Jessica Sharman was riding on a London train when she suffered from a series of seizures that left her with amnesia. The 19-year-old had been suffering from epilepsy since she was 14-years-old but has never lost her memory for her condition.
At the time of her amnesia, she was dating Rich Bishop and then completely forgot about her boyfriend. She also couldn’t recall her parents and friends.
Rich and Jessica were dating for 5 months before she lost her memory and he wasn’t about to allow their relationship to die.
“I was faced with strangers claiming to be family, telling me things about myself that meant nothing to me,” she explains. “I felt so alone with no idea of my personality, my strengths and weaknesses, or my likes and dislikes.”
After she was shown pictures of her parents she agreed to leave the hospital and return to a home she no longer recalled. Unfortunately, she didn’t want anything to do with Rich — at first.
“They left me alone with him and I hated it. He was a stranger to me. Rich took me to what was supposedly our favorite park but I wouldn’t even walk next to him. When he held my hand I pulled away,” Sharman explains. “I didn’t know him but he was acting like we were in love.”
Two weeks after losing her memory Bishop broke up with the man she was in love with less than one month earlier.. “He looked so hurt and promised he would help me remember how great we were together,” Sharman says.
Rich started taking her to all of the places the couple once frequented., Bishop successfully wooed Sharman a second time, even though her memory still hasn’t come back after six months.
“I don’t remember the first time I fell in love with Rich but I do remember the second,” Sharman says.
Doctors tell the young woman that there is not a great chance of her memories returning. They also say there is a 50% chance of a recurrence of her amnesia.
Instead of worrying about the past, she is focused on the future.
“I feel so lucky that he knew me well enough to stand by me even when I thought of him as a stranger,” she says. “Rich was able to make me fall in love with him twice – so I know he could do it again.”
