Hello, scripttraumasurvivors sent me your way- is there anything that would cause a character who's been a POW for the past ten years to be rescued and have no memory at all of who she is and where she came from before? (Including not being to able recognize her family) Could that happen?
The short answer I’mafraid is no.
 Memory problems relatedto trauma are very much real but that isn’t how they tend to manifest.
 There are two mainproblems, one related to memories of the past and the other related to formingnew memories. They usually happen together but can happen to different degrees.
 Past memories that aremost vulnerable are the most recentmemories. So survivors don’t forget their names or their families but they might forget some of the things that happenedin the previous year.
 In the most extremecase I read about (and this was a very particular sort of torture) a victimlost ten years worth of memories, but it was the most recent ten years of their life. They still rememberedtheir family and their childhood. Those are the memories that tend to bestrongest, they’re the things people just don’tforget.
 Problems with recentmemory aren’t just limited to forgetting what happened. There are also problemswith the accuracy of these memories.Torture and trauma survivors sometimes remember things that didn’t happen, ordidn’t happen in the way they remember.
 They often haveintrusive memories as well, that is particular intense, vivid memories ofparticular traumatic events that keep…popping into their minds.
 So a more realistic wayof dealing with memory loss would be for this character to remember her family,but have forgotten friends she made just before she was captured. She may haveforgotten big chunks of what happened in the camp and of what she did in thewar before she was captured.
 She might alsomis-remember details about things that happened in the camp. It could be littlethings like saying that a door was on the right hand side when in fact it’s onthe left. It could be forgetting the faces of some of the guards who tormentedher (I have a post that covers a study on this here). It could be mixingseveral memories together, for instance saying a guard spat at her and stoleher rations when in fact those were two separate incidents that she’sremembering as one.
 She might find that she’sconstantly reminded of bad things that she witnessed or experienced in thecamp.
 The second problem thatshe might have to deal with is formation of new memories.
 Survivors of tortureand trauma often have more difficulty remembering things in the day to day.This doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it means that she might find oh studyingfor a course more difficult than she would have before she was a POW. She mightget annoyed that she can never find her keys. She might start forgetting people’sphone numbers.
 Nothing I’m aware ofcan cause a victim to forget important long term memories from their childhoodwithout also erasing more recentmemories.
 Think of it like….clay.The longer a memory has been in someone’s head the more ‘set’ it is and theless likely it is to be removed. If it’s a younger memory it’s easier to scoopout.
 I realise that leavesyou in a bit of an awkward position plot wise. If you’re going for drama withinthe family a more realistic take would be having the character remember herfamily but want to avoid them.
 There are severalpossible motivations for that: she might be ashamed of herself and what she hadto do to survive, she might blame her family for what she’s gone through(especially if they encouraged her to join the military), she might find beingaround her family too emotionally overwhelming. She might just feel they can’tunderstand what she’s gone through and like she needs some space to heal.
 I hope that helps.
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