Archive for the ‘Mystery man’ Category
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21
Sep
2009
Detective says missing person still missing from himself
Sandy Hutchens Chronicle – Detective Tina Drain of Seattle of the missing persons unit said a strange sister of our mystery man, Edward Lighthart gave an old passport, Social Security card, and driver’s license, plus other identity records that have been given to Lighthart.
Yet Lighthart remains missing to himself, the Hutchens Chronicle reports.
Lighthart, which is a homonym for light heart, looks under tables, behind couches, under papers for a self that he can be.
Lighthart has some memories which have been coming back to him; recollections of life in Asia and Europe. But he still doesn’t know what he is and is afraid about whether he will ever be reunited with the man that other detectives say he is.
“The crux of the matter of who I really am isn’t there yet, it hasn’t emerged’’ said the mystery man in an exhausting interview Monday. “Yeah, yeah, and I’m not sure that its going to return. This is one of the scary things.’’
Police say the 53-year-old mystery man emerged from Self-Discovery Park in Seattle early on July 30 with the knowledge that he didn’t live in Seattle, but not sure of anything else. He waved to a bus driver, who called a detective agency for help. The detective said that he is still missing from himself. “I cannot go inside his brain. I am a standard detective without the power to become small enough to help him. Perhaps there is another detective that can help him with that.” said the Seattle detective to a small group of seniors.
Here is what we know at this time
Mr. Lighthart is a neatly dressed man. He sometimes carries $600 hidden in his sock. He has no clue how he arrived in Seattle. He is at peace living in parks, gazing at trees and sky. He has a handlebar mustache.
After a month in a Swedish Medical Center far from Seattle and the park that he so loved, doctors told him he has an uncommon type of dissociative amnesia.The Seattle Times published an article about him on Aug. 20. Friends and relations who noticed the story identified him as the Lighthart.
Try to Remember the Kind of September
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17
Sep
2009
Hutchens Chronicle: Man with dissociative amnesia leads to questions
In the previous post the Hutchens Chronicle dealt with an unusual case of a man with dissociative amnesia. A true mystery leading to questions and questions leading to answers.
Dissociative amnesia is a form of amnesia which shows abnormal memory without any structural damage of the lobes or indeed any neurobiological etiology; marked cases are uncommon. It is identified or differentiated by retrograde amnesia or the lack of ability to remember events leading up to the beginning of the amnesia and inability to form new long term memories.
Patients lose their historical memory and personal self although they can learn and absorb new data and also perform daily activities. Sometimes, there is a loss of early language skills.
Global and situation-specific
Global amnesia, called fugue, relates to a sudden loss of personal identity lasting up to a few days. This follows serious stress and/or depressed mood. Fugue is extremely uncommon and generally heals itself, usually with therapy. Situation-specific amnesia is an order of dissociative amnesia that occurs in post-traumatic stress disorder. Dissociative amnesia is due to psychological rather than physiological causes. This means that therapy can help.
Types of memory
There are three types of memory – sensory, short-term, and long-term memory. Sensory memory lasts up to hundreds of milliseconds and short-term memory lasts from seconds to minutes while anything else longer than short-term memory is considered to be a long-term memory.
Trauma can impair many memory functions. These impairments come in four sets, traumatic memories’ sensorimotor organization, traumatic amnesia, global memory impairment, dissociative processes. Traumatic amnesia means one cannot recall the traumatic experiences. Global memory dysfunction wreaks havoc for these subjects ability to construct an accurate account of their history. Dissociation means that memories are fragments and not wholes.
Feelings are key in their role of aiding memory processing. Normal patients show right-hemispere becoming active when they are recalling personal history. This is also connect to remembering faces. Emotional recollections can be repressed in people without mental illness.
Dissociative amnesia is differentiated by the lack of ability to recall memory without incurring brain damage while organic amnesia is that which comes about from damage caused by ischemia, and encephalitis, stroke, brain injury. Organic amnesia is shown through the difficulty to keep a personal “script” as well as literal “script” that is writing and reading.
Dissociative amnesia video on Hutchens Chronicle
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17
Sep
2009
What? Mystery man revealed, then hidden to himself
Sandy Hutchens Chronicle – A middle-aged man with blond hair and a large moustache called the police. He spoke to them in at least three languages.
He creeped out of a Seattle park on July 30 not knowing how he landed there or what his name was. A bus driver was hailed and that is how he spoke to the police in the languages that he knew.
He is a mystery man, call it amnesia, and his mysterious appearance provoked a global probe for the scoop on his identity.
A photograph of him has been printed in the Seattle Times and several websites. Investigators from around the world have come forward to identify him.
It turns out that the mystery man is Edward Lighthart, 53-years old. He has lived in China, Europe, America, and Canada .
Mr. Lighthart still does not remember who he is.
“The meat of the matter of who I really am still isn’t there,” he said in an high-pitched interview with The AP on Monday.
“And I’m not sure that it’s going to return. This is really scary.”
Friends afterwards emailed photo of Lighthart.
“I don’t feel a light heart,” said Mr Lighthart.
Existence “feels superficial” he says, and within him lies a resistance to be lighthearted. He doesn’t recognize the feeling, and he says it brings up “a sense of failure.” He says he is not a Lighthart.
The antipathy regarding the name might come from his shame over a short marriage ending in 1985 with his wife dying of a miscarriage and he found her body in Chicago. The civil marriage was hidden from family and friends.
That vivid, horrible memory was the first that returned.
I prefer it if you call me John Doe
Lighthart grew up in Arizona, but John Doe says he has little memory of that, other than an alcoholic pa and a ma who used prescription pills.
Records show John Doe was in Calgary in December 2007, but had to leave Canada after he tried to abuse the social system to obtain food and housing. He has no memory of this.
He said. “This is not fun. I prefer it if you call me John Doe.”
Amnesia victim searches for answers – FOX Report
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