Character Clinic: Layla Bunch

Today I've got Sharon's character Layla on the couch. Layla is a 30-year-old resident in a women's fiction book. She's got horrible scars on her body, but absolutely no recollection how she got them. Her parents died when she was 22 and already out on her own, but eventually Layla was homeless and forced to beg to survive. An older woman Roberta took her in, saving her, and she says Layla just doesn't want to remember what happened to her because it was so bad.

Sharon wants to know: Will Layla's memory come back of its own volition, or must there be a memory trigger to make her remember. She's had this selective amnesia for several years. Is that unusual?

Layla -

When the brain experiences a traumatic event, it can do several things as protective measures. What you're describing isn't selective amnesia (which has the connotation that it's convenient for you to have forgotten bits and pieces of your past), but it's more like a repressed memory.

The main feature of this amnesia is an “inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by normal forgetfulness” (DSM IV-TR, p. 520). This is reversible, which is important if your author plans on you remembering your past by the end of the book. Dissociative amnesia is most likely reported as a gap or series of gaps in recall for aspects of an individual’s life history, and you've got a big gap.

In dissociative amnesia, the lost memories are "stored in long term memory, but access to it is impaired because of psychological defense mechanisms. Persons retain the capacity to learn new information and there may be some later partial or complete recovery of memory" (from Wikipedia).

In essence, your brain dissociated (split) for the time period of your tragic past. And yes, whatever it is you're not remember is likely horrific. The scars on your body is a major clue to the traumatic nature of what you're forgetting. And your brain has set up these defense mechanisms to prevent you from remembering--as a form of cognitive protection, if you will.

As for remembering, the sky really is the limit. I've gotten this question a few times, and there just is no formulaic order for how people remember, if they remember. You might remember snatches of the same memory over and over. Something you smell/hear/see/taste/feel might open the floodgates of your mind. Sky really is the limit.

From a reader's standpoint, we're going to want to know why you've got those scars, so for our sake (and reading satisfaction), I hope you do remember.

Best of luck to you. If you want to go deeper, and talk scenarios about how you might remember or other details, you know where to find me. It's only $14.99, cheapest deal for therapy in the world. :)

Treatment Tuesday - Amnesia

Today's assessment is for Ralene: "My character suffered from a head injury and has amnesia (not sure if they have names for the different types, but this one she's lost her memories, but retains knowledge of basics...how to eat, how to walk, etc). Her memory will return by the end of the novel, but from my understanding, it typically returns a little bit at a time. What would that be like? How would the character feel/react? Is it like a bunch of memories at once or one over and over for awhile until things just start clicking?"

First off, amnesia is actually diagnosed by a trained medical professional (unless it falls under dissociative amnesia, which your heroine's does not). I'm not a medical professional, but I do know a little bit about amnesia. There are various types, and the one you are describing is called post-traumatic (or just traumatic) amnesia, following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Sounds like your character will suffer retrograde amnesia (inability to recall information prior to the injury - you will want to establish some sort of cut off here...typically traumatic retrograde amnesia is such that the person doesn't remember what happened shortly before the injury (hours or days).

As for the return of the memory, the sky is the limit, Ralene. Just about any scenario you cook up could be feasible. It could be a series of the same recurring memory, it could be little flashes of an event in the past that resembles something currently being experienced (deja vu), it could be dream sequences, it could be all at once, it could be chunks. So just let it rip.

What I wanted to talk the most about is the psychological impact of amnesia. It will be important for you to include in your manuscript the character's embarrassment or stress over not being able to remember her past. She could get angry at her predicament, overwhelmed by people trying to "reintroduce" themselves to her, put off/freaked out at how overly familiar some people are with her who she doesn't "know," or in effect meets for the "first time." She should grieve the loss of these memories her past is full of, yet she doesn't remember.

Thanks for emailing, Ralene. Hope this helps out some.

This service is for fictional characters only, so any resemblance to real life examples is entirely coincidental. Any other fictional character assessment questions can be directed to charactertherapist@hotmail.com.