Is it possible to become a different person because of amnesia?

Amnesia is a partial or complete loss of memory. Depending on what a person forgets, it is divided into different types – there are more than ten of them. The most common is retrograde, when all or many of the memories preceding the amnesia are erased. That’s the kind of amnesia Chase Ambrose earned himself – he forgot his mom and dad, and best friends, and his status as the captain of the football team, and everyone he bullied at his school.

The second place is shared by anterograde and congrade amnesia. In the case of the first, a person does not remember what happened after the disease, but can remember what happened before. If this happened to Chase, he would only forget the recent past or plans for the near future after the injury: what he ate for breakfast, what subject is the test tomorrow. In congrade amnesia, the failure is limited only to the period of injury – the moment when Chase crashed from the roof, and what preceded this shortly before the fall.

Among the causes of amnesia are organic (a head injury, like our hero, a brain disease, alcohol or drug poisoning) and psychological, when the brain represses memories of trauma – but Chase, who kept the whole school in fear before the fall, did not face such an injury.

Everything is clear with psychological reasons – psychologists and psychoanalysts work with this, hypnosis and trance practices can help. These are the memories that you can “get”, just often it takes a long time. But with amnesia caused by organic causes, everything is ambiguous.

Often the chances of regaining memory are very high. The treatment of the underlying disease that provoked memory impairment (with craniocerebral injuries, tumors, mental disorders) is carried out and medications are prescribed that improve memory, concentration, and contribute to the nutrition of the brain. In addition, the patient is prescribed a vitamin-mineral complex to provide the body with all the necessary trace elements; psychotherapy sessions.

But many are concerned about two more questions:

1. Is it possible to fake amnesia?
2. Is it possible to become a different person because of it?

“If we are talking about functional amnesia, it cannot be diagnosed with instrumental methods (MRI, EEG, etc.,” explains psychiatrist Anna Portnova. “However, she has clear symptoms, and the psychiatrist will be able to understand if the child is faking or if he really has a mental disorder. But even if a person has lost all memories, the core qualities of the personality are still preserved. But with severe brain damage, individual personality traits can be lost.”

“Only amnesia in severe neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, is accompanied by profound personality changes,” agrees a medical psychologist, an employee of the laboratory. V.B. Shvyrkov Institute of Psychology RAS Vsevolod Agarkov. “However, the main cause of these changes, like amnesia, is an organic pathological process in the brain substrate, leading to the death of nerve cells and irreversible disruption of neural connections.

Generalized dissociative amnesia, when a person forgets his past, can also cause serious changes in his functioning, so that people who knew him before may get the impression that someone else is in front of them.

That’s what happened to Chase Ambrose – he really became a different person. But! Unlike really sick people, our guy has changed for the better, becoming kinder, more attentive, smarter and more talented. And, finally remembering everything that made up his life, he consciously decided to abandon the past and continue a new happy life, the chance for which he received in such a non-trivial way.

“RESTART”, BOOK FRAGMENT

Dr. Cooperman says I have amnesia. Severe retrograde amnesia is a disease where you do not remember anything that happened before some event. For me, such an event was the flight from the roof.

“I know what amnesia is,” I tell the doctor. “But how is it that I remember this learned word, but have forgotten my own name?” Can’t remember my parents? I don’t understand how I even ended up on the roof?

“It’s simple about the roof,” the guy interjects; they immediately explain to me that this is my older brother, that his name is Johnny and he came from the university for the holidays. — You have a skylight in your room. For as long as I can remember, you loved to climb through it to the roof.

“And I wasn’t warned that I could break my neck?”

“They warned me at first,” my mother says. “And when you turned six, I decided that since you still haven’t fallen off, now you definitely won’t fall off.” You were so athletic…

“Amnesia is a mysterious thing,” the doctor continues to explain. “Especially if, like yours, it came as a result of an injury. We still do not know very well what vital functions this or that area of ​​the brain is responsible for. Some patients lose long-term memory, while others lose short-term memory. Still others lose the ability to transfer information from long-term to short-term. You seem to have lost your memory only about your personality and the events of your life before falling off the roof.

“I mean, I’m terribly lucky,” I chuckle grimly.

“Don’t laugh,” says Dr. Cooperman. “Actually, you don’t remember much.” You retained the ability to move freely, talk, go to the toilet. Would you like to learn everything?

About the toilet – this is important. They told me that I was in a coma for four days. How I managed the toilet all this time is unknown. It is only clear that everything was somehow arranged without my participation. Exactly how, I’m probably better off not knowing.

The doctor checks the monitor readings, writes something in the medical history, and then says, looking at me intently:

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything?” None of what happened to you before?

I stare again intently into the void that has taken the place of my memories. It’s like reaching into your pocket for something that should be there but isn’t there. Only a thing that does not exist, not keys and not a phone, but your whole life. You do not understand, annoying and scared.

I strain my brain with all my might. Come on, come on! You’re not just born into the world. You had a lot of everything in your life before this stupid coma.

And then a vague image appears in my head. I stare intently at the blurry features.

– Do you remember something? Johnny asks excitedly.

The picture is getting clearer, and finally I make out a girl, a little girl, maybe four years old, in a blue dress with white lace. Around it is something like a garden – at any rate, some kind of greenery.

“Yes, girl…” I say carefully so as not to scatter the picture.

— A girl? Cooperman looks questioningly at my mother. Does Chase have a girlfriend?

“No, as far as I know,” Mom replies.

“You don’t understand,” I annoyed. – The girl is very small.

– Helen? Mom asks.

This is the first time I hear this name.

– Who is Ellen?

“Our father’s daughter,” Johnny prompts. – Our sister-in-law.

Father. Sister. Memories must be associated with these words. I try to find them, but in vain. My memory is like a black hole. It must be full of everything, but nothing can escape.

Are they close with your sister? Cooperman asks.

Mom’s face scrunches up.

– Immediately after this happened, my ex-husband screamed, they say, it’s all my fault, and almost destroyed the emergency department. But then, doctor, while Chase was in a coma, did you ever see him come here at least once? Exactly. So you understand the relationship my boys have with their father and his new family.

“I don’t know any Helen,” I say as soon as Mom finishes. “I don’t know anyone at all. And that girl has blond hair, and she is wearing a blue dress with lace. Elegant, as if going to church or to visit. But I remember only her, and nothing else.

“That’s definitely not Helen,” Mom says confidently. She has dark hair like her mother’s.

Doctor, have I lost my mind? I ask Cooperman.

“Nothing like that,” he replies. – If you remember the girl, then the memory has not been completely erased. You just lost access to it. Memories will definitely come back – if not all, then many. And this girl is your key to them. Try to think more about her, about who she is and what is so special about her that, forgetting everything in general, you remembered exactly about her.