflect on how easily our memories can betray us. It makes me wonder how much of what I remember is actually real. We like to think of memory as an objective to

ol, but it is more like a living document, rewritten with a perspective we choose to believe. We Were Liars demonstrates that forgetting is sometimes a necessary adaptation, a way the brain shields itself from unbearable truths.

References

Brown J, Huntley D, Morgan S, Dodson KD, Cich J (2017). Confabulation: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals. Int J Neurol Neurother 4:070. doi.org/10.23937/2378-3001/1410070

Lockhart, E. We Were Liars. Delacorte Press, 2014.

Marks-Tarlow, Terry. “Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Traumatic Memories.” Applied Metapsychology, The International Journal of Applied Metapsychology, 2016. https://www.appliedmetapsychology.org.