A 36-year-old hearing specialist from Texas woke up one morning last July think he was a 16-year-old high school student. He didn't recognize his wife who was in bed with him. He didn't recognize his daughter. He didn't recognize the "old and fat" man looking at him in the mirror. Daniel Porter didn't remember anything that had transpired over the last two decades. "He woke up one morning and just had no idea who I was or where he was. He was very confused. I could tell he didn't recognize the room," Ruth said. "He thought he was either drunk and gone home with a woman or that he'd been kidnapped. I could see him looking for an escape route."
From Oddity Central:
Doctors originally diagnosed Daniel Porter with Transient Global Amnesia – a sudden, temporary interruption of short-term memory – and told him that he should be back to his old self again within 24 hours. However, a year after waking up with no recollection of the last 20 years, the 37-year-old still can't remember much of his life past his high-school days.
Not only does Porter not remember his wife and daughter, their pets, and the friends he's made in the last two decades, but he has even forgotten all the education he got after high-school so he had to quit working as a trained hearing specialist. Ruth has been driving him through the neighborhood, reintroducing him to his old friends, in the hopes of bringing his memory back, but so far it hasn't been working.
Things have been difficult for Daniel's wife and daughter over the past year, as they struggled to come to terms with his mysterious condition. Not only is he missing a big chunk of his memory, but he is actually a different person, with different tastes in food and a different attitude. For example, he now loves going out, when in the past he didn't.
