I lost my memory after brain injury — I forgot even my daughter

Nesh Pillay woke up not knowing her age, the year, who her boyfriend was — or that she had a daughter.

“I have a child? Is the child safe?” she says in a clip on TikTok, shock clearly on her face.

Pillay, a mother-of-one from Toronto, suffered from a traumatic brain injury, causing her to lose parts of her memory.

She claims to not remember much from the past few months in a composite of videos posted on the platform, and at one point even thought it was 1996. She was confused that her sisters were grown up and that her boyfriend wasn’t “hired help.”

She told Newsweek that a car accident when she was 9 was the first in a series of head injuries that would later result in significant memory loss.

“Over the years I’ve had quite a few concussions and as time goes on, it takes less and less of a bump for you to get a concussion — and every time my symptoms are worse and worse,” she told the publication.

In October 2022, she apparently told her family that she bumped her head but can’t recall it now, she said. At that time, she headed off to take a nap.

When she awoke, she was dazed and her memory started to rapidly dissipate.

“I reportedly was very confused and didn’t know what was going on,” Pillay explained. “Then over the course of a couple of hours, I lost my memory. By that evening I didn’t know who my partner was. I didn’t know much about my daughter. That’s so difficult.”

She recalled being “constantly in panic,” and someone was forced to be by her side at all times. She would forget what she was doing or where she was, claiming she remembered nothing about either October or November.

“I mean, how terrifying? You don’t know what’s going on? Who is this random white man sitting with me? That was really tough,” she said.

Doctors were uncertain as to what exactly caused the lapse in memory. While some chalked it up to multiple concussions – and assured her she’d be “fine” in a few days – she sought a second opinion when her condition worsened.

“Women in general are not believed when it comes to their symptoms,” she said. “Women of color are especially not believed. The doctor was hellbent on tying it to a psychiatric issue.”

During her three-day stint in the hospital, the five psychiatrists who assessed her confirmed the issue was not psychological and she was finally approved to see a neurologist.

“He said the thing that I think a lot of doctors are afraid to say which is, ‘I don’t know,’” she recalled to Newsweek. “It was nice to hear that because at least I wasn’t being gaslit.”

But there’s a sliver of hope for Pillay, who is improving little by little. She needs to be “triggered,” though, in order to remember certain people.

“Sometimes friends will message me and say, ‘Hey, do you remember me?’ And I wouldn’t remember them until they would message me, but then I’d be reminded and remember,” she explained.

She’s been compared online to the films “50 First Dates” or “The Vow,” which feature main characters — played by Drew Barrymore and Rachel McAdams, respectively — who experience severe memory loss.

“Are you the Uber?” she asks her partner in one of her clips. “I’m your boyfriend,” he responds.

“Oh, no, my mom’s going to be so mad,” she says, adding that she “can’t have a boyfriend.”

“I don’t think he’s even begun to process the trauma of it all,” Pillay told Newsweek. “Of having me forget him, taking months off work. The whole time he has really just been there for me. There was never any moment when it was about him or his pain for being forgotten.”

She regularly posts clips of her recovery journey with her following of 34,000, some of whom criticize Pillay for parenting her 6-year-old daughter, questioning her ability to be a sound guardian to the girl, whom she calls her “No. 1 priority” in a video.

“I think I feel most guilty about the impact this has on her. There was a moment where I called her ‘the child,’” she admitted to Newsweek. “Imagine going from having this very engaged mother who loves her child so much to having someone call you ‘the child’?”

She said that although she couldn’t “remember how to parent,” she did know she loved her kid, even if she couldn’t always place her. Pillay’s family has offered endless support and help with day-to-day tasks, which include parenting.

But her online content has served as a beacon of hope for others who also experienced traumatic brain injuries. According to Pillay, the diagnosis “is such an isolating feeling,” but her viewers are claiming “they feel seen for the first time.”

“That was never my intention, but I am honored to be able to do that,” she said.

While it is difficult for Pillay, who has always depended on her impeccable intellect – at one point crying to her parents that she is “broken” and “worthless” due to her injuries –now, she’s happy to be alive.

“It’s not great, but it’s not terrible, right?” she said. “I’m so grateful to be alive. So many people die from head injuries and don’t get any memory back. So I’m just really looking at the bright side here.”