recoverying memory

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?

If I want to know about myself before I experienced retrograde amnesia, I will first ask my doctor to find my home, so that I can begin from my family members in my journey of recoverying lost explicit memory. Aside from memories that I can recover from my family, they can help me find some of my friends and my school. From the registral’s office, I can find my previous professors and inquire them about my past; professors might also be helpful finding several of my friends. After recoverying memories from the people I know,  I could slowly getting most of my memories back.

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 think that when I first regain consciousness, I will feel empty and afraid. It will feel like woke up from your dream to find yourself in a strange place with strangers who tells you about your past, which you don’t have any slightest clue about. This could freak me out. After a while, I might be ajusted to that situation and slowly shift focus to recover my memories, and the initial shock may go away soon.

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.

I think all memories are imortant. Some people think that only good memories are important, but I think bad memories are also important. I can learn from the bad memories better than good ones most of the times. So, I dont want to remove/retain any of my memories, or edit them. The distorted memories will cause me to believe in something rediculous.