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A pensioner who was discovered nine months ago, unconscious and covered in bruises in the streets of Perpignan in south-eastern France, is in a desperate search to find out who she really is.
When she woke up in the hospital emergency room she was unable to remember her name or anything about her identity. Hospital staff have since named her Marie Bonheur.
Other than her inability to remember anything further back than nine months, medics say mentally she’s perfectly normal.
“I found myself faced with the following problem: Who am I? I was in some kind of fog and this fog has not lifted since. I’m like a stray dog without a collar,” she told local media.
French police have spent the past nine months looking for clues, but no one has come forward to identify her and she isn’t listed as a missing person.
Officers believe she’s probably from outside the region, but aside from that they know nothing about her, other than that medics believe she’s in her seventies.
“There are people who know me for sure.”
Marie, who’s been living in a medical unit in Perpignan for several months now, has nowhere to go and no way to sustain herself.
Her lawyer Xaviere Lethuillier, who’s also responsible for her, says that without an identity they’re unable to offer her proper help.
“Without an identity, you have no rights.
“She has no money or social security number. She needs to fix her glasses, and she can’t even do that.”
Marie says although she’s desperate to find out who she is, she worries what secrets lie waiting.
“I worry that I’ve experienced something traumatic and had to put up barriers. I’m afraid to return to the images of what I’ve been through.
“I wonder if it’s possible to continue my life.”
