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Imagine remembering every single day of your life, all in perfect detail.
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For those with highly superior autobiographical memory, or H.S.A.M for short, this is their reality.
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I remember everything that's personally happened to me since I was born.
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That's Rebecca Sharrock.
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I was fascinated by this condition, so I called her up to find out more.
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Hi, Rebecca.
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Hi!
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How are you going?
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I'm doing alright.
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It's a very wet Saturday morning here.
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How are you going?
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Side note, in this moment, I just realized that Rebecca will remember that this day was a wet morning forever.
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So, you remember everything in great detail.
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People can remember what they did last Saturday, but I can remember what I did Saturday 10 years ago.
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What about a memory from when you were just a baby?
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When I was 12 days old, I was lying down on the fur car seat in my parent's car,
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and I was staring up at the steering wheel, and I thought, “What is that?"
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Rebecca is one of only 60 people worldwide to have been identified with having H.S.A.M.
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All through my teenage years, I thought that everybody remembered in this kind of way.
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I thought it was completely normal.
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It wasn't until she was 21, when her parents decided to submit her to the university of California to undergo two years of testing.
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After this, she was officially identified as having H.S.A.M.
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Since memories can come to mind unexpectedly, any time of day, a negative memory like this can make living with H.S.A.M difficult.
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Mom was putting me in this itchy satin dress, and I was crying because I didn't like it,
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and mom gave me this Minnie Mouse toy, and I couldn't say anything at the time, but her face terrified me.
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But on most days H.S.A.M is a gift.
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Rebecca can recall happy memories and moments when times get tough.
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A good memory that makes me so thankful about having this kind of H.S.A.M memory.
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Thanks for chatting Rebecca.
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Yup, thanks.
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Bye.