We’ve all seen films and TV plays about someone who loses their memory through a traumatic experience ‘their mind can’t handle’ or from being bumped on the bonce by a villain.
I was recently having a coffee with a friend and mentioned I’d seen a film the night before in which a character lost his memory for 24 hours, during which time his business partner was murdered. Unable to recount his movements, he was suspected of the crime.
When I said, “I wonder how it feels, losing your memory for a day?” my friend put down his cup and said “I can tell you exactly.”
And he did . . .
One Monday morning, sitting in his home office facing his computer screen, he couldn’t remember how he got there.
He didn’t remember getting up, showering, dressing, shaving . . . not a thing!
Frightened, he called out to his wife who asked him a series of questions he couldn’t answer, revealing he’d no memory of the previous 24 hours.
He’d forgotten they’d gone shopping Sunday morning; that he’d taken a call from America in the afternoon and one from a well-known comedian in the evening. He’d forgotten their granddaughter had stayed overnight and he’d made her breakfast before his wife took her to school.
Everything from 10am Sunday was a blank . . . except he asked a dozen times, “Is Mickey Rooney dead?” – his death having been announced on the breakfast news.
His wife drove him to their GP surgery, where he was seen straight away because it was thought he’d suffered a stroke.
But, as the doctor examined him, like a cloud lifting from his brain, his memory began to come back.
Even so, the doctor arranged for him to be seen at the local stroke clinic, where it was explained he’d had ‘trans-global amnesia’ brought on by stress. It was temporary and probably wouldn’t re-occur.
It did, a year later in a Brussels hotel. After an hour of trying to remember the names of his three grandchildren, his memory returned.
Ironically and understandably, he’s unable to wipe his amnesia experiences from his memory.