The woman woke up like every morning. And, like every morning, she went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror but she was still half asleep and she rubbed her eyes and kept walking. A few seconds later the blow came.

She returned to the reflection covered in sweat. The image returned to her from the mirror was of a middle-aged woman she did not know. He panicked. “I was really surprised see an “old” woman looking at me and not the young woman I was expecting“, to remember.

Alison Winterburn, the protagonist of this strange story, is neither crazy nor in the Matrix. at that moment she he believed – and still believes – that he was living in the turbulent 1970s and that he liked his twenties.

Like a real-life rerun of Adam Sanders’ “Like It’s Your First Time”, Winterburn wakes up every morning believing that John Lennon is alivethat a disastrous wall divides Berlin and that the Vietnam War is still ongoing.

But this is not the most shocking thing that the woman, who is from Wilmslow in England, has had (and must) face on a daily basis. She also “found out” that she has been married for two decades and has two children..

A virus that made her go back in time

The culprit of this insane mess is a severe traumatic brain injury that the woman suffered. But it all started in 2012 when her family noticed it he spoke with difficulty and did not make eye contact.

Then, her husband Ray took her to the hospital, where they checked her and he was diagnosed with encephalitisdisease that causes inflammation of the brain, due to a virus.

The woman was treated with medication, but it was too late to heal the wound that had occurred in her frontal lobe. Y His life took a dramatic turn.

“I felt groggy and lightheaded for weeks when I got home after spending three weeks at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, the scariest thing was that my brain injury had caused extreme loss short and long-term memory, “Winterburn said.

“I had no idea where you werenot even at my house, “he recalled.

“I couldn’t understand the time jump between the era I thought I was living in and the reality of the 21st century, “he added,” I really believed (and sometimes I still believe it) that it was still the 1970s. “

Know yourself again

“This baffling bout of confusion lasted for several weeks. Gradually, my short-term memory has improved And, with the continued support of my family, I gradually came to terms with the real me, middle-aged and married with children. “

“Actually I had to learn who I was again“He said.” I encouraged myself to improve, “added the woman who is a psychology professor, even though she could not practice again.

Winterburn explained that she has the help of her children and her husband, but that “life is different”. “Not being able to go back to work was a disappointment because you lose all your independence.”

“I was devastatedbut in the end I resigned myself to my new limits and retired from the position of teacher ”.

The challenges that still persist

“The main problem I have to face even today is I don’t know where I am. It’s like I’m not the same person as before, “admitted Winterburn, 61.

“Still life can be very difficult when people don’t understand why I suffer from memory problems and sometimes I think of that teenager in the mirror, wanting to be herself again. “

“However, my two grown-up children have been encouraging and positively positive after my brain injury and I am determined to rebuild my sense of self-worth“. hill.