The genius is on the left, the lunatic is on the right

Chapter 5 Forever, Forever

If your life stays at the age of 18 forever, so young, so healthy, so beautiful... What a magical and pleasant thing it will be, you can do a lot of things that you can only do when you are young, and keep doing it...

stop!Back to reality, according to the normal metabolism theory of cells, it is impossible for anyone to stay young and live forever. This is something we all know.So the "Arabian Nights" of staying at the age of 18 forever can only be comforted occasionally in dreams.However, if the various functions of the body are aging normally, but the memory stays at the age of 18 forever, every day when I wake up, I feel energetic and want to go out to chase the one I love.Is this situation good or bad?
Among Dr. Oliver's patients, there is such a 50-year-old veteran named Jimmy. In fact, he only met Dr. Oliver when he was living in a mental hospital.

When meeting him for the first time, Jimmy showed his cheerfulness and talkativeness.He smiled and chatted with Oliver without restraint, from the town where he was born to the games he played with his brother when he was a child.The school he attended when he was in elementary school, he even remembered the jokes made by the principal, and told Oliver vividly.

Jimmy told Oliver that he was very obsessed with the subject of mathematics, but his military service interrupted his studies. He decided to go to college after retiring and continue to study mathematics.

Wait, when we got here, Dr. Oliver suddenly felt something was wrong.When Jimmy talked about his plans after retiring from the army, he had a longing expression, as if these things were still planned and never happened.But now Jimmy is over 50 years old and has been discharged from the army for more than 30 years. Doesn't he know what happened after he left the army?
Sure enough, Jimmy's story stopped, and he seemed to be thinking about something. Dr. Oliver remembered that Jimmy should have talked about his experience when he was 19 years old. After 30 seconds, Jimmy continued to speak with a smile: "You know what? I only took a crash course for three months, got on a submarine, and found a job as a radio operator's assistant..." Then, he detailed described the nature of the work for Dr. Oliver, and every submarine he had served since.When Dr. Oliver asked about the Morse code, he showed a knowing smile, and told Dr. Oliver the principle of the Morse code and the method of sending a report.

This is indeed an interesting and exciting military career.But Dr. Oliver seems to have discovered the problem: Jimmy's conversations always revolve around his life before the age of 19. After the first time, he went back and talked about the second time. Talk about the same time period.What about after the age of 19?Could it be that his memory after the age of 19 is a blank?Or did he encounter some major setbacks that made him completely unwilling to talk about the next 30 years of his life?
Dr. Oliver decided to test Jimmy. He pretended to be casual and asked, "Hey, what year is it now?"

"1945, sir. Guess what, we won a big victory! Roosevelt is dead, and Truman is in power. I believe the future of the United States will be bright!" Jimmy was so excited that he didn't care about Oliver's question at all.

"So how old are you?" Oliver asked.

This time, Jimmy finally noticed a little bit, his expression became dazed, as if he was calculating how old he was.After hesitating for a moment, he replied: "I will be twenty next year, sir. Don't think that I am young and ignorant. I have experienced wars, and I can withstand a lot of unexpected pressure..."

But Oliver understands that the crux of the problem is not whether Jimmy can bear the pressure, but why does he think he is only 19 years old?
What Dr. Oliver did afterwards made him regret it.Because he went to the back of the door, picked up a small round mirror that was hanging, brought it to Jimmy and said, "Look, Jimmy, look at yourself in the mirror, do you see a young man who is only 19 years old?" What about people?"

Jimmy's face turned pale in an instant, fine beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead, and he stuttered obviously, "This, how is this possible? What happened? I... who am I?" He began to become Speechless and panicked.

Only then did Dr. Oliver realize that his previous behavior was too much.In order to distract Jimmy, Oliver comforted him and pulled him to the window, "Look, Jimmy, those kids are playing baseball, how happy they are..." Jimmy finally smiled again.

The next day, Dr. Oliver visited Jimmy again. When he entered Jimmy's room, Jimmy greeted him with the same warm smile as yesterday: "Hello, doctor!" Then he sat on the chair and said, "Are you here?" Do you want to talk to me here?"

When he said these words, there was no trace on Jimmy's face that the two had just met yesterday, and it could be heard from his words that he was talking to someone who met for the first time.

Dr. Oliver asked: "Mr. Jimmy, don't you think we've met?"

Jimmy scratched his head, his eyes full of confusion, "No, doctor, I believe it never has. Your big beard is very impressive. If I meet, I will never forget it."

"How do you know I'm a doctor if we haven't met?" Oliver asked.

"You talk like a doctor."

"Yes," said Oliver, "I am a psychiatrist."

At this time, the expression on Jimmy's face changed again. He looked very nervous and panicked for no reason, "Psychiatry? Is there something wrong with my spirit?"

Later, Oliver asked Jimmy some questions, most of which were about the content of the first day's chat. The strange thing is that Jimmy has a deep memory of the old things in those topics and is methodical, but he can't remember that he just talked to him yesterday. Dr. Oliver talked about this, he was very surprised, and kept asking Oliver: "Doctor, I remember that we have never met, did you read my case in advance..."

Slowly, Jimmy's thinking began to become confused again. He didn't know why he was in the psychiatric department, and he didn't know what year and month it was. He seemed more and more nervous about the questions raised by the doctor.

On the third day, the situation was still the same. Jimmy no longer remembered the appearance of Dr. Oliver. He repeatedly talked about his childhood, his idol in his boyhood and the girl he liked. He lived before he was 19 years old. child.

During the treatment for Jimmy, Dr. Oliver did a lot of tests on intelligence and memory, and finally found that Jimmy's logic was very clear, and his observation was also very keen. The premise is that these questions have to be completed in a short time. If the time is long, Jimmy will forget them.

His memory stays before a certain year.Since then, his memory has been confused, and his short-term memory has been astonishingly poor.He just stayed in a chaotic memory interval, and he either didn't remember the remaining years, or they were simply blank.

The brain-burning logic of a genius or a madman
In order to help Jimmy, Oliver found the elder brother who had the closest relationship with Jimmy since he was a child, and even arranged a hypnotist for him, hoping to induce some memories that might be suppressed, but all failed.Jimmy couldn't recognize his brother at all, and even hypnotized because his amnesia was so severe that he would forget what the hypnotist said a few seconds ago, and he couldn't enter the state.Oliver went through Jimmy's medical records and only knew that long-term alcoholism had caused irreparable damage to his brain tissue.The doctor who once treated Jimmy concluded that Jimmy suffered from Korsakov syndrome, which is one of the unique symptoms of chronic alcoholism, but no one can explain why Jimmy can remember so clearly before the age of 19 .

These patients have one thing in common, that is long-term alcoholism.Their onset is slow, and there is no abnormal behavior at first, so it is difficult to detect in time.But slowly, patients will show symptoms such as memory confusion and forgetting.They don't remember recent events; or they remember events but not when they happened.To make up for this confusion, they usually make false descriptions, making up things that didn't happen or didn't exist, and filling in some memory gaps.Despite this, most patients will not have disturbance of consciousness or extensive cognitive impairment.

In such patients, retrograde amnesia is not uncommon, although it is rare in all amnesia patients.Jimmy, on the other hand, suffered from classic Korsakov syndrome, in which his memory loss was caused purely by alcohol damage, and therefore irreparable.

The anxiety and panic shown by this kind of person is a kind of "torture" no matter for the patient himself or his relatives.Because he would never remember that he was already sick, and he was suffering from amnesia.If you tell him he's lost his memory of the past few years, he'll become silent, or hysterical.However, after a few minutes, he will forget this feeling again.

Fortunately, with Jimmy, Dr. Oliver found a better way to "save" him, because Oliver found that when Jimmy was immersed in gardening, his short-term memory could last for a relatively long period of time. And at this time, Jimmy was very focused, with happiness in his eyes.

Therefore, Oliver introduced Jimmy to work in a large garden, responsible for taking care of the flowers and plants here. The "19-year-old" Jimmy has never forgotten the way in the garden since he came here. He can even remember which flowers and plants he trimmed on the first day, and where to start the next day.Although he still doesn't remember the people he met before, but he was able to exert his residual heat and overcome his illness in his lifetime, which is also a good result for Jimmy.

(End of this chapter)