In July 2020, 37-year-old Daniel Porter, a hearing specialist from Texas, woke up thinking he had to get up to get ready for school. The father of one mistakenly believed it was 1990 and he was 16 years old. However, something was very wrong. A woman he had never seen before was sleeping next to him, and when he looked in the mirror, an older and heavier Daniel was looking back at him. He had no idea that he had graduated from high school nearly two decades earlier and that the strange woman in his bed was his wife, with whom he had a 10-year-old daughter. Daniel had gone to bed a 36-year-old man and awakened as a teenager. His wife Ruth managed to calm him down, explaining that she was his wife and he had not been kidnapped by a stranger. It sounds funny, but it was a scary experience for both of them. Meanwhile, Daniel's parents helped convince him that his wife was safe, but he still didn’t recognize his daughter Libby and was afraid of their two dogs. Doctors originally diagnosed him with Transient Global Amnesia — a sudden, temporary interruption in short-term memory – and told him that he should be back to his old self again within 24 hours. However, a year after waking up with no recollection of the last 20 years, the 37-year-old still can’t remember much of his life past his high-school days. Not only does Daniel not remember his wife and daughter, their pets, and the friends he’s made in the last two decades, but he has even forgotten all the education he received after high-school. As a result, he had to quit working as a trained hearing specialist. Ruth has been driving him through the neighborhood, reintroducing him to his old friends in the hopes of bringing his memory back, but so far it hasn’t been working. Doctors don’t know exactly what triggered Daniel Porter’s severe amnesia, but they suspect that it was a side effect of emotional stress. In January 2020, after losing his job, having to sell his house and some of his possessions, and suffering a slipped disk in his spine, Daniel and his family moved in with his parents until he could find a job and get back on his feet. Daniel is currently going to therapy to try and work through the trauma, but no one knows if he will ever get back the 20 years of memories he lost.
