Woman who can remember everything that happens in her life shares awful downside of the ability
Most of us can barely remember what happened last week, let alone what was going on when we were kids, but one woman from Australia can truly remember it all.
While we sometimes might get deja vu, the chances of remembering something in complete detail are pretty rare, especially when it comes to afternoons in the pub or drunken nights out.
There are often scientific or health reasons for why someone might forget something, whether it's the doorway effect of walking into a room and forgetting what you were doing, or simply getting older and struggling to remember things from your younger days.
The concept of remembering every day of your life, particularly from when you were young, seems almost impossible, but in 2013, Rebecca Sharrock was diagnosed with something called ‘Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory’ (HSAM).
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MedicalNewsToday defines the unique syndrome as 'an ability that allows people to remember nearly every event of their life with great precision'.
Rebecca told the BBC: "When I was about a week old I remember being in this pink cotton blanket.
"I’d always know when it was Mum holding me, for some reason. I just instinctively always knew and she was my favourite person."
The news of Rebecca's impressive memory was quickly picked up by local media, but she was surprised to hear her skills described as 'amazing', as she thought it was something that everyone could do.
She said: "When those people were going through their recollections, the reporters were saying 'It’s amazing, incredible.' I said to my parents, 'Why are they calling this amazing, isn’t it normal?'"
While the super rare ability feels almost like a superpower to anyone who has ever sat an exam or simply wanted to win an argument, it also comes it with its downsides, as there are plenty of things in life that you don't want to be able to remember clearly.
Rebecca, who also showed off her astounding ability to recall every single line from the Harry Potter books during her 2019 interview with 60 Minutes Australia, said: "If I’m remembering an incident that happened when I was three, my emotional response to the situation is like a three-year-old, even though my mind and conscience are like an adult."
In another interview with The Guardian in 2022, Rebecca shared more about being able to recall perfectly what happened to her on a certain date over a decade ago.
She said: "If I’m remembering something negative, my emotions of that experience will come back.
"Sometimes people will say that I’m just deliberately not letting go, and I’m just like dwelling on the negatives in my life."
She added: "It’s awful to be a medical exception because very few people understand what you’re going through and there just aren’t many treatments designed for it.
"Remembering this way just seems so normal to me."
Topics: Australia, Mental Health, Weird
James Moorhouse