Memory Reflection

For this reflection,
imagine that you were unexpectedly struck by a falling object, which caused you
to experience retrograde amnesia. As we learned, retrograde amnesia is the loss
of memories which occurred before the brain injury. In this case, imagine this
accident has caused you to forget all your explicit memories from childhood up
until you were struck by the falling object.

Luckily, a medication
has been developed to help you recover your memories, but it’s up to you to
guide the recovery process.

1.
How would you begin the process of recovering your memory? Who would you turn
to, where would you search, and how would you proceed?

The first step I would
take is, go to those places that I used to frequent most of the time. (It’s
clear that my memory is blank, but I know someone would tell me you loved to go
to that specific place) Maybe something special happened there. We know that
emotional memories are easier to recall. So, chances are that I can remember
something. Navigate thought my school work, photos, my personal computer, talk
to close friends, and most importantly my family.

It might sound funny
but social network can be a powerful tool in finding out more about myself. There
are hundreds of people who post every single day, every single thing that they do,
think, or want to do in the future. If I have access to it, I can go on and read
everything that I have done, said, or posted. Interact with friends I used to
talk to, those to whom I used to tell the good and bad things that I was going
through- Because some of us may have good friends who moved away or new good
friends around the world. So, in order to get in touch with them social network
makes it possible. They can tell me things that I want to know, something that
I can’t recall, or pictures that I have shared with them, comments I’ve made,
messages that we’ve exchanged. They can really tell a lot about myself, my
personality, the way I used to behave, think, and act.

If it would ever were
to happen to me, I think a good start would be go to that place where the
accident happened. If I want to recover my memory, maybe the place that made me
lost it can also help me gain some memory because remember, that specific place
is now part of my “bad” memories. It’s part of my life. Maybe you can make a
chronological timeline and say…. before the accident I was doing this and that,
I was going to that place, I was going to do this and that,  maybe you were thinking about something… so
on and so forth. Another good place to search is you own house.

Obviously you can’t
really remember who you are, but your family is there for you, true friends
will never walk away. They will stay with you throughout the process of
recovery.

2.
Please describe the emotional journey you imagine you would be going through as
you attempt to reconstruct your life. Imagine the feelings you would have.

I can’t image the
journey I would have to go through. My first reaction I think would be complete
loss, meaning feeling in complete darkness. More than confused I’m going to be
in panic, trying to find answers. I know some people may feel reluctant about
this. But giving up is not a good way to get your life back in track. Feeling
useless is completely normal. You don’t know what you were good at, things you
used to do, things you hated to do, etc. But finding out how amazing you were
back then, Is I think a good motivation to overcome this pitfall in life.

3.
Suppose you were able to pick and choose the memories you wanted to recover
from your life. What types of memories would you choose to retain and what
types of memories might you decide to edit out of your remembered experience?
Positive, negative, painful, happy, angry, frightened, etc. Please elaborate
and explain some your decision making process.

Throughout my life span
I have had good and bad memories. Obviously that’s not only true for myself,
but for everybody. But in in this case I believe I would not only like to retain
good memories, one of the reasons is because I strongly believe that bad
memories help you shape the future, as well as, your behavior. I am now more
aware of what’s going to happen if I go through that experience again, I am now
more likely to overcome any situation in my life because I already know what it
feels like to be in that particular situation. So, this helps me be stronger
and more confident than if I had never felt that experience of negativity in my
life. I would like to recover and retain all my memories because that is what
describes the real ME. That’s who I am, and who I want to be for the rest of my
life.