A mother can't remember her daughter in a bizarre amnesia case.
In April of 2005, Shawnda Rush from Virginia woke up to discover that she didn’t recognize the man in the house and the young child who was greeting her. Those two very important people were Shawnda’s husband and daughter, named Shaylin.
For several weeks, she kept her forgetfulness as a secret, but she soon revealed the major problem to her mother, who told Shawnda all about her life. A doctor had previously diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis, but during the early months of 2005 she began suffering from cognitive problems including a loss of vocabulary and forgetfulness, which had somehow led to amnesia.
Shawnda, who was 30-years-old at the time couldn’t remember the last 17 years of her life. She has spent more than 7 years trying to get her life back, although her marriage took a toll as her husband began pulling away. They ended up divorcing.
Shawnda documented her home life and medical struggles in detailed journals. She still reads those entries and watches television to learn how to speak. She also utilized Facebook to learn how to interact with people.
Doctors are still baffled as to how her memory declined so badly.
