Teenager Loses Her Memory Then Falls Back In Love With Boyfriend, Exactly Like The Movies

When 19 year old Jessica Sharman suffered a series of seizures on her way to work last year, she lost her memory.

The teenager was commuting to work on the Tube when a fit left her unable to remember even her own name. Jessica, who was diagnosed with frontal lobe epilepsy in 2010, was told after the unfortunate incident that she was suffering from retrograde amnesia, which is a form of memory loss linked to events that have already occurred, and information that was learned before the event or injury that causes the amnesia.

Sharman says that momentary amnesia was a common occurrence after seizures, “I didn’t know what was going on – momentary amnesia was normal for me after seizures.”

“But an hour or so later I saw this woman running towards me I had no idea who she was. It was my mum – and I just stared at her blankly.”

“I had no idea what I looked like so I had to examine my reflection to check the person in the photos matched before agreeing to get in the car”; Sharman describes the acuteness of her amnesia, adding that she didn’t even recognise her own name.

Following the episode, Jessica had to re-meet her family, and tragically did not recognise her boyfriend Richard Bishop. The 19 year old was forced to stop working in the subsequent weeks and months, and had to re-learn her personality, re-establish her relationship with her parents and attempt to reconcile with her boyfriend, which proved far from easy.

Thankfully, though, Bishop was able to persuade his girlfriend to give him another chance, although it was far from easy at the beginning of their renewed romance.

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“They left me alone with him and I hated it. He was a stranger to me.”

“Rich took me to what was supposedly our favourite park but I wouldn’t even walk next to him. When he held my hand I pulled away.”

After two weeks of struggling to come to terms with the relationship, Jessica attempted to call it off with Richard, “I saw no way it could work. To me, he was still a virtual stranger. He was devastated and adamant we could get back what we had.”

When she saw how much the relationship meant to Bishop, however, Sharman agreed to give them another shot, but she still has worries about what the future might hold.

The whole episode bares a poignant resemblance to fiction, with fans of Adam Sandler’s 50 first dates well versed in the slings and arrows of a romance hampered by memory loss.

For Jessica, though, the story is very much rooted in reality.

“Medics confirmed that the series of seizures had triggered my memory loss and it may take six months to return – if it returned at all.”

“It also meant that there was a 50 percent chance I could lose my memory in the future.”