ONE OF MY PATIENTS is a young man, twenty years old, who sustained a brain injury last year after shooting himself in the head. He can’t remember how it happened, which is commonly the case with injuries of this magnitude. There’s often a chunk of memory from the days or hours leading up to the injury that’s lost, as well as a period of time after the injury during which the person cannot remember any details. Sometimes the amnesia goes back for months, often erasing major events such as getting married, the loss of a family member or having children. In this case, he can't recall what led him to shoot himself, so it has remained somewhat of a mystery.
