Who are we without our memories?
In my 20s I had a traumatic brain injury. Rather fearless & an adrenaline junkie I was always testing boundaries of adventure. There’s a lake near Austin, TX where we would always go cliff-jumping - just what you’d think we jump off of high cliffs into the water. When water levels were low the cliffs were 50’-70’ high. We got really good at diving and flips.
There’s also a cove in that lake called ‘devil’s cove’ because the depth would go from 5’-10’ and drop off a cliff to more than 100’ deep just a few feet towards the center. We were doing flips off a 2-story party barge. We’d climb on the railing and do tricks. I climbed up to do a gainer and saw two people bubble up from below the surface right where I would land. Tried to stop myself, slipped, and fell about 10’ head-first into the swim deck on the back of the party barge.
Next thing I remember is being taken to the hospital. Split my head open with a TBI, broke my collar bone, and cracked 2 ribs; only saved from drowning because my lungs had air in them and I floated to the surface unconscious instead of sinking into the depths of devil’s cove. In that accident I lost some cognitive abilities, which I believe all returned with therapy, but I also lost most of my memories of experiences. I could remember my name and all prior learned skills, but I couldn’t remember a lot of people and all of my childhood. Just….gone.
I had a broad network of friends and colleagues and had no shared memories anymore. People would ask me questions about things even in the recent past and I’d have to say I don’t remember. I’d act like I was trying and it was on the tip of my tongue, but really there was nothing to search. No anchors of memories “oh yeah, was that during the trip to the beach?” “Wait was that when we met Dave?” Nothing. Anytime someone wanted to go down memory lane I had to change the subject.
And I was left with the absolutely searing question - “Who am I, really?”
I could move through days and work (though for a few weeks I had to take tasks requiring concentration in short bursts and take a lot of naps every day) and do most things as I had done them before. Seemingly behaving in the ways I had behaved before, though some of the cognitive deficits cause problems with behavior. So, I was me, but somehow empty. With no past to draw on for judgement decisions it was pure intuition I had to use as my mental model. I was doing things in a certain way without really knowing why.
And I started to realize that while we are absolutely the sum of our experiences, we are also independent of them. We don’t necessarily need to think on our past experiences to act in the way that feels….. most normal. It just comes to us. Things like anxiety where our brain usually quickly attaches a situation or memory to embody it becomes just a feeling and nothing more. It becomes easier to observe feelings because they’re not attached to experiences anymore. I felt like me, but I couldn’t describe me. If made to think about what I would do in a situation I couldn’t come up with an answer. I couldn’t imagine myself, I couldn’t consciously think about myself. I just was.
All the emotions came to me much more frequently and I think it was because my brain was struggling not just with cognition, but a new way of being. Pathways to find memories and experiences, which are normally very active, were dead-ends. It was described to me that neural pathways were sheared off-track and broken.
If I had access to a framework like The Puzzle, it would have helped me make sense of the world again. I could still connect with my puzzle pieces and where I was heading. I could have kept more of myself in-tact by knowing that all of my pieces are still with me and available to pull out….I just might not remember how I created that skill/piece.
Over time many memories returned to me, often in a flurry. Like that 1 neuron extended a little dendrite and opened a large piece of my past. I’d feverishly tell whoever was with me about all the memories I was having to reinforce the pathway. But over time I also created new memories and experiences as I continued to build my puzzle. This time with added gratitude for them. Many experiences felt familiar but new at the same time. As I created shared memories with people I experienced a bit more love than before; for life and for people.
And while I wouldn’t wish a TBI on anyone, it gave me a unique window into my brain I think not many people get to experience.
This is an intensely personal and powerful essay, Mason. Thank you for that vulnerability.
It really hits you hard, doesn't it... that searing question, "Who am I, really?" when the past disappears. Your description of realizing you were still you, but "somehow empty", is one of the most chilling observations about selfhood.
It makes you wonder, though... if the loss of memory is so terrifying, what happens when you're a child who has to fight memory loss as it's happening?
I'm obsessed with this because my novel, "What Was Here," is about a child in a Gaza camp whose reality is being erased all around him. He knows that his "past experiences" are vanishing, not from an injury, but from an active external force.
He fights that erasure by building a 'Ministry'—a rigid, bureaucratic logbook—to be his external memory. He becomes the archivist of everyone else's past because he knows that his own memory is unreliable and that the external world won't keep the record.
He's documenting his puzzle pieces before they can be sheared off-track and broken.
It's a haunting story of memory, identity, and the struggle to remain intact.
The novella is available for free here (~1 hour read): https://silentwitnessin.substack.com/p/what-was-here?r=6r3orq
(My Substack, "Field Notes From a Fallen Sky," is a free literary project exploring witness and erasure. I'd be honored if you'd join to follow the work.)
The way you embraced a new sense of self despite losing your memories is something many of us could learn from. It’s a powerful reminder that we don’t need to rely on our past to define who we are.