erase #1
Are you familiar with the condition known as hyperthymesia, a so-called super-memory syndrome where one possesses the superhuman ability to remember everything they see in detail, including even the most trivial events from the past?
If a detective in a drama had this, cases would be solved in an instant, and they would be hailed as a master sleuth.
Many of you might wonder if this is truly a disease. After all, if you could vividly remember everything you saw, wouldn't studying be easy, and wouldn't taking a test just be a matter of copying the answers from your own memory?
I, for one, have hyperthymesia. Unfortunately, this condition of mine has been of no use at all for studying. It seems I cannot remember things that go beyond my own understanding. To make matters worse, I am neither a police officer nor a master detective. There is almost nothing in my life where I can put this condition to good use. At best, it just makes it easy to find things I've lost.
Besides, being unable to forget is far more painful than most people realize. My childhood was painful even to think about now. I would recall a fight from a month ago and end up punching the person I fought with. I would remember the scene of a friend's serious injury from years ago and start trembling. Because of the harmful effects of being unable to forget—something no one else understood—I was constantly bullied. Even now that I am an adult and can clearly distinguish between reality and memory, and can suppress my emotions with reason, I still have emotional outbursts twice a week. Being able to recall the snide remarks from my boss last month or the death of a family member two years ago as if they happened yesterday means I can return to that worst possible mood at any time.
