Mapping Memory;
My story is personal, my story is based solely on facts, I was, and still am, an adult longing to find the life she has no memory of living. Grade School? No memory. Piano lessons? No memory. My high school sweetheart? No memory. WHY?
Since the age of thirteen, (following a major bike accident), I was an individual burdened with constant ‘semi-controlled’ epileptic, or ’blank-out’ seizures.
This was brought on by two major scars, one that was embe dded on the front left ‘medial temporal lobe’ of my brain, the area where the hippocampus area stores ‘long term memory’. The second scar was on the right side, or ‘parietal lobe‘ which resulted in repeated or ‘psycho-motor‘ seizures (repeated movements during blank-outs).The scar on the front left temporal lobe continued to penetrate deeper into the brain tissue triggering a continuous increase in seizure activity.
The unanswered question is why I do not remember anything prior to the accident. The question; If my memory have been hampered only post (following) and not pre (prior), then why is my life completely, totally blank before the accident. The daunting question is what were the actions or events that had inflicted the multi-scarring on other areas of my brain, the scars that were identified only as ‘older infractions‘by the Neurological team in 1975?
Allow me to explain memory function;
The ‘medial temporal lobes‘—there's one on each side of the brain—include an arch-shaped structure called the hippocampus and several adjacent regions that together perform the magical feat of turning our perceptions into long-term memories. The memories aren't actually stored in the hippocampus—they reside elsewhere, in the brain's corrugated outer layers, the neo-cortex—but the hippocampus area is the part of the brain that makes them stick. My hippocampus was blocked for long term memory, and without it I was like a camcorder without a working tape head. I was living, I was seeing, but over 99% was not recorded for later reminiscing. The mystery is that my learning was not hindered, why? I just have no memory of when or who taught me abilities and talent, for instance, Cosmetology (my first profession) or my Piano lessons, absolutely no memory.
Though scientists had known that there was a difference between long- and short-term memory since the late 19th century, they now have evidence that the two types of memory happens in different parts of the brain, and that without the connection the hippocampus area couldn't turn a short-term memory into a long-term one.
Short-term memory: A system for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. Short-term memory is involved in the selection, initiation, and termination of information-processing functions such as encoding, storing, and retrieving data.
Long-term memory: A system for permanently storing, managing, and retrieving information for later use. Items of information stored as long-term memory may be available for a lifetime.
My amnesia, or blocked long term memory, may have began in early infancy, this possibility is due to having absolutely no memory of my childhood, absolute none. But the bike accident, the concussion, the severe trauma to my brain could have brought about both “anterograde”, cannot form new memory, and “retrograde” can’t remember old memory. Doctors have suggested that it may be best not to search for the answers, not to pry to deep into my past. What I may discover, the possible answers to unravel the mystery of my life may uncover things best left hidden, but I needed to know. Should I search? Yes, and I have.
Finding answers does not stir hate, just understanding.
Tragedies and humiliations, these events, seem to be etched most sharply, often with the most unbearable exactitude, while those memories we think we really need—the name of the acquaintance, the time of the appointment, the location of the car keys—have a habit of evaporating. This is the reason for the few “spot scenes” that are as vivid as if it were yesterday I witnessed them, not forty or more years ago.
My husband of 36 years has allowed me to know my life without grasping for the long-term memory I did not have. Pictures, writings and reminiscing helped me to know what my life has been since 1974, but it does not ‘stir’ any memory it just allows me to know who I have been, what we have challenged and what we have gained together. For me, it is like reading a book, stepping into another world and life, now you know the story but you were not there. I know about our adventures, our classic cars, our business’ we created, but to open the door to my past, to ‘peer’ inside, to remember anything without the pictures are still impossible.
Following twenty years of research and study by the Florida Medical University located in Gainesville Fl, the brain surgery in 1995 opened the door to the left medial temporal lobe area of my brain and, I pray, never will that gateway be locked, or blocked again. The seizures I had been plagued with for decades subsided; finally I realized how long a month of time actually was.
Come everyone; join me as I search for the life, the answers, the longing to connect with my childhood home and family. I have no memory but I have a longing, a child’s longing to find her Mommy, to feel her warm arms, to sense the gentle kiss each infant is entitled to receive but I felt none, why?
