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

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#101

Post by api » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:11 AM UTC

csense wrote: 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…

Hacker News: where a very human story of empathy and healing immediately turns into a discussion of what this can tell us about the brain's computational architecture.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#102

Post by belorn » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:16 AM UTC

I thought dissociation was part of the symptoms of PTSD. Given the history of being abused as told in the article, I am bit perplexed why doctors decide it was DID.

Or is DID some kind of subset of PTSD?

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#103

Post by fsiefken » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:22 AM UTC

When I was experimenting with polyphasic sleep there was a moment of around 30 seconds while waking up where I was conscious and aware but not knowing who I was or where I was until I figured out I was lying in the gras instead of standing somewhere. Them I wondered how I'd gotten there and my memories returned.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#104

Post by rmxt » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:25 AM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #78

rmxt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't see how his reply is sexist. I suppose we could really reach for something to justify the use of the term "mansplanation", but I think it detracts from the point you're trying to make. Now, I'm not saying that this is the case in this story, but having gone through school in the late 90s and early 2000s I saw plenty of what the parent comment described. It was cool to have "mental issues" in some crowds, main…

Thanks. Not my shining moment and the sibling comment to mine expresses my gripe more eloquently. The original post doesn't say "woman", it says "girl" -- a diminutive. It speaks of easily manipulable men, rather than generously interpreting the author's actions as empathetic. It's calling for normed behavior roles rather than accepting things as they are: there will be people, both men and women, that fulfill both roles described in the article. However, the OP especially strikes me as a vendetta against women: instead of seeing this article as building the case for paying more attention to mental healthcare, it reinforces the OP's implicit view of women as nutjobs and marginalizes the men that support them.

I agree that there are certainly behaviors, especially amongst adolescents, that are similar in outward appearance to those described in the article. My frustration comes from those that repeatedly deny that there are sometimes edge cases that represent actual psychological issues rather than just attention seeking behaviors. For those with psychological issues, seeking help isn't about giving them attention or creating unnecessary drama, it's about helping them achieve a quality of life that they want. People helping one another (medical/psychological professionals to sufferers) isn't something to be disparaged, it's something to be encouraged.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#105

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:45 AM UTC

pbz wrote: post #92

kazinator wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was your home and you recognized it, and the people in it, then that is not relevant here at all. You're equivocating between the colloquial use of "dissociate" (as in "marathon runners practice dissociation and association") and the clinical term as it is used in this context for a disturbing disorder which has nothing to do with driving a memorized route on "auto pilot". And, by the way, you'd still hit the b…

The kind of dissociation you may experience driving a car (being on auto-pilot) is definitely not as extreme as DID, but they share the same foundation. This is our current understanding of how it works. If you don't believe me you'll have to take it up with the professionals in the field. Comparing zoning out with DID is like comparing a hill to a mountain. However, I understand where you're coming from. I don't kno…

[deleted]

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#106

Post by Klinky » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:48 AM UTC

mapt wrote: post #80

sjtrny wrote: 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.

Because there is a self-aware, behavioral component to not just dissociative events, but to most maladaptive psychiatric disorders. This component may be small or large - the fact that we've medicalized the disorder simply says that the overall pattern of behavior is causing severe problems, nothing about cause or self-awareness. The people afflicted with them are not simply normal people who are possessed by a rando…

Such rose-colored glasses of the past you have. The handling of the mentally ill in the past was atrocious. Hiding mental illness away is very convenient for society, but it doesn't fix the actual problem.

People who suffer brain trauma often end up with it affecting their personality. It is quite possible that many personality disorders have a physiological basis, one that is not as simple as someone "just stopping their behavior".

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#107

Post by m_mueller » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 12:52 AM UTC

mst wrote: post #21

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…

Wouldn't something like polaroids be a good strategy, you know, like in Memento? When she forgets everything, have her grab photos from her bag, one together with every person she trusts, one of her in front of her building, one of her in front of a street sign for her neighbourhood. Also, a pocket mirror if she really forgets who or even what she is.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#108

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 1:07 AM UTC

Nanzikambe wrote: post #2

A touching story, props to the author for his measured response -- the experience has to be difficult not to internalise or freak out from. I wonder if the DID experience is the same as "ego death" as described after ingesting large amounts of psychedelics?

[deleted]

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#109

Post by kaoD » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 1:10 AM UTC

kirsebaer wrote: post #47

o0-0o wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He mentions dissociatives, like ketamine, not LSD.

Not sure about LSD, but if you eat enough shrooms and you'll definitely dissociate.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#110

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

What I don't get - if this girlfriend could remember an ex-boyfriend, why couldn't she remember she had DID? And, if I could remember I had DID, I would probably have coping mechanisms for dealing with complete strangers who indicated they where my close intimates, and coping with physically being in places that I did not remember. Think about Memento, and the person who couldn't form new memories, but had a number of devices/systems for letting him know who he could, and could not trust.

On the flipside, if I couldn't remember I had DID, and all of a sudden a stranger appeared in my room, and said, "Gordon, you are having an episode. Please check your wallet to remind you that we are close, and call your mother to confirm." - I'm pretty certain that as long as the person stayed calm, and physically away from me, I would adjust to this new reality pretty quickly.

Trying to physically restrain me though, as the author did in this story, would probably be a very bad approach towards de-escalating my freak out.