Curiously, I not only remember what it was like to be amnesiac, I vividly remember those hours. Everything hazy about the edges and slowed down a little perceptually, but I still felt like myself. (In retrospect the feeling was very similar having the pre-surgery Demoral/Valium combo start to kick in.)
I had an odd grasping sensation when I struggled for facts that for some reason I think of visually: it was like being on a spotlit stage where you are trying to see into the dark beyond and just catch dim edges of what’s out there. You know that you should know what it is, but it’s just not coming into focus.
But the weirdest part for me looking back was the early stages – when I understood everything said in English but replied in French – because I had no idea at the time that I wasn’t speaking English.
And how did I repay it over the years?
Just like Homer Simpson: “All right, brain, I don’t like you and you don’t like me - so let’s just do this and I’ll get back to killing you with beer.”
Speaking of which, I’m amazed we haven’t heard any acohol-induced amnesia stories…
Quand lieu racontait en détail sa diète de 12000 calories par jour, on l’a baptisé «The Duck Of Death» dans le magazine Ports Illustrated. Il était une nullité certes, mais une nullité spectaculaire.
I had a concussion at football practice when I was a kid. The next (or the first) thing I knew I was on the ground with a coach yelling at me to get up which I did. Everybody was running laps around the field which I began to do as well. Problem was I didn’t really know who I was or what I was doing there. As it turned out this was the conclusion of practice for that evening and after the obligatory lap running everyone met their respective rides to go home. By this point I was totally mentally confused and literally didn’t even recognize my own parents and they had to coax me into our family car whereupon I collapsed in a delirium. My folks revived me at home and a visit to the family doctor revealed no serious injury but until sometime well into my adult years I could not recall anything about that day up to that next (or first) point. Just a blank.
Personally, I woke up naked with no recollection of who I was or where I’d been. The only clue was a scar that I had and the fact that I only see in black and white. Additionally, I also know every mundane fact in the world and spout them at every opportunity.
Hello, I’m TV’s “John Doe”, airing on Fox every friday at 9, 8 central.
My SO was in a motorcycle crash - riding pillion with a bloke, she went clear over the tractor that didn’t look in its mirror before turning and he went under it (but was OK).
She remembers the tractor turning and then standing with her lid off, on the grass next to her boyfriend’s bike. She tried hypnotherapy to get the missing time back but to no avail.
I woke up the next morning in my bed at home with one side of my body bruised and scarred, a very sore spot in my head :smack:, and one thing burned into my memory:[ul] **Q: **“What happened to me?”
**A: **“You had an accident on your bicycle.”[/ul]
Why was it burned into my memory? Apparently I had repeated that question over and over and over again on the drive (45 min) to the hospital. And back again. (yes, they just sent me back home and said to keep an eye on me.)
My brother later told me that he picked me up off the street after the accident and walked me home. To this day I have no idea how I wrecked - if there was a car involved, or some mechanical failure of the bicycle, or what. No recollection of that whole day - but then if it was unremarkable I don’t know that I’d have remembered it anyway.
15 yrs later, I doubt I’ll ever remember the accident.
Later my parents told me that they sent me to take a shower and clean up. I had stayed in the shower for an hour. Maybe I got stuck on the **lather, rince, repeat **loop for a while until I ran out of shampoo.
It still disturbs me that those memories are gone, never to be recovered. Or that these sort of things can happen to my own brain. So reading some of everyone else’s stories is helpful. Thanks y’all.
And by the way - I can’t believe I’m the first one to use the :smack: smiley in this thread…
Troy Aikman was playing in the conference championship when he got the bejeezzus knocked out of him. They took him to the locker room and asked him if he knew who and where he was.
He thought he was still in high school, playing a game. They told him no, you’re the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, and you’re in the conference championship. His reaction: I am? Man, that’s cool!!
I had a concussion in the 5th grade. I fell and hit my temple while playing baseball on an asphalt playground. Saw stars - six or seven really jagged ones. Their centers were red and their edges were yellow, with orange in between. They just sort of unfolded and collapsed quickly in my field of vision.
It hurt a lot. As time went on it hurt worse instead of feeling better, but there wasn’t much of a lump. It hurt too much to concentrate on any schoolwork that required thinking, so I tried to do my penmanship. But the sentences kept curving down off of the line. I kept erasing and trying again, but it never worked. And when I tried to look at the clock to see how much longer I had to hold out, I couldn’t see the clock because the center of my vision was blurry.
I got vaguely worried because I started thinking that there were words that I couldn’t say or even think the sound of. I started crying and the girl sitting next to me asked what was wrong. I said my head hurt. And then I said that it was strange but I was afraid that I couldn’t say the word - - - and then I tried to say the word ‘talk’. I tried several times. What came out started with a T every time, but then it would wander randomly. I finally gave up and said speak instead. But by then she was freaked out completely. She called for the teacher and my parents were called.
I was taken to the doctor’s and then to the hospital. I got into an elevator and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of a conversation from my hospital bed. I don’t know if I asked where the elevator had gone, but I asked something and eventually figured out that I had lost about a day and a half. Considering how badly it had hurt when I got into the elevator, I’m not really sorry to see that time gone.
snip…"My brother later told me that he picked me up off the street after the accident and walked me home. To this day I have no idea how I wrecked - if there was a car involved, or some mechanical failure of the bicycle, or what. No recollection of that whole day - but then if it was unremarkable I don’t know that I’d have remembered it anyway."
About 10 years ago I was riding my brother’s (UncleBeer) bike training for a bike race. To this day I don’t remember how far I went before I crashed. Don’t know what happened, but I managed to get home under my own power. Imagine my wifes suprise as I ride up the driveway dripping blood and my earlobe hangin’ off my head.
First thing I remember is the nurse at the hospital scrubbing the road rash out of my face with what must have been steel wool!
My wife tells me I kept asking where the kids were and that she should tell my brother that I was real sorry about messing up his bike.
Now there is an advertisement for wearing a bike helmet.
I was calmly walking down the street when I hit a raised piece of concrete sidewalk, lost my balance, and went down on my right side, on top of my purse. I was very shaken up, but managed to get up and keep walking.
I walked down the street, and stopped in a coffee shop. Sitting there, drinking coffee, I remembered I had two checks to cash. Took them out of my purse, turned them over to endorse them. Total blank. What is my name? Turned them over, saw my name. Oh, yeah.
I spent the next week with gaps in my memory. I knew I was in a town that began with “B,” but couldn’t remember the name. Saw a street sign: Bergenfield. I would know I knew a person, but couldn’t tell who they were or even their name.
The right side of my body was one huge bruise. If I hadn’t been carrying a purse, I think I would have broken my ribs. It was fun grossing people out with it.
I fell out of a tree when I was 8 years old. Fall was only about 5 or 6 feet but I landed forehead first onto a concrete slab. My sister and friend found me unconscious and freaked out, yelling and screaming in typical 8 and 9 year old fashion. I woke up, sitting in my stepfather’s lap with a washcloth being held on my forehead. Everyone was sitting around the table looking at me. “What?” Then there’s a big gap of time and I realize I’m in the back of our station wagon being driven somewhere. Another gap. I’m in the ER, getting a little beligerent with my mom and the nurse, “I said I fell out of Wendy’s tree, not Wendy’s street!”. (Guess I was slurring my words some at that point.) I think I also cursed at them both. Then I blacked out again. I have no memory of any of what happened after that. According to my mom, I mistook the hall closet for the bathroom, kept insisting my name was Danielle, I was 4 years old and I had left my dolly out in the rain. (I did recognize my mom though). That lasted for a couple of days. I don’t think mom sent me to school for those days.
