Caprice O'Bryant, 31, a Los Angeles fitness coach, suffered from seizures caused by epilepsy as a result of two car accidents. However, she suffered a major epilepsy episode on June 18, 2012. Unconscious, she was transferred to the hospital and, eventually, she woke up. However, the then 19-year-old O'Bryant's memory was completely wiped out.
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O'Bryant talked about how her life changed forever after waking up in the hospital in a The Sun piece. "Opening my eyes, I saw a woman coming towards me that I didn't recognize," she said. The woman in question was actually her mother, and soon many other "strangers" entered her room. Her father, grandmothers, and siblings were shocked to learn about O'Bryant's memory loss, which is known as retrograde amnesia.
Her family quickly explained what had led her to this very moment. O'Bryant didn't even know who she was herself. "I didn't know my name, age, where I was from, how I'd ended up in hospital - nothing", she said. "I felt a wave of panic as I looked at the faces surrounding me."
Once she was able to return home, O'Bryant's family began telling her who she was. "My family showed me countless photos and told me so many little details - like how I'd always wanted to be a doctor and always ate cake with a fork, how I loved dancing and I'd cracked my front tooth aged 10," O'Bryant said. However, she didn't feel any connection with whatever her family showed her.
Learning To Love Again
Understandably, O'Bryant was angry and frustrated with the whole situation, feeling like an imposter in her very own life. However, since her memory seemed like it wasn't going to return, she started to be more positive about it. She embraced the "strangers" she met and eventually loved them as who they really were: her family.
"Along the way, I realized that I had to stop trying to remember my life beforehand, as it just made me sad, and focus on moving forward," she said.
Eventually, O'Bryant dropped out of college after she attempted to return. She suffered another seizure but managed to keep it under control thanks to medication. Later, she became a personal trainer and married her boyfriend in 2017, who she managed to fall back in love again after losing any memory of him after her episode in 2012.
She became a published writer and, according to her, she is now way closer to her family than she ever was before. "I've made my peace with losing the first 19 years of my life, and I'm so grateful for every day I can carry on making new memories," O'Bryant concludes.