yesterday i was walking across a piazza surrounded by government buildings and i walked past a woman who was sitting on a bench. She was mid-thirtys, very average looking, casually dressed, neat hair, hands folded neatly in her lap, no purse. she made eye contact as i walked by, and i noticed that her eyes were welling up with tears although her facial expression was impassive.
i stopped, went back, sat down beside her and said, hi, can i help you?
she said, "am i in trouble?"
"not that i know of." i said. what is your name?
she said, "i don't know." i said, "how are you feeling? are you sick?"
she said, "i don't know."
i said, "what are you doing here?"
she said, " i don't know. my car is parked over there. i was driving and driving and driving and every single road i went down came to an end. i didn't know what to do. then i saw a car with emergency lights on it and i followed it. it came here, so this is where i stopped. i don't know where this is. im lost."
she had several bracelets on her left wrist. one of them was a medical advisory type bracelet. I asked her "what is that for?" she said, "i don't know."
I said "let me see it." she held out her arm and i saw that the bracelet opened. inside was a piece of paper folded up small like an accordian. I unfolded it and saw that it had writing on both sides. One side said:
"MY NAME IS ***** ********. I HAVE LOST MY MEMORY. PLEASE HELP ME. THERE ARE IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS TO CALL ON THE OTHER SIDE. PLEASE CALL MY HUSBAND FIRST AT THIS NUMBER ***-***-****.
eventually the husband arrived to pick up his wife. As he walked towards us, i asked her if that was her husband. she said, "i don't know. will i have to go with him?" i said, "we'll see."
the husband walked up to us, shook hands with me and introduced himself to her as though they were strangers:
"Hello *******. My name is *****. I'm your husband. You are not in any kind of trouble. No one is mad at you. Everything is going to be fine. This is just something that happens to you occassionally because of a medical condition. We've been married for 12 years. Here is a photo of you and me with our three children. The gentleman had multiple forms of identification with him, and he was able to calm her very well. after viewing alll of it, she got comfortable with the idea that the man was her husband. He showed me a letter from a physician stating that this women had been diagnosed with "Dissociative retrograde fugue".
the women's husband said that this happens several times a year. he said that he would take his wife home, and then at some point she would become very very tired and sleepy, and then sleep for a long time. when she wakes up, she will have no memory of what happened during the missing time. he said that this all started when she was a child due to severe abuse, and it recurrs in times of stress. in this case, her dad suffered a stroke the day before.
I feel so sorry for people like this. it left me reminded again- and feeling thankful for - a lot of things that i sometimes take for granted in life... i thought some would find this interesting.
