John B

John B. has given me permission to reprint this article about him that appeared in the Daily News on October 23, 1994.

————————————————————

It was the summer of ‘79, during weekends playing cards with
friends of Fteley Ave in the Bronx, that John, now 41,met “Anna”. He had just earned a business administration degree at Bronx Community College and was preparing for a trip with his mother to his hometown of Salerno, Italy. “But the more I was with Anna, the more I found myself falling in love,”says John. So he broke off a current relationship, put off the trip, and began seeing more and more of her. “She also had a daughter, Bebe, for whom I cared very much,” says John.

In love and considering marriage, only one obstacle seemed to stand in the way of John’s dreams: He suffered from severe anxiety attacks. In crowds, in restaurants, taking exams, he was prone to panic and nausea. “When I used to see Anna I would have to not eat too much,” John says. “the excitement of being
with her was so much that it made me nauseous.” So when he read a magazine article about an operation that could cure the disorder, John decided to pursue it. “I wanted to be the best I could be for her,” he says. And although his mother pleaded with him not to chance the experimental procedure, he went ahead with the operation.

It would be a decision he would never recall making, for when John emerged from the anesthesia, it was without his memory. He didn’t know who he was. Or where he was. Or how he got there.

“I was a walking zombie”, says John, who had almost total amnesia, short and long-term memory loss, time and place disorientation, and impaired sight and judgement. “My life had become hell. My education was gone, as I had a business administration degree. And so had my mechanical skills, as I had
attended automotive high school before college.”

Worse yet, his memories of Anna, which had so brightened his days that summer, were buried in some dark, obscure corner of his unconscious. “I was trying to reach her but was not able to understand what had happened to me,” he says.

Undaunted, Anna refused to let go. “Trying to prove to me she loved me, she married me anyway,” says John, who says he hardly knew whom he was marrying, why he was standing at the alter or why he was saying “I do.”

Desperate to help her son, John’s mother thought that perhaps the
Mediterranean sun of his youth would somehow help burn off this thick fog that cloaked his mind. So, three frustrating years after John and Anna were married, she took the couple to Italy, back to what should have been the familiar romping grounds of his Salerno childhood. “It would have been a beautiful trip for
someone with a memory, but it made me even more confused,” says John. “I was in very bad shape.”

Finally abandoning hope, Anna divorced John. “It was a traumatic situation for me because somewhere, deep in my heart, Anna was there,” John says. “But I needed time, plenty of
time, to find her. I begged her not to do it.”

Devastated John began attending a support group and was introduced to the Rusk Institute, where he learned skills that would help him fill the blank that was his past. He learned to keep a journal. He studied photos and videos of his family. He kept daily notes on index cards. And began making progress.

During this time he did not see Anna, yet he maintained a close
relationship with her daughter, Bebe. Then last year he decided to take Bebe, now almost grown, back to Italy. Dining at sunset with cousins in the town of Agropoli, he saw lights of two villages begin to twinkle in the distant hills. And suddenly things began falling into place. “The memory of Agropoli
came back to me, where I had been there with Anna in
1983,” he says. “It was coming back to me like parts
of movies.”

He looked south to Salerno, to the scene of his childhood where Anna’s daughter was now staying with his family, and memories
that had been lost in darkness for so long began flooding into his consciousness. “New memories seep in during the night when I sleep, and slowly I have a new awareness of Anna and the way I felt,” says John.

Today, John has restored about 70% of his memory and he continues his study at the Rusk Institute. Meanwhile, Anna is in a new relationship, and John avoids seeing her. “It is too painful. She deserves someone who is all there.”

He dreams of moving back to Italy one day, after he has pieced together more of his past. “I am trying to get the feelings together in my life. I just want to grow peacefully. Bebe is a young lady now. She’s in college. I’m very happy about that.”

Finally, “Through all this hell, the Anna I had known so many
years ago and with whom I had fallen in love I have finally been able to put back in my heart,” says John.

“I am afraid she will always be there.”