Push Your Limits: Don't Trust Anyone

Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Chris's Secret Diary: November 11

Friday, October 11

My name is Chris Lucas. 47 years old, is a patient with amnesia.Here I sit, writing my own story on this strange bed, wearing a silk nightgown that the man downstairs - who says he's my husband and name's Ben - bought it for me 46th birthday present.The room was very quiet, and the only light came from the bedside lamp, which was a soft orange light.I felt like I was floating in mid-air, in a pool of light.

I've closed the bedroom door and sneaked into my journal.I can hear my husband in the living room—the couch makes a slight crackle when he leans forward or stands up, and the occasional cough is politely stifled—but if he goes upstairs, I'll take it This thing is hidden.I would put it under the bed or under the pillow.I don't want him to see me writing on it.I don't want to tell him how this journal came about.

I looked at the clock on the bedside table.It's almost 11 o'clock; I must write quickly.I imagine it won't be long before I hear the TV go quiet, the creaking of the floorboards as Ben walks across the room, the soft click of the light switch.Would he go into the kitchen and make himself a sandwich or pour himself a glass of water?Or will he come straight to bed?I have no idea.I don't know his habits.I don't know my own habits.

Because I have no memory.Both Ben and the doctor I met this afternoon said that when I go to sleep tonight my brain will erase everything I knew today, everything I did today.When I wake up tomorrow I will be the same as I was this morning.I thought that I was still a child, that I still had a lifetime to make various choices.

Then I will find out again that I was wrong.I have already made a choice, and the first half of my life has passed.

The doctor's name is Nash.He called me this morning and drove me to a clinic.He asked me, and I told him I'd never met him; he smiled—not a malicious one—and lifted the lid of the computer on his desk.

He played me a video, a video clip.It was about me and him, sitting in the same chair, in the same office, in different clothes than today.In the film, he handed me a pencil and asked me to draw on a piece of paper, but I only looked at the mirror, so everything was reversed.I could see in the video that I was having a hard time, but now all I see in this video is my wrinkled fingers and the shiny wedding ring on my left hand.He seemed happy when I finished drawing. "You're getting faster," he says in the film, before adding that if I can't remember the training itself, somewhere—somewhere deep down—I must have remembered The results of the weeks of training. "This means that your long-term memory plays a part," he said.The me in the video smiles, but doesn't look happy.The movie ends here.

Dr. Nash turned off the computer.He said that in the last few weeks we had been seeing each other, a function called "episodic memory" in me was severely impaired.He explained it meant I couldn't recall "biographical details" of events or personal experiences, and told me the condition was usually caused by some sort of neurological issue.It could be structural or chemical, or a hormonal imbalance, he said.Such cases are very rare, and mine seems to be exceptionally severe.When I asked him how serious it was, he told me there were days when I couldn't remember much since early childhood.I thought about this morning, waking up with absolutely no memory of my adulthood.

"On certain days?" I asked.He didn't answer, and his silence let me see what he really meant:
most days.

There are treatments for persistent amnesia, he said—like drugs, hypnosis—but most have been tried on me. "But you can do something special to help yourself, Chrissy," he said.When I asked why, he said I was not like most amnesiacs. "Your symptoms suggest that your memory is not permanently lost," he said. "You can recover your memory for hours, and even wake up after a short nap and remember things, as long as you don't fall into a deep sleep. This is very rare. Most amnesia Syndrome loses new memories in seconds..."

"Conclusion?" I said.He slides a brown-covered notebook over the table to me.

"I thought maybe you should jot down your session, your feelings, any impressions or memories that come to mind. Make a note of that."

I leaned forward and took the notebook.Not a single word was written in it.

This is my treatment?I think.Write a log?I want to remember things, not just record them.

He must have sensed my disappointment. "I also hope that the act of writing down memories will have other effects," he said. "The effects may be cumulative."

I was silent for a moment.Seriously, what choice do I have?Either keep a log, or stay where you are forever.

"Okay," I said, "I'll keep that in mind."

"Okay," he said, "my number is written on the title page of the journal. Call me if you don't understand anything."

I took the log and promised I would.After a long silence, he said, "We've been doing some nice work on your childhood memories lately. We've been looking at pictures and stuff like that." Pull out a photo. "I want you to see this today," he said, "do you recognize it?"

In the photo is a house.It seemed completely foreign at first, but then it dawned on me when I saw the worn steps at the front door.I grew up in this house and I woke up this morning thinking I was in this house.It looks a little changed, not quite real, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.I swallowed hard: "This is the house I lived in when I was a child."

He nodded and said that my early memories were mostly unaffected.He asked me to describe the situation in the house.

I told him my memory: open the front door to the living room, a small dining room at the back of the house, and a path outside the house that leads directly to the kitchen at the back of the house: the path separates our house from the neighbors.

"Is there any more?" he said. "Upstairs?"

"There are two bedrooms," I said, "one at the front and one at the back. The bathroom and toilet are further away than the kitchen, at the end of the house. brick walls and a corrugated plastic roof to bring them in."

"anything else?"

I don't know what he's looking for. "I don't know..." I said.

He asked me if I could recall some tiny detail.

So I remembered. "My mother kept a jar in the pantry marked 'Candy,'" I said. "She used to keep her money in it. She hid the jar in the top shelf, and there was a She made it herself. We used to drive into a wood to pick berries. I don’t remember where the wood is. The three of us would go deep into the woods and pick some blackberries, bag after bag, and I mother would make them into jam."

"Okay," he said, nodding. "Excellent!" he wrote on the paper in front of him. "What about these?" he asked again.

He holds several photos in his hand.One was of a woman, whom I recognized after a while as my mother.There is one of me.I told him which ones I could recognize, and when I was done he took the photos away. "Very good. Much more childhood memories than you normally can recall. I think it's because of the pictures." He paused. "Next time I want you to see more pictures."

I agreed.I wondered where he found the photos and how much he knew about a life I knew nothing about myself.

"Can I keep it?" I said, "This picture of the old house?"

He smiled: "Of course!" He handed over the photo, and I clipped it to the journal page.

He drove me home.He had explained that Ben didn't know we were meeting, but now he told me I should think about whether I should tell Ben about starting a journal. "You can feel restricted," he said, "and therefore want to avoid certain things when recording. And I think it's very important for you to feel that you can speak up. And if Ben finds out that you decide to try therapy again , might not be happy." He paused: "You might have to hide it."

"But how do I remember to write a journal?" I asked.He didn't say a word.An idea popped into my head: "Can you remind me?"

He told me he would. "But you have to tell me where you're going to hide it," he said.We parked in front of a house.It took me a while to realize that this was my own home after the motor died.

"The closet," I said, "I'll keep it in the back of the closet."

"Good idea," he said, "but you'll have to keep a journal tonight, before you go to bed. Otherwise it'll be a blank notebook again tomorrow, and you won't know what it's for."

I said I would, I get it.I got out of the car.

"Take care, Chris," he said.

Now I sit on the bed and wait for my husband.I look at my home in pictures: I grew up there.It looked so ordinary, yet so familiar.

How did I get from then to where I am now?I think.What happened?What kind of past do I have?
I heard the chime in the living room chime once.It's midnight.Ben is going up the stairs.I would stash the journal in a shoebox I had just found and stash it in the closet where I told Dr. Nash.Tomorrow, if he calls, I'll make more entries in the journal.

(End of this chapter)