Live data from Hacker News

My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

vice.com

51–60 of 205 posts

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#51

I wonder whether carrying a photo of you and her, perhaps several photos in different situations with different people from her social circle, would be useful.

Possibly, if she even remembers what she looks like enough to place her in the photo next to you. Otherwise you're just showing her a photo of two random people.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#53
post #46

Whenever I hear about stuff like this, I wonder: Is there anything the failure modes of the human brain allow us to deduce about the software architecture? Maybe memories are stored in some partitioned database, and one of the partitions is always stuff relating to "my identity", and somehow this partition can get unlinked and temporarily re-linked to a blank one, which is discarded after a few hours. Hmm, maybe this…

It most definitely is a feature, not a bug. We all dissociate, but to a much lesser degree. When it happens repeatedly and to extreme degrees of trauma it allows the victim to continue functioning (surviving) without being overwhelmed by the past trauma. It's (somewhat) similar to how ships have compartments that prevent the entire ship from sinking in case of a collision.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#54
post #45

Does anyone have an explanation for why she can tell a dissociatve episode is about to happen? It strikes me as really odd.

My wife has epilepsy and has auras or deja vu or other spacey feelings before a seizure. After having seizures, she doesn't really know where she is or what's going on and isn't able to talk at all for at least an hour. I wouldn't be surprised of DID had many similarities to epilepsy, so I would guess this guy's girlfriend gets the same auras, deja vu, or spaciness too.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#55
post #23

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.

I would assume as the poster is talking about raves, they are referencing ketamine or MDMA, and both of these are more than capable of making you forget who you are, let alone who your friends are.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#56
It does not sound all that unlike certain types of Alzheimer's episodes.

In addition to seeing my Grandmother completely forget who I was from one minute to the next, more bizarrely she would time warp and believe she was 16 years old and seemingly remember everything/everyone at that time of her life very accurately. Not until now, granted I was very young then, did I ever realize that at times she may have not known who she was, but sitting here now I am sure she would have experienced that as well.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#57

I wonder whether carrying a photo of you and her, perhaps several photos in different situations with different people from her social circle, would be useful.

I was going to go with "record [edit: on her cellphone] her talking to herself explaining who I am and who she is". I would be really worried about the reaction of a stranger or some security-guard-trying-to-be-a-hero.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#58

Is anyone else wondering what movie they were watching?

I will watch Disney movies with my wife who has epilepsy and suffers from not knowing where she is or what's going on after a seizure. She's seen them all a ton, for the first time a long time ago, and they're easy to follow and non-stressful. They're also distracting enough she won't keep realizing she just had a seizure and burst into tears (and then forgetting again 5 minutes later and repeating the process).

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#59
post #46

Whenever I hear about stuff like this, I wonder: Is there anything the failure modes of the human brain allow us to deduce about the software architecture? Maybe memories are stored in some partitioned database, and one of the partitions is always stuff relating to "my identity", and somehow this partition can get unlinked and temporarily re-linked to a blank one, which is discarded after a few hours. Hmm, maybe this…

This is why a lot of cognitive psychologists study abnormal psychology. It's when things break that you can find out what's going on.

I do think being able to blank things out (including times of immense pain) is a feature that increases survival rather than a bug. If you are excessively afraid, your ability to pass on your genes goes down.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#60
post #43

I would just move on. A flaky person like this is poor relationship material, especially if you see children in your future. "Where am I? What are these kids doing here and why are they calling me Mom?" Like, no thanks!

For three hours a year? I bet I can find 3 hours a year you're poor relationship material, starting with the time you spent writing this comment.

Your comment's emphasis of the "3 hours a year" tells the reader that you have a "deal-breaker threshold" with respect to this, which is tied to the value of the "number of hours per year" parameter.

(But of course, your threshold is at the optimal sweet spot value, between "fool" and "inhuman").

Post reply on HN