Author Archives: karl.latendorf

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?
Well I would hope that if I were in any serious accident like this, I would wake up to people claiming to be my family. This might be the hardest part, not because I dislike my family, but because it would be the first thing I would have to trust. I might choose to not believe my sister is my sister, that’s because I’m not a fan of her. But I guess I’d have to trust them or I’d be stuck eating hospital food, and working up a nice bill, plus without these people claiming to be my parents I wouldn’t have an insurance card. So I’d probably just go with them.

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.
It definitely would not be easy to just have to believe people. I barely believe people now. I would probably rely on pictures the most. I would definitely be frustrated a lot. There would be so much to learn over. People’s names, street names, and I know I would be furious when I found out the price of an unlimited monthly metrocard. I would be upset a lot. There is so much information we need on a daily basis that without question we know; my social, my date of birth, and now I’ve got to walk around with it all written down. And if i lose that, and someone steals my identity then im really screwed. How do I argue with authorities that someone isn’t me, when I dont know me? Frustrated is most likely how I would feel. Having so many questions about everything, and not being positive if the people you “know” are steering you in the right direction sounds frustrating.

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.
Well I would definitely cancel out embarrassing memories, I’ve been trying to think of an example but I might have already erased them. I would accept all of the positive memories as true, although it would be upsetting knowing you did all these great things but don’t have the experience you should. Like vacations, you can look at pictures and build the memories again but I don’t know if thats the same as having the experience. It would be difficult to retain frightening memories because I feel for the most part they are experiences you would choose not to live again. Retaining a lot of our memories would be difficult, because it kind of wouldn’t be us living it, we just heard we did it. Say after the accident I went to a party, and someone was talking about England, would I say “I heard I’ve been there before, and I heard I enjoyed it”? That sounds crazy. I think I might choose to listen to people tell me about the memories I’ve had, but really focus on making new ones.