An Inconvenient Memory: Jill Price Remembers Everything Since Age 14

Jill Price remembers every moment of every day since she was fourteen, and that’s really rather inconvenient considering all of the embarrassing, sad, screwed up things that can happen over the course of thirty years. That time you fell down a stairwell into a crowd of peopleand dropped six books about venereal diseases while wearing a mini skirt: remembered. That time you threw up at your grandfather’s funeral: remembered. And so it goes.

Price is the first individual to be diagnosed with hyperthymestic syndrome, a syndrome that UC Irvine researchers led by Dr. James McGaugh discovered by studying her.

According to USA Today:

The constant onslaught of memories is both a curse and a blessing, Price says. Especially under stress, the good memories give her great comfort. "I have this warm, safe feeling, and I can get through anything." The dark side is that she recalls every bad decision, every insult and excruciating embarrassment. "Over the years, it has eaten me up."

Peaceful sleep is rare because memories assault her, she says. "It has kind of paralyzed my life."

Squelching the gusher of memories isn't an option. "I can't stop, it doesn't work — short of a lobotomy." And, amazingly, she wouldn't stop even if she could. "The idea of losing some of my memories … is actually anxiety-provoking. I've felt an urgent desire to hold on to the days and places and events."

There is not just one cause of Price's "gift," scientists say. Her memory potential "probably was wired in when the brain developed," but her environment also probably played a role, says Jill Goldstein, clinical neuroscientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital of Harvard Medical School.

Despite her incredible memory, Price was a poor student. Though details may be particularly vivid to her, it is difficult for her to exercise abstract reasoning. Her understanding of analogies and logical trends is disproportionately small in comparison to her ability to retain details of memory. Price has written a book called The Woman Who can’t Forget: the Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science— A Memoir, a title almost as long as her strain of memory.