My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was • Hacker News Board

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#21

Post by mst » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

You ... get used to it. Familiarity, is, as mentioned, the key - narrating the location and why it should be familiar and when they moved there and ways they can prove it's theirs (e.g. keys fitting the front door) tend to help quite a bit. A dissociated mind still wants to believe it should be where it is and that that makes complete sense, it just doesn't have the data available.

Eventually, with luck, you can get them to remember who you are reasonably quickly, and things get a lot less complicated - having the intelligence to call her ex as a substitute was a brilliant move on the author's part.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#22

Post by mentalhealth » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

pastas wrote: post #15

It was a voluntary response. This is moronic. Its unbelievable that so many well paid, "highly educated" professionals give this kind of nonsense credence. The girl elected to have a little flip out episode after she told her boyfriend "I'm about to dissociate". She obviously had no conscious part in her decision, right? Nothing is mentioned about her being under the influence of psychoactive substances - so discussi…

There's definitely not enough information in the article to draw that conclusion.

Moreover, the description is entirely compatible with a disassociative episode. You have some pretty clear biases you're projecting onto the situation that are clouding your judgement.

EDIT: The original post, now flagkilled, asserted that the girlfriend in the article had faked the episode.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#23

Post by o0-0o » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

spiritplumber wrote: post #11

I'll believe it because I had to be "that person who drives people home after a rave" a few times in my life. There's "I forget my name" drunk, but that's a joke, then there's people who are having a semi-bad trip who literally forget who their friends are. It never got as bad as this fortunately. Use dissociatives responsibly, be in a familiar environment etc.

I do not agree that having a semi-bad trip makes you forget who your friends are. In fact, I wouldn't call that a semi-bad trip, at all. If someone forgets their friends while tripping (and I assume you mean on acid) they actually, likely, never liked that person enough anyway. Breaking down the barriers and lies is what it does.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#24

Post by agumonkey » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

This has happened to me with two different people. Both times my face apparently transformed into the face of the person's father - while we were sleeping together. Only one of the times was after the person smoked pot. It was scary to say the least, and scarier when the first one ran to the kitchen and grabbed a chef's knife. Life lesson: before you get in a relationship, ask about any history of mental disorder or…

Not really a mental disorder, but an uncle was a sleepwalker, nothing scary, except he was in the military; and sometimes, he'd reenact war scenes, some times he'd take people for allies, some times not. It never ended badly, but it could have.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#25

Post by rmxt » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

pastas wrote: post #15

It was a voluntary response. This is moronic. Its unbelievable that so many well paid, "highly educated" professionals give this kind of nonsense credence. The girl elected to have a little flip out episode after she told her boyfriend "I'm about to dissociate". She obviously had no conscious part in her decision, right? Nothing is mentioned about her being under the influence of psychoactive substances - so discussi…

Thanks for the mansplanation -- glad that you can tell us all about how voluntary it was from up on your high horse of rationality and the saddle of free will.

Now, whole bodies of academic work, and whole fields of science, would suggest that "little flip out episodes" that can be classified according to well developed criteria are significant enough to be named and described. Naming, description and classification are only means to an end. That is, they serve to help trained professionals (therapists/psychologists) help those that seek a better life. Yes, psychology is not CS with its closed form solutions, but that doesn't mean that it's bunk.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#26

Post by vertex-four » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:22 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

This has happened to me with two different people. Both times my face apparently transformed into the face of the person's father - while we were sleeping together. Only one of the times was after the person smoked pot. It was scary to say the least, and scarier when the first one ran to the kitchen and grabbed a chef's knife. Life lesson: before you get in a relationship, ask about any history of mental disorder or…

That is closer to PTSD than dissociating. Long story short, it sounds like a flashback, and feels precisely like the trauma is happening again. They can last anywhere from a few seconds to a longer period of time.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#27

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

There was a novel[1] about a woman with DID and a psychologist who tied that to suppressed memories of sexual abuse. I wondered after reading it whether or not it was a thing or just a creative fiction. I found at least one paper [2] which indicates that DID can be a symptom of prior abuse.

[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01452134939... was cited by a

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Memory-Greg-Iles/dp/1441808183

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#28

Post by hga » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

Echoing others, this is very real. I had a girlfriend who did this a few times when we were together for a couple of years, although she never was as bad as this, she for whatever reasons (being brought up early by a couple of loving grandparents?) trusted me. The "parental" role thing is pretty much how it always started, and it ended in exactly the same way, after going to sleep she'd wake up normally and not remember any of it. She did always regress to a previous point in her life, at least at one time associated with a very stressful past event. No drug of any sort associated with it, and I suppose it's good it only happened when at home. There was no obvious trigger.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#29

Post by morganvachon » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #24

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

This has happened to me with two different people. Both times my face apparently transformed into the face of the person's father - while we were sleeping together. Only one of the times was after the person smoked pot. It was scary to say the least, and scarier when the first one ran to the kitchen and grabbed a chef's knife. Life lesson: before you get in a relationship, ask about any history of mental disorder or…

Not really a mental disorder, but an uncle was a sleepwalker, nothing scary, except he was in the military; and sometimes, he'd reenact war scenes, some times he'd take people for allies, some times not. It never ended badly, but it could have.

I had a high school friend who I strongly suspect suffered from either schizophrenia or DID. There were times when he would swear he was a soldier, even though he was just a high school student and the closest he came to marching was in band. At first I'd pass it off as a joke or prank, but one day I took a really good look at his eyes when he started wigging out, and it was like seeing a stranger. It sounds crazy but it was a different personality behind those eyes. When he would come back down from it to his normal personality, you could see the change in his expressions. He also claimed he didn't recall his thoughts or actions while he was "the soldier".

Years later, long after we had drifted apart as friends, I found out he murdered his father and tried to kill his mother and brother as well, and went to prison for life.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#30

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #26

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

This has happened to me with two different people. Both times my face apparently transformed into the face of the person's father - while we were sleeping together. Only one of the times was after the person smoked pot. It was scary to say the least, and scarier when the first one ran to the kitchen and grabbed a chef's knife. Life lesson: before you get in a relationship, ask about any history of mental disorder or…

That is closer to PTSD than dissociating. Long story short, it sounds like a flashback, and feels precisely like the trauma is happening again. They can last anywhere from a few seconds to a longer period of time.

You're right. It just feels like a similar scenario, and (contrary to other posters' insistence) neither is faked nor dependent on drug use. As the guy in the scenario it's also the same things going through your mind; dangerous for both parties, no good solutions.