The Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore film 50 First Dates might be a romantic comedy, but if you imagine a life where you were unable to create new memories, it probably wouldn't be all that funny.

And that's reality for Michelle Philpots from Spalding in Lincolnshire, whose memory has been wiped every single day for the past 23 years, just like Barrymore's character Lucy in the 2004 film.

Michelle was left with a type of amnesia The Daily Mail claims Dr Peter Nestor, a neuroscience specialist at Cambridge University, describes as "rare but it does exist", after her involvement in two vehicle crashes. The first accident took place in 1985 when Philpots was on a motorbike, and five years later, when in a car in 1990, she was involved in a second crash. She suffered trauma to her head in both incidents.

Rex

Four years later, in 1994, doctors diagnosed Michelle with epilepsy as a result of the head injuries she had sustained, and from there things got steadily worse. Michelle was experiencing regular seizures, as well as beginning to become forgetful. Her memory got so bad, in fact, that she was eventually fired from her office job after she photocopied a single document over and over again one day, simply having forgotten she'd done it.

And now Michelle is stuck in 1994. Her memories don't go past that year, meaning she wakes up every day thinking she's 23 years younger than her actual 53 years, believing that John Major is still Prime Minister and that Forrest Gump is a new movie, reports TODAY.

But where the character of Lucy in 50 First Dates loses her memory every night when she goes to sleep, it can be even more severe in Michelle's case of anterograde amnesia. While she forgets what's happened every day without fail, regressing back to 1994 in her mind, sometimes the memory loss can occur as frequently as within minutes of making a new memory. So she might meet someone and within moments she could forget who she's talking to and why.

Adam Sandler almost had it easy, didn't he?

Rex

And just like in the Nicole Kidman film Before I Go To Sleep, where the protagonist also wakes up every day having no idea she's lost her memory, Michelle has methods to help her remember things. She dots Post-It notes all around the house as well as using the calendar on her phone (though she probably gets confused about what that even is; mobile phones weren't exactly common in 1994) to remind her of places she's got to go or people she's arranged to see.

But Michelle's disorder can be a struggle, especially for her husband Ian. "It can be very frustrating for me but I have to be patient and understand. I have to keep calm because I love her," he said, adding: "I am lucky we met before she had the accidents because she can remember me. Luckily we have lots of photos to remind her, otherwise she would forget it all."

The experience is most bizarre for Michelle, though, who has to learn this difficult information over and over again every single day. "I love to watch EastEnders but I can't remember the characters or any story lines," she said. "It's like I am living the same day, day after day."

That'll teach us not to take our fully-functioning memories for granted, won't it?

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Catriona Harvey-Jenner Digital Features Editor Cat is Cosmopolitan UK's features editor covering women's issues, health and current affairs.

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