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My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

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Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#121

Post by sedachv »

MrJagil wrote: post #14

I was curious with the difference between schizophrenia and DID, since most mental illnesses overlap tremendously. If anyone has a better source, you're welcome to elaborate: "Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are often confused, but they are very different. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness involving chronic (or recurrent) psychosis, characterized mainly by hearing or seeing things that aren't…

There is also schizotypal personality disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disorde...), which can look a lot like schizophrenia and can occur as a comorbidity to DID or borderline personality disorder.

I had a friend who I thought was borderline, and later suspected to have DID. She sometimes said delusional things like she thought she was an alien, or that Jesus was inside her, or that she was a reincarnated dolphin, etc. Other people told me she would get weird in conversations, a lot like the "react oddly in conversations, not respond, or talk to themselves" description in the Wikipedia article. Stuff that schizophrenic people do.

When I asked about it, she said she realized that it didn't make sense that she was a reincarnated dolphin and that she didn't know why she believed those things. Schizophrenic people don't really have that kind of self-awareness.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#122

Post by m_mueller »

mdisraeli wrote: post #111
m_mueller wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disassociating doesn't always work like played out in films or TV, sadly. It's terrifying, and often find it hard to trust what's in front of you. Familiarity is needed, as it acts to ground you, and a key part of this is to feel safe on a number of different levels. Simply having photos alone may not be enough, unless those photos are something you regularly examine and experience. Grounding is a common method of de…

Fascinating, thanks for your reply. I can imagine photos to not be enough. For me the association is strongest with scents and noises/music - this gets me back to a memory the fastest. I guess this is similar with this disorder?

What's hard for me to imagine is how this disorder works physically, at least with the primitive model I have on how the brain works. The synaptical connection are still there, otherwise the person would have a permanent memory loss, right? So my guess is it has to do with brain chemistry? If that's the case, couldn't it be medicated?

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#123

Post by jnj16180340 »

Klinky wrote: post #106
mapt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the other hand, up until fairly recently in the usa[0], some mentally ill people were held in great regard as faith healers, witches/witchfinders, preachers, etc.

[0] http://books.google.com/books/about/Folklore_from_the_workin...

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#124

Post by pbz »

belorn wrote: post #102

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?

It's all on a spectrum with DID being a more "serious/complex" form of PTSD. A DID patient experiences PTSD symptoms, but also symptoms you won't find in PTSD patients.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#125

Post by kazinator »

001sky wrote: post #93
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…

This is too strong a response. You and nobody else has a 1:1 memory map of an intense experience. It can takes weeks if not months (plural) to remember everything that happened to you in the last month. That is because basically your brain samples space time and segments in in your memory in a non-linear fashion. This is why people have flashbacks. When people recall linear events, they only recal prioritized samples…

If you don't remember events due to not paying attention (being "tuned out") that is simply not the same as not remembering who you are or who your boyfriend is.

In the former case, you don't remember the events because you were neglecting to commit them to memory. In the latter case, you have the memory, but it is temporarily inaccessible --- and comes back.

Memories that you did not form because you were tuned out never come back because they don't exist. For example, you will never recall the words of the bore whom you tuned out at last night's party. You nodded your head but were completely occupied with thinking about something else.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#126

Post by lizard »

MrJagil wrote: post #14

I was curious with the difference between schizophrenia and DID, since most mental illnesses overlap tremendously. If anyone has a better source, you're welcome to elaborate: "Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are often confused, but they are very different. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness involving chronic (or recurrent) psychosis, characterized mainly by hearing or seeing things that aren't…

You might think of it like this:

DID: Alice is talking to Bob. At some point in the conversation Bob "dissociates" and is replaced by Charlie. Charlie is in the exact same place as Bob and sees all the things Bob was seeing, but Charlie wasn't here before so no idea where here is, how he got there, or who is talking to him. Alice doesn't know anything's wrong at first but Bob (now Charlie) seems uncomfortable and doesn't know things Bob does, like where they are, how they got there, or who she is. Sometime later the dissociative episode ends and Bob comes back in place of Charlie. Bob has no idea what transpired during the episode because Charlie was there instead, but recognizes Alice and remembers things they had done together.

In this case there is no difference in Bob's or Charlie's ability to perceive the world, nor are either of them perceiving something which Alice could not (barring other conditions). There are no hallucinations or delusions; Bob and Charlie appear to "know" different things, as if they were different people. Of note, Bob and Charlie identify differently but its debatable whether they are (or should be treated as) different persons, hence the change of name.

Schizophrenia: Alice is talking to Bob. Bob is talking to Charlie. Charlie isn't really there, but Bob is either unaware or doesn't mind. Bob's conversation with Charlie may be benign or it may involve plots to take over the world, in either case from Alice's perspective Bob experiencing something which isn't real.

This of course is just a possible scenario for schizophrenia, and if Bob is being treated for schizophrenia he may be better able to control or cope with Charlie. In schizophrenia cases Charlie does not exist to any third party observation; Bob is not identifying as Charlie nor is Charlie an alternate persona. Bob believes he is himself and that Charlie is communicating with him.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#127

Post by mst »

m_mueller wrote: post #107
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.

Interesting thought, but the loss is of context not moments, so it turns out to be a terrible strategy even though your idea is great.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#128

Post by pbz »

m_mueller wrote: post #122
mdisraeli wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disassociating doesn't always work like played out in films or TV, sadly. It's terrifying, and often find it hard to trust what's in front of you. Familiarity is needed, as it acts to ground you, and a key part of this is to feel safe on a number of different levels. Simply having photos alone may not be enough, unless those photos are something you regularly examine and experience. Grounding is a common method of de…

Fascinating, thanks for your reply. I can imagine photos to not be enough. For me the association is strongest with scents and noises/music - this gets me back to a memory the fastest. I guess this is similar with this disorder? What's hard for me to imagine is how this disorder works physically, at least with the primitive model I have on how the brain works. The synaptical connection are still there, otherwise the…

Everyone is different; scents, music, words, touch, observing the surroundings, listing the colors they see, focusing on breathing, holding a familiar object (like a rock), etc. can all be used -- whatever works.

You can use drugs to help with the symptoms, but you can't "fix" it with drugs. There's nothing physically wrong with a DID patient (although they do tend to suffer from various "side effects" that are linked with the disorder).

As far as how it works physically, we don't know for sure. Yes, the memories are stored and can later be accessed. Part of the problem is that these memories are stored without being processed or are "stored" with a part that is unable to make sense of what happened. So instead of dealing with what happened the patient relives the trauma over and over again. What's interesting is that one part can "share" a memory with another part. When this happens it's like "remembering" something you've never experienced.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#129

Post by tbrownaw »

sedachv wrote: post #121
MrJagil wrote: post #14

I was curious with the difference between schizophrenia and DID, since most mental illnesses overlap tremendously. If anyone has a better source, you're welcome to elaborate: "Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are often confused, but they are very different. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness involving chronic (or recurrent) psychosis, characterized mainly by hearing or seeing things that aren't…

There is also schizotypal personality disorder ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disorde... ), which can look a lot like schizophrenia and can occur as a comorbidity to DID or borderline personality disorder. I had a friend who I thought was borderline, and later suspected to have DID. She sometimes said delusional things like she thought she was an alien, or that Jesus was inside her, or that sh…

like she thought she was an alien, or that Jesus was inside her, or that she was a reincarnated dolphin, etc

Not sure about the aliens, but the other two are promoted by (different) major world religions.

Re: My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

#130

Post by mst »

m_mueller wrote: post #107
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.

Thoughts, words, concepts mostly worked for me.

Depends who they are and how and what they forget.

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