The day I lost my mind …and how I found it again

One Sunday in March last year, Dasha Ross’s memory left her. Suddenly struck by a mysterious condition, Transient Global Amnesia, she lost a whole day of her life, and it has taken a year to truly recover.

I’m back at last … back to how I was before I lost my mind. Sitting in the tranquil Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland, I roll a ball of black sapote ice-cream around my mouth, feeling all the terrible anxiety I’ve carried for the last year melt away – just like this delicious rainforest fruit ice-cream melts in my mouth. Travelling alone up to Cape Tribulation, Kulki country, to the most beautiful place on Earth – the northern tip of Australia – has been my ultimate test.

It’s been quite a journey because, you see, on Sunday, March 1, 2020, I lost my mind. Not just for a minute, but for an entire day. Gone. I have no memory at all of what took place – and I never will. What happened, and why, remains a total mystery to me. I only know what those people close to me told me about what happened. I’ve only got second-hand memories of the day when my brain froze.

What is memory exactly? I’d never asked this question until I lost mine. One minute mine was there, just as it always had been, like a well-worn, much-loved suitcase at the back of the cupboard. It was reliable (well, mostly) and it could always be dialled up at will. But in an instant, my memory was gone. I had no recall of anything I’d been doing on that Sunday. None.

Consternation set in. Not just mine. I phoned some friends four times in 10 minutes to check on a dinner date that evening, saying, “I’m a bit confused. Am I coming to dinner tonight?” “Yes,” they said. After my fourth call, they rang my daughter, Lola. “We’re worried about Dasha,” they said.