The problem of amnesia, anonymity, and trust.

[Jimbeaux]

So, I'm writing a story in which the protagonist has amnesia. It's not 'lost all his life' amnesia, as, while that's a nice literary thing, amnesia doesn't actually work that way. What he does have is about seven weeks from his life that's missing. He's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from that period of time, and one of the symptoms is blocking out what happened (This is actually only part of the story; he was being experimented upon by a cabal that was working on ways to control the formation of memories).
So, the end of those seven 'missing' weeks finds David (our protagonist) in the hospital. He'd been found wandering by the side of the road, pretty beat up. He spends some time with a therapist whilst still there (actually an agent of the cabal sent to keep tabs on him), and eventually leaves to go back into the real world.
The problem I'm having is that it's too easy for life to go back to 'normal' after that- I'd suspect in real life, he'd go back to whatever home and job he had, find his old friends, and the like. This, to be blunt, doesn't work for me.
A good chunk of the later plot of the book hinges on David not having people who believe him. He's going to start recovering memories that don't make a lot of sense, and he's going to witness some supernatural occurrences. Now, my original ideas had him simply not -having- attachments, but people don't live like that; everyone has someone who trusts them. I'd originally planned him having a sister who lived far away (thus he couldn't fall back on her) and a girlfriend who went 'missing' during his seven weeks, but ... No one has -nobody- to rely on.
So, I'm struggling with that now. I need him not to have anyone he can trust / rely on when he starts having encounters and memories that don't make a lot of sense, and I'm not sure how to set that up realistically.
Thoughts? Comments?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

What about giving him a history that makes him unreliable? For instance, drug addiction & the lying/stealing behavior that so often accompanies that lifestyle. This would give him people that might care for him but have washed their hands of him at the same time. It also gives good reason for him being selected for abduction.

If this cabal did this to Dan Rather, they'd be rather stupid just based on his credibility. But doing these experiments to a recovered addict... Whose gonna believe them? More likely they'll think he fell off the wagon & not want anything to do with him... This also leaves room for someone who still wants to believe in him if you choose to include a character like that.

 

[Jimbeaux]

Oooh. That... Could very well work. I hesitate a bit, though, because there's something inherently negative in my mind about addiction (yes, I'm very well aware it's an unfair prejudice, and I need to work on that, but that's not germane to this thread). But having him have an untrustworthy history... Hm...

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Yeah, it doesn't have to be drug addiction or alcoholism. That's just the first thing I think of when I think of an unreliable person. But there's loads of directions you could go that make him start out unreliable or undesirable company.

In fact, thinking up something less commonplace than addiction may give the character a more unique flavor.

 

[Jimbeaux]

Yeah. I just want to strike a balance between 'people see him as untrustworthy' and 'he's not immediately unlikable to the reader'. (For instance, in further work, I've figured out that he was once a teacher. Now... There's things teachers can do that make them looked at in askance, but most of them also make the protagonist a pretty despicable character...)
So, anyone have some ideas as to untrustworthy backgrounds that won't completely taint the character?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Why not work with the PTSD. If he's got a severe enough case that he's lost a couple of months of memory, maybe he's got other symptoms which frighten people. Someone rings a bell or a buzzer and he freaks out, complete fight or flight reaction, sees a face in a crowd that he thinks he recognises and runs away or attacks them. Also PTSD can also leave a person what they call flat or unaffected. So he can't take joy in anything, and is if not emotionless, than the next thing to it. These sorts of symptoms could set him apart from his friends and family.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[ShortHair]

What if, when they removed his old memories, they put in some new ones? They are trying to "control the formation of memories," right?

When he gets back to his old life, he gradually drives people away. He remembers things they don't. A false memory could tell him that a co-worker stabbed him in the back. The co-worker, suddenly treated like a traitor, stops talking to David (which is the point of implanting that memory). Soon he has lost his job, his friends, and everyone in his life, because he insists that certain things have happened.

You might even let the reader think at first that David is the sane one. In a Twilight Zone sort of sequence, everyone else seems to be crazy, but then we realize we have it backwards.

 

[Butterfly]

Or the people responsible for his initial disappearance have been interfering with his life in other ways. In regards of the gf, they could have planted the seeds of suspicion over his whereabouts and faithfulness in the last few weeks, cut him off from his sister through rumours of ?????, deleting phone numbers, diverting them, etc. They could manipulate the situation vastly, and easily if you know how they did it...

Also, did he escape, or was he released?

 

[The Dark One]

What about including a person on whom he had developed a recent crush who just happened to be away on some work assignment during the period of his amnesia?

You could then play with all sorts of fun possibilities - is this girl to be trusted or is she part of the secret cabal?

 

[Chilari]

The unreliable idea sounds like a good way of handling it to me. But being unreliable is not exclusive to addicts. There might well be a point of origin in David's past for unreliable nature, or he could simply have always been like this. Sometimes did homework, sometimes didn't when in school; occasionally stood girlfriends up on dates because he forgot or couldn't be bothered or something came up that he decided was more important. Having a skewed view regarding priorities might be a way of explaining the lack of reliability. He might simply decide one day that it's vitally important that he learn to make sushi and just not turn up to work that day, for example. If he does occasionally find something more important and disappear for a day or two or sometimes longer, uncontactable by friends, family and bosses, they might just be used to him never being around and returning with wacky stories that as far as they are concerned could well be made up, since there's no evidence except that he vanished for two days; for all they know he could have got drunk and passed out in a ditch somewhere, when he tells them he hitchhiked to the next town and helped out in a soup kitchen for two days. So when he goes missing for seven weeks, everyone just thinks it's the same old story and not actually report him missing for a whole week or even longer.

This way he has a network of family, friends and probably quite a lot of ex-coworkers and ex-bosses, people he can talk to, who might put him up for a night or two, but wouldn't necessarily believe him.

I also think the Dark One's suggestion of someone he wants to trust having been away the whole time his seven weeks of lost memory cover possibly being involved would add a very enticing and threatening mystery.

Good luck, it sounds like you've got a good story here.

 

[Lawfire]

He could have grown up as the, "boy who cried wolf?" Perhaps he was always fascinated with "X-Files" type of stuff and therefore has alienated many (if not all) the people close to him.

 

[Christopher Wright]

It could be something as simple as the people who care about him NOT believing him because they think it's an effect of the PTSD, and that eventually, with time, he'll get past the crazy.

I.e. "I know you think it looks that way now, but that's just because you're trying to piece together information without having all the information -- just give it some time. Are you taking the medication they gave you?"

I mean, if one of my best friends started acting crazy after a traumatic incident, my first inclination would be that he was still suffering from the trauma--especially if it involved memory loss. It would be me abandoning the guy, but if I thought he was damaged from trauma I wouldn't be going along with his delusions either. He might hurt himself. I'd have a responsibility to make sure he didn't do anything that would make his condition worse.

In that way you can turn the people that care about your protagonist into unwitting antagonists by having them try to do the right thing.

 

[Saigonnus]

Maybe during that seven weeks, he did something to anger people... and when he was with this cabal, he was virtually inaccessible... now that he's out, they can find him without the cabal knowing, or being able to help in time. Maybe that has to do with why he is all beat up, the blows to the head triggered the "time of forgetfulness" to end.