a thread on why the "pov: idol has amnesia and is dating someone..." edits, that romanticize retrograde amnesia, are really, really wrong.

it's pretty long so i apologize. i will really appreciate it if you rt, even if you didn't see the edits, so it can reach more people.

the edits i'm talking about are a pov in which idol x is dating idol y and has amnesia, and then they suddenly start having flashbacks of them dating someone else. the videos are pretty short, have a supposedly romantic bg music and show cute, bf/gf type clips.

as a person who suffers from memory loss (my personal story will be in the second reply if you're interested), when i saw this edit for the first time i felt like someone just slapped me in the face. so i wanted to try and explain why i think they are not appropriate.

i will, obviously, base my thread on my experience and the experience of other people i know in real life who suffer from memory loss. if you suffer from memory loss and want to show your angle, please do. if you want to vent or talk about it, hmu!
also, it's pretty long, sorry.

what is retrograde amnesia?
amnesia is a temporary or permanent state of decreased memory. retrograde amnesia is one of the types of amnesia, in which the person is unable to recall old memories. it can occur suddenly or over time.

how is retrograde amnesia treated?
there's no cure for amnesia. sometimes, people are able to recall memories over time without help. sometimes, being told about an event is able to "revive" the memory. sometimes, the memory is complete inaccessible, even years later.

in these videos, the amnesia is portrayed as something romantic, paired with a love song and shows the idol regaining access to memories of dating some they love. in truth, amnesia and recall is nothing like that. it's actually can frustrating, uncomfortable, scary and painful.

it's important to say that amnesia is not something natural. whether is be brain injury, emotional trauma, illnesses or treatment - it always comes with something really bad happening, which is a good enough reason not to romanticize it. i think that's a valid reason.

i'll go on to describe how amnesia feels to me, to maybe show how it's not what it feels like and explain why i found these videos really... jarring? i don't know the right word.

i will mention i did not experience amnesia due to psychological reasons, so keep that in mind.

one of the hardest things for me is my sense of identity. most people, me included, do know who they are. but, i do not have a timeline of my life. i basically do not know what and how things happened to me, how i came to the point i am today.

when people tell me things i did, i am often shocked - because i didn't know that about *myself*. major things. like why i stopped running, or rowing, or when my depression got worse. i feel like i barely know myself and don't have a reference point for anything in my life.

it can also come out as rude. when people don't know about your memory loss, you being unable to recall events or not knowing things about them seems like you don't care, which isn't true. it's a minor thing, but you choose between this and having to expose something so private.

and you don't get to pick what you forget. you lose both the bad and the good ones. and being exposed to that again - whether it's spontaneous recall, treatment or through being told - it doesn't always come with positive emotions, even if the event was positive.

if the event is bad, you can feel the full serge of emotions again. whether it's something you did or something that was done to you, you feel like you are losing control. you get anxious, not knowing if you know everything. and guilty for forgetting and your actions, too, again.

when they are good, you realize you could have lived your life without knowing it about yourself, and that are so many other memories too. good and important ones. ones that make you who you are. and sometimes these are things no one else was aware of, and now you aren't either.

it's embarrassing too. i lost a lot of semantic memory (knowledge) too. you are back 5, 10, 24 months ago and you forgot everything. scratch. school. plots. who won the elections.
imagine waking up at 2018 and finding out trump is president. not fun.

you feel like your brain is betraying you. you have no control over it. i think a lot of you can sympathize with it. i suffer from intrusive thoughts, and the difference i see is that there's no way to battle it. you simply can not speak to that part of your brain. it's gone.

the frustrating that comes up with memory loss is bad. you know you missed so much. you feel left out, you don't know what happened to you. you don't know who made you who you are. and you always go to sleep hoping tomorrow you'll wake up and be able to remember everything again.

i hope i was able to convey some of the feelings that come up with retrograde amnesia, especially so severe that it would make you forget a relationship and possibly a whole person.

i don't want to attack anyone, i'm not angry or anything. amnesia isn't talked about and especially with young people, relatively few experience full blown, long term amnesia. so it's okay.
i just hope in the future you're more aware of that when this kind of topic comes up.

if you are someone dealing with memory loss and feel similarly or differently, please reply or qrt or voice your thoughts in any other way. maybe i'm the only one who feels this way, i don't know. and i want to hear your thoughts too.

and sorry again for the longest thread.

i'm really glad the thread is reaching more people but i feel like i have to apologize again for all the spelling/grammar mistakes and for not making sense at all and not explaining things well, i hope to write something more science based on the topic in the future though.