It started as a normal night. A young woman named Claire was out with a couple friends and
her boyfriend in Austin, Texas. The group had a few drinks at one their apartments
in downtown and then went out to a couple of bars in the area. From here, however,
things would suddenly and severely turn bad. The next thing Claire knew, she was opening
her eyes to stark lighting that overwhelmed and blinded her. It was almost as if she was being
born and seeing light for the first time. As her vision returned, she noticed her surroundings:
a sterile, mostly empty, white room. She was in a bed. Her head was pounding. There was
a woman in the corner of the room, but Claire didn’t recognize her. In a delirious confusion,
she leaned her head up and looked around. “Claire!” the woman in the corner shouted
as she noticed. The woman rushed toward to the door of the room and gestured outside
of it. Almost immediately, a doctor rushed in and began assisting Claire,
checking her airways, adjusting various medical equipment, and administering medication.
After some time passed, the doctor asked Claire how she was feeling and what she remembered.
Claire paused for a moment. “I… I don’t know. Why?” she said.
“You’ve been in coma for several days. You hit your head. Don’t worry, though. Everything will
be ok. Just try to relax. Things should start coming back to you more and more, and we’ll be
here to help you and explain everything.” The doctor paused. “I’m going to let you be with
your mother for a little while.” The woman who was in the
corner approached Claire’s bed. “How are you feeling, sweetie?” she asked.
“I… I don’t know. Weird. I think,” Claire responded.
Claire’s mother went on to describe what happened. She told Claire that she was at a bar
with two friends, named Shannon and Mary, and her boyfriend Chris, when someone tried to fight Mary,
but Claire stepped in and tried to protect her. In the process, Claire got hit in the head,
knocking her unconscious, and causing her to fall and hit her head on the ground. The smack
against the ground severely injured her brain, and she was rushed to the hospital, where she
had remained in a coma for the following six days. Claire didn’t remember any of it. She had no idea
what happened. But far, far scarier, she couldn’t remember anything at all. She didn’t recognize
her mom. She didn’t remember anyone her mom had mentioned, she didn’t remember having a boyfriend.
She couldn’t really remember anything from before waking up just moments ago. She had no idea who
she was. It was like she had been re-born, but with an ability to think and understand
language and concepts. It was an experience that if she had a stronger reference point
for how she felt before and knew what she had now lost, it would have psychologically broken her.
Claire spent the following couple days resting and going through assessments, treatments,
and therapies. After several days had gone by, and Claire’s memory hadn’t returned at all,
the doctor eventually concluded that Claire had developed what is known as retroactive
amnesia—far worse than he had originally expected. He explained to Claire and her
mother that this particular condition was known to affect episodic, autobiographical, and declarative
memory, which were essentially responsible for remembering events, people, contextual frameworks,
and essentially who someone was and what their life was like. However, it often doesn’t affect
the individual’s procedural memory, which included things like skills and language compression.
And so, Claire wouldn’t have a difficult time learning new information moving forward,
but she would essentially have to relearn everything about her life, about herself.
After receiving the news, Claire sat quietly in the hospital room with her
mother. Her mother cried for a while. Claire felt very little, struggling to
understand the emotions of the situation. Eventually, after some more time passed,
Claire looked over to her mother and said, “Can I ask a question?”
“Sure, of course, honey. What do you need?” “Who am I? Like what am I like?”
Her mother stood up and walked over toward the bed.
“Ok, sure. That’s an easy one. You’re quiet, always been a little on the shy side,
closed off a bit, but you know exactly what you like and want. You always love spending time
with your friends and going out and doing things. You like extravagant, big things,
especially. Big events and luxurious experiences. You’re sweet and you would never hurt or bother or
annoy or upset anyone. You don’t like to waste time or involve yourself in useless or dumb
things… like a fight, for example. Obviously, you got caught up in the middle of something,
but you stood up for your friend, so that says a lot about who you are.”
Claire laid her head back and looked straight up, as if trying to remember
or perhaps absorb her mother’s words. Vague threads of memories seemed to appear in her
consciousness but what were attached on the other sides remained hung down into shadows of her mind.
Later that day, Claire’s sister Sammy came in to visit her. After talking for a little while,
Sammy said, “If I know you at all, you definitely started that fight.” Sammy
laughed a bit. Then continued, “You’ve always been a shit-stirrer. Always ready to fight.”
The next day, Claire’s boyfriend Chris came in to visit, giving her mother some much-needed time to
go home and rest without worrying as much. Chris sat at the edge of the hospital bed,
holding Claire’s hand. They talked for a little while, though they had a difficult
time finding exactly what to talk about. In the midst of a silence, Claire looked
at Chris and said, “Can you tell me who I am? And what I’m like?”
Chris paused for a moment, clearly overwhelmed. “Well, you… firstly, you’re incredibly beautiful
and sweet. More generally… you like your alone time. You prefer the simple things in life,
like to just spend time by yourself or a night in. You love pasta and wine. You’re a bit impulsive
and often kind of like to throw caution to the wind when making decisions.” He paused for a
moment, carefully thinking to himself. Then, he unintentionally gestured a sort of why-not-look.
“You’re also kind of defensive, kind of… kind of feisty. Which I personally love about you.
You always say how you feel. But you also kind of like starting things sometimes, like to see
what reactions you can get out of people and situations. Sometimes you go out over your
head. Like the fight. Sometimes you start things with people, and it’s an innocent thing initially,
but it can get carried away.” There was a brief silence.
“I started the fight?” Claire said. “Yeah. Did your mom not tell you what happened?”
“No, she did, but just differently, I think.” “I mean, I saw the whole thing. You and Mary
went up to these two girls at the bar cause you guys thought they looked at you weird… even though
they didn’t. One of them just looked at you guys casually. But like, you were just in front of
them. And then you egged them on, and when they finally pushed back, you guys pushed back further
and then you all started fighting.” Claire suddenly laid her head back,
confused and disoriented. “But you’re an incredible person,
Claire, and an incredible girlfriend. And I love you more than anything.”
Two days later, Claire’s friend Mary came in and visited her. The two sat in the room alone
while Mary reminisced over things from their past. After a little while, Claire asked her,
“Can I ask you something?” “Sure. Yeah.”
“Can you describe what I’m like? Who am I?” Immediately, Mary answered, “You’re tough
as hell. Outgoing. Adventurous. Confident. Not willing to take anyone’s shit. You’re my girl,
been best friends ever since high school. Always down to drink and go
out and have a good time. Down for anything, honestly.” Mary laughed. “You’re easy going,
love to take risks and try new things. Super fun. And you’re an incredible friend.
You stood up for me when those girls tried to fight me. So there’s that.”
Hesitantly, Claire said back, “So someone tried to fight you?”
“Yeah, this girl wanted to fight me over like nothing, and you tried to stop the whole thing,
but they just kept escalating it. But you had my back the whole time.”
Later that same day, Shannon, Claire’s other friend who was there that night, came to visit.
Again, at some point, Claire asked Shannon, “Can you tell me what I’m like? And what happened?”
“Sure, yeah! Well, firstly, you’re incredibly kind and smart. I met you in a personal finance course
in college, and I feel like I knew exactly who you were as soon as I met you. Pragmatic, calculated,
careful. You don’t just do things haphazardly. You’re thoughtful about risks and what you spend
your time doing and who you spend your time with. You can kind of be closed-off and to
yourself a bit, don’t like doing crazy things or going crazy place, which is just like how I am.
You don’t like causing drama or being involved in anything stupid. You were just caught in the
middle of a misunderstanding. I saw the whole thing. I was standing with Chris while you and
Mary went to get a drink, and these two girls I think like thought you guys were someone else and
you guys just asked them what they wanted, but they like prodded back at you for some reason,
and then it all just erupted, and you were just there in between it all, trying to stop it.”
Soon, Shannon left, leaving Claire alone in the hospital room for a while.
Claire sat in silence, thinking to herself, trying to piece everything together. It had been
a little over a week since she had awoken from her coma, unaware of she was and what had happened.
Now, after she had talked with five of the people supposedly closest to her, asking each
of them who she was and what had happened and why, somehow, she still didn’t have any idea.
Each person described her almost completely differently—often in complete contradiction
with each other. But each person had good reasons, examples, and an obvious
sense of certainty with what they said. Claire wondered to herself how she could
be all of those things they described if they contradicted each other? What was actually true?
She wondered to herself. Was it all true? Was none of it? What is true? Who was she?