Anika Week 13 - Did It Even Happen?
In the show New Amsterdam, not much was known about Dr. Helen Sharpe’s past and family life, except for her estranged father who left her and her mother as a child and her strained relationship with her mother. That strained relationship was constantly on the verge of falling apart, but she knew that her mother would always be there for her, unlike her father, even though she did not always act like it.
She had always assumed that this was her reality— that she had a loving mother and a terrible father who left her when she was five, leaving her mother to fend for the both of them. However, during a conversation with the hospital’s head of psychology, Dr. Iggy Frome, he questions her about the memory of her father leaving, which was the one thing she truly believed in if not anything else, and hacks away at factual inaccuracies in the scene she described.
The key part that caused Helen to believe her father was horrible was that young Helen was holding a necklace when he was leaving the house, and he pushed her in rage, breaking the necklace. Iggy, however, pointed out that only a pull would have broken the necklace, shattering her world view.
All of a sudden, the dam broke and the memories came rushing back to her: the screaming, her mother yelling at her father to leave and never come back to their house, her father attempting to hold on to Helen one last time and grabbing the necklace in one hand, and her mother pulling her father away from her and throwing him out the door.
Memories have such a profound impact on so many parts of our lives, including the relationships we have with others. All those years, Helen never even thought to reach out to her father, thinking he did not want her due to that one memory. This also shows the dangers of leaving memories untouched and not doing anything to corroborate potentially dangerous memories such as these, since they can fester and eventually leave a deeply negative impact like the loss of over thirty years of a relationship that Helen could have had with her father had she not based their relationship on that one instance.
This article shows that Helen likely constructed a “false memory” due to her mother’s hatred of her father, since her mother had been speaking of him negatively for her entire childhood. The article also provides some additional information on how bad memories in general can be constructed in many different situations, even in adults.
Hello, Anika! I found your example to truly be an interesting and compelling take on the power of memories and how we force ourselves to reshape them, even forget them, in the human urge to protect ourselves and accept the reality that we are forced into with the least regret possible. This has been a common theme among many of the books I have read and the shows that I have watched. Oftentimes, characters will hold a vital piece of information, yet it is somehow "locked" away in their memories, due to its traumatic significance in their lives. It is almost as though our minds have a self-defense mechanism, one that prevents us from remembering something that it knows would break us and the fragile reality that we hold onto. This self-defense mechanism and these locked memories allow the characters to move on in their lives, and once remembered changes the world as they know it and have interpreted it thus far. As Helen does, in manipulating her memories to fit the image of her perfect life in order to cope without her father, it just goes to show how formidable our minds can be in their endeavor to not break our fragile psyche. Your blog was truly an interesting read!
ReplyDeleteHello, Anika. Your description of the plot of the show perfectly fits with the quarterly theme. One of my biggest fears is loss of memory, like in your example. I've always valued making rational decisions and judgements on things, but how can you do that if the actual information is false, while not even knowing it's false. Although it's to a much more extreme extent in your blog example, it effectively conveys the power that memory can have over a person.
ReplyDeleteHi Anika! I really enjoyed reading your blog! Your analysis of Dr. Helen Sharpie's story was detailed and interesting, especially how you mentioned that relationships also play a role in shaping memories. Memory is fascinating, it is not as simple as it seems. If noticed we humans don't remember things for a long time, we are designed in a way that we are supposed to forget things after a certain time, so a human mind does not feel burdened. But, memory can also be falsely created, like you mentioned, it can also shape beliefs for a certain person or things. People who suffer from psychic problems or have a trauma, their brains try to forget things, it tries to bury their memories, because they were hurting them. It is amazing how our brain and memories work together!
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