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[Robocorn]

I didn't believe it when I first heard it but apparently the consensus is that it's true.

During the break from school one of my friends got a concussion and has been in a state of fugue
for several weeks now. Apparently he has completely lost memory of everyone he's ever known,
including his mother, his college roommates and his circle of friends and personal acquaintances of
which I am a part.  Recently, he's decided to return to Boston from New York, a decision that
baffles me and makes me wonder what his parents were thinking.

Personally, I'm more than a little apprehensive about meeting him again. Obviously he has
no memory of me, we weren't the best of friends but I've helped him on projects and
watched out for his stuff. I took him to Wendy's once. I worry about his grades and state of being.

I'm just not sure how or if I should try to interact with my friend while he lacks any memory of me.
He arguably isn't the same person so I don't know how I should introduce myself to him.

Got any advice Bay12?

[Heron TSG]

Wow, that has to be more than a little surreal. Try to be friendly, I guess. Depending on whether he ever recollects anything or not, things will be vastly different.

[mainiac]

Totally awesome opportunity.  You never get a second chance to make a first impression.  Oh wait!

[Yoink]

Jeez... That would be terrible. Well, has it already been set up to meet him? I can imagine meeting a friend like that could be a pretty saddening thing, perhaps you could just organize to be near them at some point, see if he recognizes you, and then go from there?
Just re-read your post. I really don't know... Maybe just try to treat it like meeting a new person, try not to think of how you knew them before?
I imagine I'd get pretty choked up if I was re-introduced to a good friend who had absolutely no memory of me.
...Or you could go with Mainiac's suggestion, of course.

[zombat]

"Hey man good to see you again. Hey you didn't forget about that 30 bux I leant you?"

[Criptfeind]

I think that it would depend how he is taking his loss. Anything from what zombat said to not seeing him at all could be appropriate.

[Starver]

Recently, he's decided to return to Boston from New York, a decision that baffles me and makes me wonder what his parents were thinking.

Thinking that there are potentially fugue-dissipating memories that can be brought back to the fore, if he's brought into close proximity to the people and places that featured heavily in (if I understand the situation correctly) his formative years?  There being far more engrained repressed memory of Boston than of his (assumed recent) place of abode and circle of friends from NY, NY, perhaps...

Fugue states are (from what I hear) temporary blanking of historic memories and, although events that occurred during the period of the mental episode itself tend not to resurface (presumably never get stored in long-term memory, or not in any recoverable manner), previously laid-down memories very much tend to become accessible once more.  And so if the recovery is s precipitated by a large amount of technically familiar experiences that can kick-start the process of historic memory retrieval[1], I say do what you can to help the process along.

I don't know how to actually approach the subject (ask the parents, to see if they've got something like the above reason in mind and professional opinion on how this should be done) and I don't even know what I'd do in your situation, but if said friend at least knows of his current condition you could start off with "You obviously don't know me, but...", make sure that if his parents (who I imagine he takes on trust) back up your claim to friendship to dispel as much doubt as possible (at least so you have already have an element of trust if you are forced to denounce any 'false friends' that turn up, opportunistically) and then so if you can't just be as you were before.

Visit places that you used to (you may be unable to play on the kiddies' playground, like you used to, without strange stares, but this is a good opportunity to indulge yourself in some of the things you used to do) and tour the areas he was used to.  Parents and other circumstances permitting.  I'd consider that as part of the treatment, if  have the above reasoning correct.  Other than that, just hang out with him as much as is fair to the other acquaintances of his life who would also benefit(/be of benefit) by doing so, and is also fair upon your current schedule, be 'normal'.

If the condition isn't still affecting him (i.e. if he has a good post-episode long-term memory, or the short-term memory he's left with is sufficient for this purpose) you can talk 'meta' with him about his condition, and perhaps work out a hand signal or other subtle method of telling him that the guy now talking to him is a similarly old acquaintance that you think he should be Ok with or someone peripheral at best who is trying to mess with him.  (Obviously only helps if he trusts you, see above about parental blessing.)

But, back to the original question of how to interact with him... be yourself.  Or at least don't try to persuade him that your name is Raymond Luxury-Yacht (pronounced "Throat-Wobbler Mangrooove") without being obvious that this is a joke...  unless this really is your real name, naturally.



Yep, you're going to be apprehensive.  He's probably used to being people apprehensive.  I prescribe normality and a dose of potential nostalgia, as I'm sure this is what the doctor ordered.  Lament about it if it never works (but never say never), but it could be an even better bonding exercise if it all goes well.


[1] I'm no psychologist, but I'm wondering if having slightly different experiences could 'warp' the recovered memories, or the mechanism for recovering them, to fit in.  That would be something I'd want to consider, but I assume the professionals already have empiric evidence to dismiss (or class as insignificant) such anomolies.

[Robocorn]

Starver's post makes me more worried than I was before. To give this context. Both me and my amnesiac friend go to college in Boston.
When he returned home to New York over the break in between semesters he acquired his amnesia in the company of his parents.
His closer friends and roommates got word of it through facebook. They were incapable of getting more information from his mother
due to her poor grasp on the English language (There's a friend who speaks Spanish fluently but has refused to get involved with translating
due to the extreme awkwardness.) A few of them have talked to him on skype showing that he's more withdrawn and less inclined to talk to people.
The worst part about this is that I'm probably one of the least affected people by this.
I only knew the guy for a little over a year and we only hung out once every couple of weeks.
The majority of our shared experiences include getting lost. How can I possibly help this person?

As for zombat. He only owes me around 10 dollars but I told him it was okay. However, he doesn't remember.
I'm still worried about his roommates who need hundreds of dollars from him or face eviction.

I'll definitely have to interact with him sooner or later. I just don't know if I should act like a complete stranger
or just act the same as I did before in hopes that he'll return to his old self.

I might hear more news about him today. I'll try to avoid meeting him again too soon.

[Starver]

If you're more of a periphery to his past, then I suppose you'd be best to be a similar periphery.  I had sort of assumed you were an old, if not 'best', friend.  The actual old/best friends might be best doing what I was suggesting, with you being the guy on whom the secret "Yeah, he's kosher..." signals is sent about.  Or not.

And so, he's a Noo Yoiker and an incomer to the Boltophstonian area?  Well, there goes that theory...  Unless they've been advised to get recent long-term memories, and/or avoid whatever reminders might have been part of the original episode-sparking.  But I need to state specifically that IANAPsychiatryProfessional.  And there's the chance that the mother isn't following advice.


Also, to quote the always-reliable Wikipedia, which I thought (well, why not...) I might just have a look at: "As the person experiencing a Dissociative Fugue may have recently suffered the reappearance of an event or person representing an earlier life trauma, the emergence of an armoring or defensive personality seems to be for some, a logical apprehension of the situation."  Could the earlier life trauma be being avoided?  Could the recovery need removal from such a possible re-encounter with said event-type or person in order that said armour can be allowed to be dropped?  (But there's other interpretations of that, and other things said about the condition that might mean other things.)


Anyway, seeing as you aren't "a major player" in his past, just be friendly and yourself and do the equivalent of not staring at your (hypothetical) acquaintance who has had to have his arm amputated, or similar.

Nope, I'm not sure how well I'd do at that, either[1], but I still suggest you deal 'normally' with him, insofar as you can...  Whether common decency or "part of the cure".


[1] The closest comparable situation I can imagine having encountered is meeting a fairly recent acquaintance who was now a successfully post-op[2] transsexual.  As I'd mostly known her mostly by her previously BBS handles (at least one of them totally androgynous, the others being abstract in ways I had originally considered playful but later realised were actually quite serious) before I'd even met him-as-was, and my originally mental image hadn't matched his original body frame anyway, it really wasn't much of a mind-shift to deal with 'her'.  In fact, I feel completely awkward referring to 'her' in quotes and using the past-based masculine hyphenations at all, even though these are arguably better ways to explain things with.  It ended up being odder that she used to be a he than he was now a she...

[2] Not entirely sure about 'downstairs', actually, but the figure-hugging top was impressively filled in all the right places without too much room for prostheses other than the sub-dermal type.

[eerr]

Well if he doesn't remember you, he's probably not gonna go talk to you.
So you have to go to him if you want to re-establish anything.

You could try triggering some memories,

It should be noted that even if he can't remember, they might not be gone- just inaccessible.
Or they could be entirely gone.

*shrug.



Advice? Starver seems to be a rabid rabbit so don't be too concerned about what he says.

[DarkWolfXV]

I wish some people would forget who i am... So i can be other person than i was, make them forget old wounds and stuff...

[Starver]

Regardless of whether I'm a rabid rabbit (yeah, I go on a bit, if that's the complaint... ) I think I better reiterate my later ideas about what I think is good advice.

Given that you weren't the absolute bestest friends that I'd originally read into your original message (well, assumed, really... from your general concern, but you'd not really said as much), you're not going to be this guy's main contact during this portion of his life where he will (hopefully) undergo rehabilitation and at least partial recovery.

So you certainly don't need to be continually guiding them through life.  You just need to be yourself when you happen to be in contact.

He'll have met any number of people (i.e. everyone he has met, since the episode!) that he doesn't remember.  He should know by now that he'll be meeting people that know him already, to one extent or another.  And, from your later info, I know you've actually spoken already.  So there's no benefit in now going back to "as if you never knew him".  If it isn't taken as an insult, it'd be just a cause for confusion.  (I'm assuming he's not got a rolling amnesia which means he still forgets anyone he met the day before, of course...  But even then there's no reason to 'roll back' your attitude...  Even if he doesn't remember people, he'll remember that there are people that he just happens to have forgotten, I would imagine.)

It'd be tempting to reshape things "Yeah, you loved to go and see <your own favourite sports team>..." when his favourite sports team was actually their rivals and this was a major bone of contention between you.  Even if other people's comments and corrections don't trip you up, I can't see him being helped by being in the wrong set of supporters' stands if/when you pursuade him to support your team in a game against his old team...  And that's just a flavour of the kind of wrong-footedness you could create.


Obviously you can't ignore something has happened.  Awkward moments as things of significance from your shared histories are talked about in front of him, by you or others.  But he'll be used to it.  (Or be getting used to it.)

Again, imagine an old acquaintance came back into your life after having an arm amputated.  If he wants to joke about how he's "mostly 'armless" now, or whatever, let him.  If he needs help to crack open another beer, or something, then help him.  But staring at the stump or horrible first-generation prosthesis isn't going to do any good, nor is obviously staring not at the stump/appliance.  If you think he'll take to the new nickname of "Lefty" with good humour, then go ahead, but you'd sound it out first before going with it over whatever you always used to call him...  But (in this analogy) if you're again not in his prime circle of friends, consider that he's probably heard a lot of the jokes before, and maybe you're not the person he wants to hear the name "Lefty" coming from, right now, even though he's generally Ok with it in the context of his closer mates using it.

Context is, of course, everything.  I can't say for certain that I understand the mood around this guy, or the mood he himself is in, and as there seems to be something about his parents' actions that concerns you it may be that there are other concerns and things that need to be worked out, now and in the future.  Go with the flow?  Do as you might imagine you'd want to be done by.  Do the equivalent of not staring, unless he's a natural extrovert who actually gets a kick out of being "The Incredible Unremembering Man" or something, but you'd have to take his lead on that...


And I've just removed the words "and summarise" from the first paragraph, as I quite obviously haven't managed to do that...

[SethCreiyd]

Starver - Coming from experience, the feeling of an amputee to the kind of mental gymnastics you would do around him is one of irritation.  I would propose you worry less about how to deal with one's physical aberrations and their possible reactions, and just deal with the person as they present themselves.  They might feel rather fondly about that 'horrible' old-fashioned prosthesis you so disdain.  As for 'Lefty,' well, everyone's different but I can scarcely imagine calling an acne-cursed teenager "Zitface" would be anything but unfriendly, obvious and unclever.

Robocorn - I'm hesitant to give advice since I've never dealt with anything like amnesia, but if I were in your shoes I'd re-introduce myself to them and try to subdue the awkwardness.  I'd ask how he's doing and if he has any plans now that he's back.  Ignoring the memory lapse would be false and might just make things more awkward, but drawing attention to it might make him uncomfortable, so take your cues from the conversation and be casual.  There might be a reason he returned before a complete recovery, maybe he just needs time and regularity.  Maybe you can help direct him around to old familiar places or something he's seeking.  And if he's got closer friends over there that met him again after all this, they might have some personal insight about talking to him now.

[LordBucket]

he has no memory of me, we weren't the best of friends

I don't see the problem. Why do you feel the need to be tied to the past? If you were not the best of friends before, and you want to be, you have the oppoortunity to become so. If you didn't particularly value his company but previously felt ties due to obligation, you now have the opportunity to escape those ties without causing harm.

I'm just not sure how or if I should try to interact with my
friend while he lacks any memory of me.
He arguably isn't the same person so I don't know how I
should introduce myself to him.

Do you want to interact with him? How do you want to interact with him?

Do that.

I would offer the suggestion that you both allow yourselves to be and do as you choose. The past is difficult to restore, with or without memory loss. You have your memories in tact, but would you be be to wake up one day and be the person you were five years go? Would you be able to call up an old girlfriend and have a relationship with her the way it once was? Probably not.

I advise against trying to force things to be how they used to be between you and your friend. Forge anew. Or let it go.

Try living in the now.

He is.

[Starver]

I would propose you worry less about how to deal with one's physical aberrations and their possible reactions, and just deal with the person as they present themselves.

Maybe I don't convey myself well, despite all the words, because it appears you think I'm saying something very much unlike what you're also suggesting.  (Apart from the initial re-introduction bit, because that's already happened...)

Mental gymnastics?  "You just need to be yourself", was said in any number of ways, so I can really only admit to verbal verbosity for what is a very simple end-process.


Also, the prosthesis reference was to the "first one they got, from basic hospital stock", before getting one actually fitted.  You sound like you might know more about this than I do, but I'm going from general chatter from two acquaintances of mine, who (for different reasons) have lacked a 'proper' right hand[1] from way before I was even born...  I can imagine that times change, though, and maybe there's not this storeroom of legs and arms and whatever, these days, infrequently rummaged through by (or on behalf of) the newly-become amputees, with similarly infrequent additions of stock by those who have moved on (to other devices or just to where they don't need to take them any more).

Incidentally, one of these guys almost always wears a hard, static hand (almost '1st gen', but not quite), the other I've never known to wear anything.  Shaking hands with the former is always (to me) a matter of worrying about not tugging too much and having to wrap one's hand around the 'device' (as opposed to mutually enclose the other, as a regular opposite number in a handshake would be able to accommodate), whereas with the latter (as with any Boy Scout) you are expected to switch to left-handed handshakes.  In both cases there's potential awkwardness, but as long as you don't freeze, give a strangled cry and then run away into the next room, screaming, the the respective monomanipulative party has long since gotten used to the many and varied interactions and takes it all in their stride.  And, while I've not sought to make this an allegory of the situation the OP presented, it seems like it might well be a convertible currency to me.


[1] Given the basic reason why right-hands are more likely to be lost than left-hands, it's not something that I consider statistically interesting, happening to know two people in such similar positions...  Two right feet (or lacks, thereof) I might consider slightly more interesting.  Two respective left hands would be rather interesting.  It's all somewhat morbid, in the considering, however.