When I first saw 50 First Dates at age 14, I enjoyed it but thought, “Surely this woman’s condition is heightened for the movie? This couldn’t happen in real life.” Then, roughly 10 years later, it happened to me.
To recap: 50 First Dates tells the story of Adam Sandler’s womanizing veterinarian Henry stopping at nothing to make Drew Barrymore’s traumatic brain injury-sufferer Lucy falls in love with him anew every day—even though her memory resets when she goes to sleep, meaning she retains no short-term memories. Although the science of her fictionalized condition doesn’t quite add up in some ways—for example, sleep helps you consolidate the memories you’ve made throughout the day and actually bolsters memory overall—the movie does a pretty good job of portraying the reality of navigating relationships while having a traumatic brain injury and the potential healing these relationships can bring.
At age 25, I fell over 20 feet out of a Redwood tree. Unlike Lucy, who was injured in a car accident while trying to avoid a cow in the road, my accident was entirely my fault—after all, who climbs a Redwood without any climbing gear or safety equipment? (Answer: me, especially after a few beers.) I ended up in a 10-day coma and, upon waking, had to relearn everything—how to walk, talk, drink, eat, and think—in both an acute Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Ward and a 4-month-long outpatient day-treatment program. My long-term memory came back in waves—I would know I knew certain people but not how I met them or, sometimes, even who they specifically were. Often, I wouldn’t remember large chunks of my life until specifically described to me.
Enter: the guy who I had been sleeping with prior to my accident who refused to acknowledge we were involved romantically and vehemently denied we were seeing each other. Any time, pre-injury, I broached the “what are we?” subject, he explained he couldn’t be my boyfriend and was incapable of that type of relationship. So, I left it alone.
One of the first people, I’m told, to show up at the hospital, this guy told everyone there he was my boyfriend, even my parents. My best friend, though, knew the truth about the situation, and debriefed my other friends. Still, he insisted and used my memory impairments to his advantage, claiming he visited me every day to work on word puzzles and other activities that would rebuild the functions of my brain.
Interestingly enough, 50 First Dates’ entire premise was based on a true story. A woman named Michelle Philpots from Spalding in Lincolnshire, U.K., experienced two separate vehicular accidents (in 1985 and 1990) which resulted in traumatic brain injuries. She developed aggressively persistent epilepsy, and her memory retention began steadily declining until it stopped altogether in 1994. Yet, she’s managed her condition for the last twenty-five years by developing strategies built around Post-It notes and calendars. It does help that she met her husband years before the injury and has photographic evidence of their relationship. Henry’s introduction of the “morning video” for Lucy mirrors this.
Looking back at 50 First Dates now, my favorite scene has to be when Henry thinks he can do the exact same thing—help construct Lucy’s waffle house—as the previous day to win Lucy’s affections. She rebukes his unrequested presence, and Henry is baffled that a woman is a living, breathing, sentient being with different emotions and feelings from one day to the next—memory be damned.
About a month after waking from my coma, when my brain began to shift short-term memories into long-term storage, my not-boyfriend told me he’d return later in the day “like [he did] every day” to work on puzzles. That afternoon, I stared at the entryway to my hospital room, expectant. But he never came. On this particular day, the first one I remember of his absence (but not the last), it occurred to me that perhaps he’d visit for five minutes in the morning every so often, assure me he’d return, and then never did, relying on my shoddy memory to erase his duplicity. Maybe every day I ended up as disenchanted as Drew Barrymore when Adam Sandler feels entitled to touch her waffles—but I can’t remember, only that this guy, unlike Sandler’s Henry, never came to humanize me and recognize that a person with a severe brain injury is still a person.
All of this to say, most people who know of my experience assume I hate 50 First Dates. But it’s the opposite—it’s my wish-fulfillment fantasy. Lucy lives in a community who cares about her and works to keep her safe and happy, even if recreating the same day for her isn’t necessarily the best method. When she does have a romantic partner who starts out thinking she’ll be easy to manipulate because of her memory, he realizes not just the error of his assumption but the error of his behavior toward women-at-large.
My wish isn’t to have my brain injury miraculously removed—I fantasize of a world where society cares enough about disabled people to offer them accommodations. In this world, a romantic partner, like Henry, wouldn’t think twice about making me a morning tape.
Brooke Knisley is a freelance journalist and comedy writer. She has balance issues. Let her harass you on Twitter @BrookeKnisley.