'I can remember everything from everyday': Brisbane woman's very rare health condition
A Brisbane woman has hit the headlines after it was revealed she is just one of 80 people in the world to suffer from an extremely rare condition where she can remember everything she has ever experienced.
Rebecca Sharrock, 25, discovered four years ago she had Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), and can remember everything from when she was 12 days old.
She is now trying to raise awareness of the condition and has started her own YouTube page called A Life Journal documenting what her life is like.
She has a huge social media presence with 12.6K Twitter followers and has authored two e-books on her condition and autism.
Rebecca's party trick is that she can remember all the seven Harry Potter books by memory.
“I remember my mum Janet placing me in the drivers seat of the car and taking a picture of me when I was 12 days old, that’s my earliest memory.'
“I remember every day since then. Some of them I can’t date exactly because I was too young to understand calendars, but I remember what I did that day, what the weather was like and so on,” Mail Online reports.
Ms Sharrock not only remembers the details from each day but also the emotions she experienced in each situation.
She talks about the thoughts and feelings in videos posted to her YouTube page.
“When I relive memories, the emotions come back. So if it’s something from when I was younger it’s like my mind is an adult but my emotions are the age that I was then," Ms Sharrock said.
'I also re-experience pain. For example, I remember falling over when I was three at my grandparents’ house and grazing my left knee. Talking about it now, I’m getting an echo of the sting in my left knee cap.'
However, there are times when Ms Sharrock's memories prove to be too overwhelming requiring her to learn relaxation and mindfulness techniques to cope.
Ms Sharrock says she also has no control over which memories she will remember or when.
Some are so painful that she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
It was only when Ms Sharrock’s mum Janet Barnes, 51, was watching an episode of 60 minutes when the condition was featured did the family work out that she might have HSAM, reports Mail Online.
Ms Sharrock and her mum got in touch with researchers at the University of California who were featured on the programme and after tests was accepted onto the study in March 2013.
Ms Sharrock said: “As I also have autism and anxiety, it has made it very difficult for me to have a typical sort of career.
“However I have always liked doing writing and research, and it's great that there are so many places where one can self publish eBooks.
“My goals are to be able to write and sell eBooks about my medical conditions and interests.
She has already written one e-Book called Streams of Memories and she is also writing one about autism.
