The Man with no Short Time Memory (Amnesia Documentary) | Only Human

[Music] Clive wearing has one of the worst cases of amnesia in the world I know it's like we did now day or night same thing no difference between dreams and no sense at all a brain has been totally inactive no dreams and no thoughts of any kind whatever Clive was a renowned conductor living in London when he was struck down by a virus in 1985 parts of his brain were completely destroyed including his memory however his ability to play music is unaffected do you feel different when you play music no I didn't always like to play with you they are unconscious you played us some music about two minutes ago not known to me I never heard him knows you Clive's case became known to millions when a television documentary was made about him in 1986 alone and Confused in hospital without his memory the only person he recognized was his wife Deborah I faked consciousness first I just want to find out the play how they've been doing what's being wrong with me 20 years later clive only has a seven-second memory before his mind goes blank what has life been like for Clive and his family [Music] do you know that we're making a film about you know what's news to me you're being filmed for television press of course because you're very famous about 20 years ago a film was made about you oh yeah just after you became ill called a prisoner of consciousness and 20 years on we're making a new film about you because millions of people watched the film and wanted to know how you were good heavens so millions of people know you we've been coming to see you for several weeks see very paid to come here thankfully we are live is 67 and lives in a brain injury unit where he's under constant supervision his wife Deborah lives 85 miles away in Redding his illness has made it impossible for them to live together for 20 years if Clive went out of the front door unsupervised unaccompanied he would have it would be like being separated from a spaceship it would be like if he was space walking and the rope broke he would have no way of getting back ever it does Clive know his name yes does he never old hears no does he know where you live no no I do does he know your job no no idea does he know the day of the week no does he know the date yeah can you read a book no because he can't remember the sentence before last can you watch her film no he'll watch the rugby or he'll watch the crickets he oh he won't know who's playing what the score is but each stroke and each try is satisfying for him to watch [Music] clive now has islands of memory just as we can ride a bike or drive a car without remembering how we were taught clive can play and respond to music because his innate musical abilities are still there and weren't totally destroyed by the virus deborah visits clive on average once a month passionate very loving funny very very comical and he's very very self-effacing you know he doesn't want to be a nuisance to anyone he often apologizes to me and says I must have been such a nuisance to you I'm so sorry I mean he knows me we might not remember anything about me but he knows me so he knows what I'm like and we're still very much a team I mean it sounds odd when we see so little of each other but we have very much a team what does it mean to you when Deborah comes to visit heaven on earth arrives and what does it mean to you when Deborah can't come and visit well I don't know I've never been consciousness ever know I don't know what I've been thinking when she's not here I'd never seen her before either know the word yes I've never seen any human being since I've bill first four people I've seen in or 30 years and if you're unconscious you didn't like it much do what does being unconscious mean same as death no difference in day and night no thoughts at all they're not the same and what does love mean just wearing zero in tennis and everything in life hmm Clive became ill before he and Deborah could start a family but Clive has three children from his first marriage I thought of my father as a wonderful person mostly absent because my parents split up when I was very young but when I did see him he was always very jolly very giving always laughing and we all missed him never dared to ask him what my name is I don't know if that's my fear for him or my fear for myself I've never asked him what my name is he knows I'm his son and he'll always say you should be this tall because he left home when I was that tall since his illness Clive has auditory hallucinations what I struggle with the most is that the intellectual Colossus that was my father is reduced to making word games out of card number plays you know it's just there's a tiny fraction of him left now [Music] 20 years ago Clive was a well-known musician conductor an early music producer for radio 3 he was a very charismatic conductor he was working in a field that was just cutting new ground all the time he would transcribe from original manuscripts and recreate the music for a particular meal that the Duke of Bavaria had with his mother-in-law and what they wore and what they had to eat and this was the music and men he would make a radio program took all his energy there wasn't much time to sleep there were no weekends he poured his whole being into his work everybody used to say to him Clive slow down he couldn't no one had idea that Clive was about to become one of the most extreme cases of amnesia in the world Clive's descent into brain damage came frightening Lee quickly one week in March 1985 when he came home from work looking flushed and feverish on Saturday his headache started by Tuesday he was no better and he hadn't slept his temperature was 102 by Wednesday he was very confused and couldn't remember Deborah's name his temperature was 104 doctors came and went and Deborah left him sleeping but when she came home Clive had disappeared from their flat I called his name there was no reply I went into the bedroom the bed was empty and I knew something terrible had happened over the next few hours Deborah rang hospitals and police stations across London no one had seen Clive sad sad we sat and then a man's voice the phone rang the man's voice said are you mrs. Waring yes we've got your husband thank God Clive had gone out fully dressed with his overcoat and a copy of The Times under his arm hailed a cab but couldn't remember where he lived he wanted to go home and he couldn't remember where he lived and the cab driver had dropped him at West Ham's a police station and the police had chased him by his Barclaycard so we got there and we we took him home and Clive went to walk past the gate and I stopped him and I said no it's here and he's it always this way we live and I said yes and he didn't recognize the building two doctors made home visits and concluded that Clive was suffering from a severe bout of flu that was doing the rounds in North London but the friday morning he wasn't answering me and i picked up one of his arms and it was floppy so I rang the doctor again I said he's gone floppy he's gone floppy get here now and the doctor came I took one look alive and dialed 999 went out of the front door walked down the stairs and as he turned the landing he said this is the strangest case I've ever seen we got to the hospital and I just remember going through these clear plastic rubber doors they were lack of valve and that as those doors flat shut behind us you know it was just like our life as we knew it was over once Clyde was inside some Mary's Hospital the doctors fought to halt his fever and desperately conducted tests they realized that Clive's brain was being attacked by the herpes simplex or cold sore virus occasionally this virus crosses the blood-brain barrier and gets into the brain nobody knows why or how incredibly rare it happens about it's a one-in-a-million chance that it's going to happen and it caused an inflammation of the brain which was called in careful itis from what the doctors said about how bad the temperature had been and how ill he'd been I was very concerned that he wasn't going to live I was I was fairly convinced that I'd come to see my dad die and then he didn't Clive was given a new drug called acyclovir it saved his life but came too late to prevent brain damage the virus had destroyed Clive's hippocampus an area of the brain crucial for memory and learning leaving him with dense amnesia how many years of I've email about 20 about 20 Kenney magistrates have one night 20 years long with no dream that's what it's been like just like this no difference in dead night no thoughts at all in that sense been totally painless which is not something which is very desirable really isn't it's precisely like death if we have no spent senses of pain you have no sense of any kind working either I don't remember sitting down on this chair for example the city as it is that was unknown to me I've never seen a human being since I've been that's the first photograph I see to anybody and who is that face one of my son's I can't remember his name it's gone last time I knew mr. to school that's how many years it's been a few years before he would have died from it and a few years later they might have spotted it quicker or maybe a different doctor might have spotted it quicker or whatever so it was just on the cusp of of that change and when that's you know he suffered for that I think in my own mind it was the question of is it right that he's been ill for so many days and how much damage has been done to his brain in that time and whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing that he was treated and everybody fought for him as much as they did Clive remained it's Mary's pad for seven years there was nowhere else suitable for him to go his mood swung from euphoria to sadness within weeks and confusion and despair set in he was in severe shock so he was crying all the time he'd come in and you say oh hi I'm your son yeah I said I don't recognize you and then he'd be crying again and you're just stuck in that loop for months I said Clive can you tell me why you're crying and he said no and I handed him a little notepad and a pen and I said can you write it I said just write quickly why are you crying and he wrote I am completely incapable of thinking I don't know he's applied here like everybody else in the world to do please please go these messages were recorded on devvra's answerphone minutes after she left him revisited live daily but he couldn't remember her being first time I've seen a human being every moment for Clive is the first moment because the amnesia is rubbing everything out immediately after it happens not only does he not remember anything that's happened to him since he was ill he doesn't remember anything that's ever happened to him in the whole of his life he knows about things he knows that he worked for the BBC but he does not have any events in his mind that he can bring to his mind's eye he knows that we are married he does not remember the wedding just 7:16 a.m. first acts for government or what I'm doing first re-entry I've made consciously Clive keeps a diary everyday and has done for 20 years in an effort to make sense of his life he writes multiple entries recording his last conscious moment he would look at his watch to see what time was this momentous event occurring a first consciousness and so he would write down 1006 awake first time and then had the same sensation in but 1007 awake first time truly awake first time ignore the last entry now I'm awake this is the first real awakeness and so the the diaries are line by line a succession of astonished awakenings that's 1990 when he'd been suffering amnesia for just five years and this is the effect on him seven years on but you can see that he's by no means resolved his anguish by no means he writes the time now in big in a big hand and a tick a tick to say yes that's authentic I I wrote that it's authentic that's definitely me awake he has to then cross through the previous ticks and do a new tick with a circle around it to say this is the real one and that wasn't the real one next time he comes back and so on so there's a constant desperate series a scrubbing out all the previous entries and saying now I'm awake now I'm awake and the pencils just become blurred and it goes on and it's so thick the pencil it's almost as if he's using the pencil to dig himself into back into time to try to fix himself in a continuum to have more than one moment at a time but he never can people's and triplets Aria rubbish what does that mean did you write that I've no consciousness consciousness oh she ain't mean no for the first time is it your handwriting yes I know nothing about it at all so how do you think it got there I did deserve a daughter don't know but you must know I haven't seen the book of total now no no that's mean that means I haven't seen it I have no noise over at all that's all there's no knowledge of that book the what it's entirely new to me but you put I don't know but no no no no just don't say anything we'll use your intelligence the doctors don't know why Clive's aggressive outbursts have gradually stopped [Music] that's at least an hour a tradition our three minute Saturdays yeah first time I've seen my writing I see my room first time see human beans in fact it says you're here that you sure hates coffee drinking three minutes past 10:00 that was unknown to me I've never seen anyone except you or three people she may know one lady Clive's condition was hard for Deborah to bear you asked me when did I decide to divorce him and when did I decide to leave it wasn't really a decision it was an imperative there was no way hey any human being could continue in that way we had the same dialogue in a loop tape repeated verbatim with the same inflection the same tone the voice the same expression on the face for well nine that the whole nine years until I left and we were still having that conversation as I was backing out of the room Clive became ill and hospitalized only 18 months after marrying Deborah three years after the virus attacked his brain the strain on their lives was beginning to show it's like being a wife and Widow simultaneously I lost Clive or most of Clive three years ago because without consciousness he's in many senses dead to ease her pain Deborah campaigned for seven years to find Clive a secure and permanent home with around-the-clock care that he needed in 1992 he was finally moved to a new specialist brain unit outside London Deborah's mission was accomplished but she had exhausted herself and Clive was increasingly having fits in her presence with no hope of living together again Deborah divorced Clive and flew to America I was in my mid 30s I wanted kids I didn't want to be on my own all the time it was very lonely and I thought maybe having a relationship with somebody else having kids would help to heal the pain I rang him up to say hello darling I've arrived although of course he didn't know I'd left because he didn't know I'd ever been there and it didn't really make any difference where I was he didn't matter where I was in London or New York or Timbuktu I tended to fall for jested completely impossible people who are all artists of some kind and as soon as I came became close to anybody and had conversations with them you know the relationship just dissolve because they weren't lying facing me I was looking for Clive I guess did he ever ask you when you were coming home no did he ever ask you what you were doing no he showed no curiosity he just wants to let me know that he was awake he'd say hey tee when are you coming and I'd say as soon as I can and then he'd say oh please come at the speed of light come at the speed of light come by helicopter [Music] in 1996 Deborah had to make a choice whether to remain in America and apply for permanent residency and a green card [Music] she returned to the UK drawn back to Clive she settled in Nottingham working for the brain injury charity headway Deborah had come full circle and I came back still not knowing how to live star with a huge emptiness the great sucking emptiness inside that could never be filled still with a sense of needing to go home but not have you know where's home because home was where he was but I couldn't be with him [Music] I was just going round and ever decreasing circles that it was the same was more of the same I'd reached really the end of my tether and I rang a friend and I asked her to pray for me she was the only Christian I knew and as she was whispering away to God and I just felt this extraordinary power coming into me and I knew that God was in my room I just had this incredible sense that I was really really loved I mean so loved and that emptiness that I had been trying to fill all those years with relationships with food with alcohol I was filled that emptiness was gone [Music] oh Jesus Clive is visiting some Ethel greatest church in London for the first time since he recorded a concert there in 1982 she music to have the acoustic of the just uses quite unlike that of a concert hall yes there's lots of echoes and long reverberation it's very special in that way listen see how quiet it is to some music in the distance I remember last time we were here you were conducting the lasas Requiem mhm and it was for the the lastest international Lassus festival that you put on and you came in here and none of the pews were here and you used the whole building hakushi you had it was far from a concert he was actually a celebration of the mass as if lasses had just died it was extraordinary and it was so moving that there were people here we were crying yes and it was broadcast live to five countries and you were directing it and it was so moving it was so moving that everyone was in tears that's how good he is how good its director and musical director you oh it was just live and you gave the audience whether they were sitting at home listening to the radio or whether they were walking around here in the dark with candlelight flickering you gave them an experience of something deep and profound and spiritual and they went away after your concerts and they were never the same again you say that I think that you said I love this [Music] [Music] save a car driver double CD find wearing Clive makes phrases out of the letters on car number plates as they flash past [Music] guess what my job is Henry United Nations PR wow that's amazing yeah I do that's very clever you astound me sometimes you take my breath away do you know what I do for a living yes can you see me doing meaningful stuff oh that's an exciting Black's nurtured a caesarian all the different [Music] Debra renewed her marriage vows with Clive three years ago although they'll always have to live apart I never seen it before hello hello is heaven oh hello is very hello it's not familiar then where do you think it is guess where it could be anywhere do you think there's anyone that do you think you've ever been here before there's my initials backwards WDC what do you think we'll find when we listen alcohol let's hope what do you think life's been like for your father hell I can't imagine anything worse must be really frightening to be constantly waking up to something that you don't recognize you know every 7 seconds or however however long that he's he can remember anything for to turn around and where am I and you do it again and you don't know where you are I can't imagine a thing more frightening must be like a nightmare really must [Music] Debra is planning a momentous trip for Clive best pub in the country you could go anywhere where would you like to go yeah yesterday home is yesterday next Tuesday are we going I live in Redding I see yeah do you think you've ever been to mating yes I have been yes I've been going every season I suppose you could have gone when Howard was studying them hmm yeah I didn't know you'd ever been there never mentioned reading no it's not been custom designed a memory game yeah not a very interesting place No can you name a town in Berkshire I can't I can't no door do you know where I live no guess I'm nine kids with are no I know reading oh really yeah spelt wrong actually reading clive is going home for the first time in 13 years [Music] remember the number plate here in 9 for 1 year and 9 for 1 back of another car remember the phone number when your invoice we want search for remarkably Clive can still recall details from his childhood numbers embedded in his memory before he became ill there's another guest expected for lunch Clive's youngest son Edmund who has not seen his father for 7 years things that I used to do with my father always revolved around his work it was weird be either going to see getting to places such as the British Museum for his research or we'd be going to concert venues or recording venues we would often end up in churches and you could walk into a church or a cathedral anywhere in Europe and read it like a book he had a vast amount of knowledge and that has just been wiped out it's been a difficult time seconds before Edmunds arrival Deborah has Prime Clive to expect him for that lovely wife of yours what does normality feel like to you know great luxury and something that you know to be really values and appreciate it's very precious we haven't had a family meal for 20 years tipper what will this day mean to climb nothing nothing in his conscious memory I mean even while he's in here he doesn't know we're here and when he's in the car he won't know we've been here and he won't remember anything of it you know he doesn't remember anything that's ever happened in the last 20 years ever what do you say to Clive when he gets confused and disorientated how do you deal with that but he's disoriented all the time it doesn't matter because we don't need to be in time we don't need to be in any particular place it's worse we're in we were on another plane Clive and I we were we're in a world where there is no time after four hours Debra has to take Clive back to the brain injury unit well I don't really want to answer that thank you I was just wondering how the day had been well it's just so sad but it's not you know that's not our reality and it's just so sad and why have you stayed away for seven years it's too painful was it easier to stay away oh yeah yeah it was the easy way out they didn't seem any point either because he didn't remember he'd write it in his diary but it turned over the page and start writing the next day did you know who you were more or less he needed to sometimes he'd need a bit of prompting he's got a quick mind if friends came up that he didn't recognize and he understood that he was supposed to recognize these people then he would greet them like long-lost friends and he'd work on on that until somebody told him what he needed to know it was always a difficult man to fool you know and those were the things you know that I was always pleased to see because I knew that his mind was working overtime and I knew that that was him having that it's just a shadow today clive sister Adele has come to see him and I used to take his children to see him but he used to get pretty aggressive if he was very angry you know there was one occasion when I went to see him on my own and he he just when I said who I was he attacked me almost you know grabbed hold of me very aggressively and the staff came in and sort of calmed it down but he'd remembered me when I was younger he just said no you know you're too old like when how old do you think and he went off to see when he was 15 years I went to the Merchant Navy yeah I used to go and visit him and it's just so difficult and and not easy to talk to him at all my husband had got no connection with him found it much easier he could talk about things that totally irrelevant and quite happily carrying on a conversation with him but I always found that extremely difficult thing to do do you remember Adele sitting next to me can you remember what she was wearing I never seen no such human beings I've seen three of it two men and one lady the first piece people I've seen since I don't know no difference in day and night no thoughts at all no dreams day and night that same blank precise like death is it very hard no exactly the same as being dead which is not difficult was it we did it's easy you don't do anything at all you can't do it you're dead it's been the same exactly yes I've never been conscious to think that so I've never been bored or upset no be anything same as death no dreams even day and night the same when you miss your old life you say yes I miss my old life what do you miss as a musician and in love you'll say things like do you know what it's like and that's really dangerous because if you actually did I said yes so at once because I was just saying yesterday that was disastrous yeah and then I said that again scene why because he says you don't know what it's like how do you know because he's right isn't he yes there's no way you're gonna know what it's like he still got some fight in him oh yeah yeah but that's the thing is probably 3/4 of his personalities still they're functioning normally he will analyse what's happened he said well the doctors must be very interested in this you know it's very unusual case he worked it all out over and over again because he doesn't really remember that he worked it out an hour ago [Music] Deborah's done more for dad than any other single person I very much doubt that I could have done that for him and that's hard that's very hard I think I'd have given up I wouldn't like to say what it was I really can't remember it's too hard I wanted him to walk without the aisle when I got married and he couldn't I wanted him to know that I'd had his grandchildren but he couldn't so he's he's a lovely person he's he's Clive now that's gone considering he's still one of the most I'm needed people in the world he's pretty peaceful considering he doesn't know where he is or what century it is oh well what time he got up that morning or all that he's in a place where he lives considering all of that his state of mind is extraordinarily calm happy content and very much himself he's himself if you could do anything now if you had free choice what would you do next I would Jim Tomica cigarette then of course waiting for time to allude and disappear and her arrival [Music] you you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 67,155

Rating: 4.942966 out of 5

Keywords: prisoner of consciousness documentary, Man with a 7 Second Memory, only human documentary, only human doctor in the house, only human documentary channel 4, spectacular people, spectacular people only human, memory loss causes, dementia stages, 7 second memory, only human full docs, only human full documentary, memory loss, seven second memory, Clive Wearing, no short time memory, the man with no short time memory

Id: T80wIGZSYoc

Length: 47min 23sec (2843 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/SquishedPeter]

"You're the first 4 people I've ever seen"

That's the part of this that makes it hit hard for me. The concept makes sense to me, the description of the mental state... bit when he says something like that it just blasts home the absolute blankness that is everything to him.

[u/bachbeethovenbrahms]

That was fascinating... and extremely depressing.

[u/forever_useless]

I watched the whole thing and this is heartbreaking. I suffer amnesia when I switch alters (I have DID) and it's scary as hell. I cannot even fathom what it must be like. But the way he keeps saying it's like death, is very telling

[u/DogmaticNuance]

I wonder if his long term memory has faded after all these years or if he remembers everything extremely clearly because he's had no new memories to replace it with.

[u/Go-GoPowerRangers]

You gotta think from a Buddhist perspective this guy has achieved enlightenment. Completely in the moment.