A MEMOIR BY EVAN FOLAN
FORGETTING TO REMEMBER
A Story of Survival, Lost Identity, and Starting Over
A traumatic brain injury ended one life and forced another to begin.
Forgetting to Remember is a raw memoir about memory loss, chronic pain, fractured identity, and the long aftermath no one prepares you for. It is honest and deeply personal, written for anyone who wants to understand what life after brain injury can actually look like.
Available in paperback, Kindle and audiobook
What is the memoir about?
A single violent impact changed everything. Through hospital rooms, seizures, neurological testing, chronic pain, memory loss, failed relationships, and cognitive decline, Evan Folan documents what it means to keep living when your mind, body, and sense of self no longer feel dependable.
This is a book about survival, but not in the polished, inspirational way people often expect. It is about what happens when memory fades, pain lingers, identity fractures, and "starting over" is not a choice, but the only option left.
Why this memoir is different
There are plenty of stories about overcoming adversity. This is not one of those. Forgetting to Remember does not try to make brain injury feel neat, uplifting, or easy to package. It stays with the harder truth: sometimes survival looks like learning how to live with what remains.
No tidy recovery arc
No finish line. No clean return to normal. No polished miracle ending.
Written from the inside
Not theory. Not observation. A lived account of the aftermath as it unfolds.
Honest over inspirational
The book chooses truth over comfort, and that is what gives it weight
What readers will find inside
01
The reality of a traumatic brain injury
Not just the diagnosis, but the day-to-day aftermath, memory problems, cognitive changes, pain, instability, and the invisible symptoms people often do not see.
02
Identity loss
What happens when the person you were no longer feels accessible in the same way, and how disorienting it is to live with that gap.
03
A deeper understanding of invisible injury
For readers who have never experienced brain injury directly, this memoir offers a clearer, more human understanding of what the aftermath can really involve.
04
The grief no one talks about
The grief of losing certainty, losing normalcy, losing trust in your own mind, and losing parts of life that used to feel effortless.
About the author, Evan Folan
Evan Folan writes from lived experience.
After sustaining a traumatic brain injury, he found himself navigating a reality defined by pain, memory loss, neurological complications, uncertainty, and the slow dismantling of the life he thought he knew. Forgetting to Remember is his account of that aftermath, written not to ask for sympathy, but to tell the truth.
His perspective matters because it comes from the inside.
Not from theory. Not from observation. From living it.
What readers are saying
"This book truly is a journey. It’s heartbreaking, heartwarming and inspiring all at once. ... so many more people suffer with a TBI, but their lived experiences are often hidden."
Britt - Amazon review
“This is a powerful and unvarnished account of survival, loss, pain, and hope. Evan’s use of journal entries during his recovery gives the reader a rare front row seat to the realities of surviving a horrible accident and rebuilding a life one piece at a time.”
Jennifer - Amazon review
“None of us can understand what he goes through but these 276 pages are a great start in helping us empathize with what he & everyone experiencing TBIs hide on a daily basis. A must read.”
Lexi - Amazon review
