I have always had a good memory - my first one was while I was still in the crib at around 18 months - but when I was 12 years old (Tuesday May 30, 1978 to be exact) I realized that I could remember a year ago today. At first it startled me but then as time went on it became a part of my life, a part of me.
It wasn't until my early twenties did I start to feel the burden of my memory. At the same time I realized that no one really understood what I was trying to express so it was then that I stopped talking about what it was like to live without being able to forget. Over time my family and friends found out about my memory and some even watched as I wrote in my journal over many years but no one realized the burden. To them it was just Jill.
Then in June 2000, when I was thirty-four, I found the people who were going to understand...I found Dr. James McGaugh. On Monday June 5, 2000 I Googled the word memory and found Dr. McGaugh's UC Irvine web page. I read it and realized this was the man who was going to give me the answers I had been looking for. I spent the next five years working with Drs. McGaugh, Parker and Cahill and in February 2006 they published a paper about my autobiographical superior memory in the medical journal Neurocase.
I have to believe there is a reason why I have had to live with this amazing gift/burdensome curse and I have come forward in the hopes that others will do so too and that one day they can find a cure for the kind of diseases that rob people of their memory and lives . . .
. . . there is so much more to learn!