18 ms·

My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was

605 points by sz4kerto 12y ago

Nanzikambe 12y ago
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?
- oofabz 12y ago
  There is a whole class of drugs that induce disassociation, including DXM, PCP, and Ketamine. They are more confusing and disabling than psychedelics like LSD.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
recibe 12y ago
Anyone with critical reasoning skills and a modicum of free will reads that, does a little research and immediately concludes: Bullshit. Let the downvotes begin.
pastas 12y ago
Ridiculous.
- pastas 12y ago
  Absolutely ridiculous.
jjtheblunt 12y ago
what does this have to do with programming? Edit: responses to the question make sense.
- pastas 12y ago
  Its a fine test of how much the community can come out and endorse another group of people who can't possibly be held responsible for their own actions or choices - because we feel sorry for them.
- Red_Tarsius 12y ago
  "What to Submit [...] If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
- peterwwillis 12y ago
  This isn't a programming forum.
- saulrh 12y ago
  For whatever reason, most of the programmers I know are intrigued in some way by brains; maybe it's something to do with being able to handle abstraction, or seeing consciousness as just another process or program, or something like that. Throw in how we're all used to debugging systems by observing the way break down produce emergent behavior, and something like this story becomes a fascinating tidbit about and potential insight into the functionality of the human mind.
  - hga 12y ago
    Indeed. To the extent you can separate your viewpoint from the horror of it, it is truly fascinating.
spiritplumber 12y ago
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.
- o0-0o 12y ago
  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.
  - kirsebaer 12y ago
    He mentions dissociatives, like ketamine, not LSD.
    - kaoD 12y ago
      Not sure about LSD, but if you eat enough shrooms and you'll definitely dissociate.
  - Squarel 12y ago
    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.
    - baby 12y ago
      I think you are mixing MDMA and LSD here.
      - Squarel 12y ago
jonalmeida 12y ago
Wow, such an amazing read! > A few hours after she first told me, I took some time to read up on dissociative identity disorder. Shouldn't he have read up on DID in detail when she first told him about rather than when the episode happened? Seeing this mid-way through the event makes it seem like he didn't really do his homework beforehand. > at its worst, she said, she would not only struggle to identify who she was, but even what she was; unable to process the concept of her own humanity. This is a really interesting state to study; not knowing your own humanity. Are there any good references to DID that one without prior knowledge can read? EDIT: Thanks everyone for clarifying. I'm not sure why the down votes though, it was genuine confusion.
- noazark 12y ago
  I believe that, "A few hours after she first told me", refers to the conversation around Christmas, 4 months before the DID episode occurred.
- kbenson 12y ago
  I think he meant first told him, that Christmas morning. He's just using that as a lead-in to discussing some specifics of the illness at a later point in the story.
- MrJagil 12y ago
  Regarding your first point, judging from the "after she first told me" part, I think he did. Though i agree, it was weird to jump in time like that.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  Downvoting doesn't always mean you did anything wrong, it can mean you have incorrect information and the comment being gray is there to warn people.
  - jonalmeida 12y ago
    A comment should suffice in that case, shouldn't it?
MrJagil 12y ago
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 real (hallucinations) and thinking or believing things with no basis in reality (delusions). Contrary to popular misconceptions, people with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities. Delusions are the most common psychotic symptom in schizophrenia; hallucinations, particularly hearing voices, are apparent in about half of people with the illness." (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?page=2 http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-dis...)
- hga 12y ago
  In my very limited contact with people who were suffering from schizophrenia, it's clear their minds, their ability to think, is broken in some fundamental way. This is indeed completely different, the person can think properly, it's just that some things are gone. If it's like my girlfriend who had it when with me, this woman regressed in time a bit, not so far she forgot that previous boyfriend, but enough to forget the current one. But I wouldn't be surprised if DID can be more nuanced.
  - vinbreau 12y ago
    Agreed. I've lost three friends over the years to schizophrenia. I knew them all well before, during and after. Their minds are simply broken, their reality is not the same as ours. One believed he was a ninja protecting the world, another saw himself as the hero of a WWIII future, the third wanted to bind his spirit with alligators to grow his spiritual totem. DID sounds very, very different.
    - MrJagil 12y ago
      How so? Genuinely trying to understand, as DID was formerly characterized as multiple personality disorder, and the way you describe your friends seem like it would fit (i.e. a dissolved idea of identity). I know 3-4 people with schizophrenia, and none of them displayed the kind of wild delusions you're describing (though I am not discounting them! Don't get me wrong). In my experience schizophrenia manifests itself more like a worse form of anxiety, paranoia and depression mixed together (all my friends are under treatment and medicated).
pastas 12y ago
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 discussion on that is reaching for a justification of involuntary action where there is none. Now the boyfriend writes an overly-dramatic piece about it for the beacon of overly dramatic hipster fanfare: vice. Its his little proclamation of how much he loves a girl that manipulates him with ease. Maybe many of you of upvoted this identify with that aspect.
- mentalhealth 12y ago
  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.
  - bnegreve 12y ago
    > There's definitely not enough information in the article to draw that conclusion. On the other hand, I don't see enough information to discard this hypothesis. I'm tempted to believe the author of course, but I don't think this is not plausible as an explanation for this truly crazy story.
- rmxt 12y ago
  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.
theVirginian 12y ago
This is an interesting story and if I were a psychiatrist I would be fascinated to study how consciousness can be separated from the ego. In addition, props to the writer; call me selfish all you want but I could absolutely never love someone in a romantic way who had this kind of issue.
- delinka 12y ago
  They say that you can't choose who you love. I'd suggest that whether to love them wouldn't be an option. You might fall in love, later learn about your SO's diagnosis, and decide you wanted to change yourself to continue to be with them. However, knowing that you're not personally equipped to deal with these things and that the "object of your affection" might be better off without you is a certain kind of wisdom.
  - theVirginian 12y ago
    Exactly, I think I might continue to love that person but I don't think I would be equipped to deal with an event such as the author described and then continue to be "sexually" attracted to them. (not sure that term quite captures it but you get the point)
    - mod 12y ago
      I like imperfect stuff. It has more character. I can't really see how finding a flaw in a person could change my attraction to them (particularly sexually, though I know you said that wasn't exactly what you meant). Especially this flaw--it's not a moral failing. Moral failings are, indeed, distasteful. If it's 3 hours per year, I can certainly handle that to be in love.
- frandroid 12y ago
  First you love the person, THEN they have this thing happen, THEN you keep on loving them in spite of it. Like everyone else you love. Or maybe you didn't love them enough in the first place.
peterwwillis 12y ago
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 medications being taken. Some people don't tell you about these things until they happen.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  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.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    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.
    - taivare 12y ago
      A second cousin , as a child , her father had cancer at the time, he awoke one night and his little girl was just about to stab him with a big kitchen knife, apparently based on what the family said , his little daughter had no recollection of the drama the night before, she became a totally normal adult with no mental problems.
mst 12y ago
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.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  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.
  - mdisraeli 12y ago
    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 dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues. The idea of finding your place, finding familiarity, centring yourself. Something you are very used to doing normally and when safe is important, as is having that also associated very strongly with being safe. For some people, photos will work well for this - they might capture moments with strong association with safety and happiness. Some people may be able to instead use an object, a talisman of sorts. For others, or for when the disassociation is worse, a single grounding method may not be enough. It's about building the complete story - getting home and watching something familiar. The grounding only happens from weight of evidence. Finally, there's something you don't hear talked about much. Coming back around from disassociating can be utterly terrifying in it's own right. Both as one tries to return, and after coming back. Having multiple entirely different means to ground helps with this.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
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/014521349390088M http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01452134939... was cited by a [1] http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Memory-Greg-Iles/dp/1441808183 http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Memory-Greg-Iles/dp/1441808183
- duaneb 12y ago
  Note that the concept of 'suppressed memories' is not very well accepted by the psychological community. People can be convinced that they remember something they don't, so it's extremely difficult to tell between a 'suppressed' memory and a false one.
hga 12y ago
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.
kazinator 12y ago
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!
- outworlder 12y ago
  That is an horrible thing to say. She is not 'flaky' as a spoiled socialite would be, she has a mental disease. One that only seems to crop up from time to time. 'Poor relationship material'? She is still a human being in need of support. I'd say you're poor relationship material.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    I'd say you know nothing about me. My life experience tells me that it's not worth meeting broken people and supporting them, fixing them and so on. It's a good way to make yourself miserable. If you have a pattern of doing this, it says something about you. Maybe you don't think you deserve better or something, or you need to feel that someone depends on you and needs your support. Latching on to needy people and supporting them doesn't mean that you're good relationship material in any objective sense; it's just your self-image of what you think makes you "good" is in a relationship.
  - stickfigure 12y ago
    This isn't quite fair - it's not so much that it's horrible to say, but that it's easy to say when you aren't emotionally invested in the relationship. Nobody would criticize someone who jumped ship if this episode happened on a first okcupid date. There's a reason this subject didn't come up in their conversation for eight months, and I don't blame her for that. On the other hand, I know a guy who was about to break up with girl when she got a cancer diagnosis. He stayed with her for years, miserable, because he didn't want to be that schmuck. Relationships are complex. It's poor form to criticize someone who stays, but also poor form to criticize someone who leaves - there's a lot more going on than just one issue, even if it is a big one.
  - scott_s 12y ago
6d0debc071 12y ago
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.
- kbenson 12y ago
  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.
- protomyth 12y ago
  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.
  - bhayden 12y ago
    I would guess the issue with this is a lack of working short term memory. You could show her but she's not going to retain the information. By the time she saw photos in the story you just read, the worst of her episode had passed and she was returning back to normal. The issue is likely more to do with confusion and not understanding surroundings more than it has to do with not knowing who he is.
    - protomyth 12y ago
      Its really not a video for her benefit. I hope it will keep her attention and calm her down, but I really believe there is the possibility of getting shot by some bystander and believe a video on her phone might calm the situation an allow people time to think.
- pbz 12y ago
  Depends on the part/alter. Some have a different image of themselves and wouldn't recognize "themselves" in the picture. Some may think you're trying to trick them.
sjtrny 12y ago
Does anyone have an explanation for why she can tell a dissociatve episode is about to happen? It strikes me as really odd.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Because she's experienced it before and it doesn't happen instantaneously? Even some of the most fast-acting drugs still have a ramp-up. I'm thinking, IV propofol, if you've experienced it before (and even if it's your first time), you can tell that something is happening.
- bhayden 12y ago
  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.
  - brazzy 12y ago
    Same with my ex girlfriend, though her disorientation doesn't last as long. It was scary the first time when she asked me "who are you?" but eventually I got used to and it even had funny aspects. Such as the time when she collapsed on the bedroom floor, me making sure she doesn't hurt herself and when she comes out of it, asks me "What happened?". I tell her "you had a seizure" to which she replies, quite resolutely, "No, I didn't!"
- pbz 12y ago
  Sometimes one can feel it as a headache or inability to stay present. At other times it can be instant.
- mapt 12y ago
  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 random event, like a lightning strike; Their expectations, moods, and desires play a role in the onset of crises. The temptation is to split their agency, their consciousness and their participation into a boolean and say they either have it or they don't have it, that psychiatric disorders must be entirely out of someone's control before we give them a pass on "But it's their fault" and "Just snap out of it!". But allocating problems this severe to the realm of personal responsibility and purely voluntary deviancy is not very helpful to anyone. The most infuriating thing about having a family member with a personality disorder, my own dive into ab-psych, is that they can turn it on and off in certain contexts, they can be triggered and they can avoid being triggered, but not in a context where you need them to, where you beg them to. It is a way in which they are acting, an unhealthy coping mechanism and pattern of thinking that colors all their thoughts - but it is not something that they can't control or observe at all, only something that they don't usually control or observe well enough to avoid causing problems. There is no clear line between their disorder and their voluntary behavior and their personality, it is one unified whole. Do we hate them for that? What's the use? Who does that help? Before we started medicalizing these things, we relied on public shaming and ostracism to control them until the person's behavior got so out of control they became a danger. While it's a cruel way of doing things that we have wholeheartedly rejected, it was surely at least somewhat effective, because of this voluntary component, because telling yourself "Keep it together" is not a 0% effective treatment technique. The country did not suffer from a 26% mental illness rate in times past, and I think it's foolish to assume this represents pure underreporting. Mental illness at least partially conforms to the outlines of the society which defines it - immigrants to the US find themselves substantially healthier than the US on arrival, but develop statistically average rates of US mental illness over time; Symptoms shift from whatever is recognized in their home country to symptoms more in line with US-recognized disorders. We have decided, rightly or wrongly, that classifying these things according to an insurance-industry handbook, and doling out pills like candy, and pretending these people have no control whatsoever over their disorder in order to relieve them of social responsibility for it, is the correct approach. While the truth is more complex, I tend to find this more humane than some other national attitudes towards the topic, and I have no better approach to offer. Edit: The problem is, when you acknowledge that these things are maladaptive and problematic behaviors that someone presently does not control well, rather than some kind of seizure that completely robs one of consciousness... you get people popping up who want to go back to the boolean definition again and deny there's any problem whatsoever, claim that they're doing this for attention and faking it and horrible hoaxers who are sucking the precious fluids from our society... There may be too many douchebags out there for a nuanced view to prevail. I see this post already has one, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147386 . The problem is the boolean: A 100% controlled premeditated affectation must represent a malicious manipulator, the theory goes, while a 0% controlled mental illness strikes a victim, all victims, like a bus hitting an innocent pedestrian. But the mind isn't so simple, and the onus of personal responsibility is not a cure-all.
csense 12y ago
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 is actually a feature, not a bug. In ancient times people often had to deal with being abused, enslaved, etc. Maybe being able to blank out really unpleasant experiences helped young slaves tolerate their abuse without becoming totally insane or going the route of suicide or rebellion (assuming the latter's success rate was negligible, rebellion would basically be the same as suicide from the standpoint of evolutionary pressures). Which ultimately helped them survive and reproduce. Then once the mechanism exists, it can still get triggered naturally in modern humans if they're abused, or artificially by drugs.
- pbz 12y ago
  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.
  - drinchev 12y ago
    Can you give more specific examples of "We all dissociate, but to a much lesser degree". Looks interesting to do more googling on that, but I have no keywords.
    - pbz 12y ago
      Have you ever driven home and when you got there you weren't sure how it happened? You didn't remember driving the entire time. Your hands were at the wheel, but your "mind" was somewhere else.
      - 12y ago
jacobsimon 12y ago
Is anyone else wondering what movie they were watching?
- bhayden 12y ago
  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).
- sebkomianos 12y ago
  You think it could be linked to her DID episode?
will_brown 12y ago
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.
- MollyR 12y ago
  That's very interesting. Alzheimer's and this kind of disassociation disorder could be affecting the same "pathway" or something. Thanks for this comment!
pavel_lishin 12y ago
> She'd wake up with no memory of what had happened, and wouldn't want to know. This was probably the most painful part of that whole story. Naturally, I was thinking of my wife and myself as the main characters throughout the whole story, and while it would be incredibly difficult to go through this, it would be harder if she woke up the next morning and didn't want to acknowledge or know about what had happened the night before. (Unless I'm totally misreading that sentence, and the author is saying something different.)
- pbz 12y ago
  It's difficult and unpleasant to acknowledge what happened. By doing so they would have to acknowledge and deal with what happened in the past (that caused DID in the first place). Part of therapy is to take them on this road. They're able to cope with reality because they're able to compartmentalize their history. Hearing about it, while necessary, weakens the coping mechanism that helped them survive. So you can imagine why they wouldn't want to hear about it.
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    I've seen that "exposure" therapy is often used in the treatment of OCD, another form of anxiety disorder. Patients with OCD often have an anxiety about something and use their quirks and rituals to avoid/ignore the anxiety. To help them cure their rituals, they must actively try to experience the often very extreme anxiety that some situation puts them in. Is the treatment similar in cases of DID?
    - pbz 12y ago
      No, that would be too much for a DID patient and could lead to further splitting (creation of new parts). First step is to teach them to stay grounded, to stay present and not take the easy path and dissociate (i.e. go away). When struggling to stay present someone with DID may exhibit OCD patterns -- scratching, grabbing, fiddling with fingers etc. -- all without realizing. However, when this happens there's usually some level of co-consciousness with a part that is suffering or has OCD. So in this case the OCD behavior would "belong" to that part while some other part is "out" (they'd actually both be "out" at the same time). It's a very complex disorder.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Online, I've met people with a different form of the same condition, or maybe a related condition: they seem to have multiple persons in their head, and will occasionally switch between them. Like many mental health issues it's difficult for me to think about because I have no frame of reference.
chrischen 12y ago
She should record a video of herself reminding herself so she doesn't have to rely on George.
- GotAnyMegadeth 12y ago
  Would she recognise that it was her in the video?
  - chrischen 12y ago
    If she can remember George, she can recognize herself. Otherwise, George wouldn't work either, anyways.
belorn 12y ago
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?
- mdisraeli 12y ago
  It is often difficult to get a diagnosis of PTSD when you've not been at war or subjected to a singular catastrophic event. And even if you did, there may not exist treatment pathways for those with PTSD from more complex or long lasting situations :(
- pbz 12y ago
  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.
fsiefken 12y ago
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.
- lisnake 12y ago
  I used to experience same things after I lose consciousness (happened a lot when I was a teenager). I remember one case, when upon gaining consciousness I was pondering for a whole minute what kind of strange metal columns I see on a horizon. After what felt like a mountain of memories falling onto me, I realized that I'm lying on a floor of a lecture hall, and these columns are just chair legs.
ghshephard 12y ago
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.
- pdpi 12y ago
  Real life is not a film. We're talking about a disorder that's likely caused by a traumatic event and is associated with _proper bad_ anxiety. You don't necessarily respond to logic in those cases, you respond to things to which you have a strong emotional response -- and which will, hopefully, comfort you. Reversely, when you see someone in that state rushing for the door, knowing they'd be helpless to deal with actual risks, 'de-escalating' is the least of your concerns. "I must keep her safe, with me" is the only thing in your mind.
DigitalSea 12y ago
I think it takes a strong person to be able to handle a situation like this. I would like to think I could be this strong if my fiancee suffered from the same condition, but I think I would find it too heartbreaking to be temporarily forgotten like this. The part about his girlfriend calling her ex at his requst was a courageous act from her current boyfriend. It must be hard knowing that your girlfriend in her dissoaciate state can forget you, but remember her ex boyfriend enough to trust him. That would be so hard for many people to handle. A really great story. It is great to see a story hit the front-page that isn't neccesarily about programming (not in the software sense).
ssenkus 12y ago
She's faking it, her lame boyfriend just pays the bills.
mirimir 12y ago
That is an incredibly moving story, and it's wonderful how well it turned out. But the author acted irresponsibly. As soon as he realized that his friend was dissociating, in the taxi, he should have called 911/999/whatever and informed the driver of the situation. If this had been a stroke or heart attack, that would have been the obvious move. Why not for dissociation?
- hga 12y ago
  The girlfriend gave him very specific instructions about what to do if/when it happened, and reinforced them just before it happened with "Promise me that whatever happens, you will not let go". I cannot imagine any scenario in which involving the authorities would have improved the situation and not violated her instructions, which he implicitly if not explicitly had agreed to follow. Most specifically "not let go", and getting her back to familiar surroundings, which per the account and others' accounts is important in stabilizing these events when they go that far.
  - mirimir 12y ago
    The situation could have gone to hell, and one or both of them could have been injured or killed. Given that risk, his friend's "instructions" were plainly unworkable. If she had run in front of a car and been killed, for example, her estate might have come after him. If she doesn't want the authorities to be involved, he would need at least a medical power of attorney. And even that would not not protect him from police responding to an apparent abduction. The only strategy to prevent that is to involve them from the start.
- bhayden 12y ago
  What would the cops or an ambulance do in this situation?
  - hga 12y ago
    At worst, take her away from anything familiar, which we've been told by others is not likely to improve the situation (my personal experiences here already started at home, so I can't comment except that my intuition is that this would be very bad). Actually, no, anyone who pays attention knows that the worst case is one or both being maimed or killed by the police. Therefore only invoke them if it's really life or death, as the situation would have been he'd disobeyed the "never let go" charge she left him with. As the police would have almost certainly forced after being called, that is, calling 911 would have almost certainly resulted in a deep betrayal of her, and should result in her side ending the relationship if/when she was back to normal.
mukundmr 12y ago
Very touching. I wish more resources were committed to understanding and solving problems of the mind.
sddhrthrt 12y ago
> "I know you," she said. "I love you." It meant a lot to hear those words. Was this moment as sweet as that when you hear the words from someone you love for the first time? The anxiety of "will she remember that she loves me" ending at "I love you" must be amazing.
- thecatspaw 12y ago
  > Was this moment as sweet as that when you hear the words from someone you love for the first time? I can only speak for me, and only hypothetically: It would mean much much more in that moment. Someone you love for a long time, maybe your wife, finally remembers you. Sure, its awesome to hear I love you for the first time. Imagine you fuck up big. Really big. She still talks to you, but every time you do, you notice she's still pissed. Not just a bit, but very pissed, angry, and disappointed. She hasnt said "I love you" in a few days, since you fucked up. And then you hear them again. Suddenly, unexpected. The world isnt grey anymore. Its finally coloured again.
UhUhUhUh 12y ago
Being late in the discussion, I wondered how many times in the thread the word "unconscious" had been used. Well, it came back as "zero". This, I think, reflects what happened to psychology/psychiatry over the past, say, 30 years and at least in the US: the generalization of an homomorphism between the brain and the current state of data computing. Although a very useful concept, the "unconscious" has been dropped because it doesn't fit in this morphism. Or does it? Low level processes are somewhat "unconscious" to computer operation. There are memory leaks and odd stuff happening with memory blocks that one could see as the expression of an unconscious. But, as some people pointed out, this aspect is only a sort of malfunction of the system. The beauty of the unconscious in the brain is that it is productive. Strictly whatever it does serves a purpose: it can be protective (as in dissociation to tolerate trauma), it can be optimizing (as in handling survival functions in the background), it can be productive (by constantly scanning its database and I/O for patterns, convergences, anomalies, etc.) and, I believe, it is the very source of creativity. To the point that I wonder if data computing might not benefit from emulating such a sub-architecture... As people pointed out, we all dissociate, somehow, in our days and that’s because we have an unconscious that does all that. It has been a huge loss for psychology to lose the unconscious to the data computing model. And it might be a huge loss for data computing to not try to emulate our unconscious.
jes 12y ago
I searched this thread and didn't find any reference to "Internal Family Systems" therapy. If anyone has any thoughts on IFS, I'd be interested in hearing them. I'm currently reading a book ("Internal Family Systems Therapy" by Richard Schwartz. Additional info here: http://www.selfleadership.org/ http://www.selfleadership.org/

605 points by sz4kerto 12y ago

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?

oofabz 12y ago
There is a whole class of drugs that induce disassociation, including DXM, PCP, and Ketamine. They are more confusing and disabling than psychedelics like LSD.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

recibe 12y ago

Anyone with critical reasoning skills and a modicum of free will reads that, does a little research and immediately concludes: Bullshit. Let the downvotes begin.

pastas 12y ago

Ridiculous.

pastas 12y ago
Absolutely ridiculous.

jjtheblunt 12y ago

what does this have to do with programming? Edit: responses to the question make sense.

pastas 12y ago
Its a fine test of how much the community can come out and endorse another group of people who can't possibly be held responsible for their own actions or choices - because we feel sorry for them.
Red_Tarsius 12y ago
"What to Submit [...] If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
peterwwillis 12y ago
This isn't a programming forum.
saulrh 12y ago
For whatever reason, most of the programmers I know are intrigued in some way by brains; maybe it's something to do with being able to handle abstraction, or seeing consciousness as just another process or program, or something like that. Throw in how we're all used to debugging systems by observing the way break down produce emergent behavior, and something like this story becomes a fascinating tidbit about and potential insight into the functionality of the human mind.
- hga 12y ago
  Indeed. To the extent you can separate your viewpoint from the horror of it, it is truly fascinating.

spiritplumber 12y ago

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.

o0-0o 12y ago
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.
- kirsebaer 12y ago
  He mentions dissociatives, like ketamine, not LSD.
  - kaoD 12y ago
    Not sure about LSD, but if you eat enough shrooms and you'll definitely dissociate.
- Squarel 12y ago
  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.
  - baby 12y ago
    I think you are mixing MDMA and LSD here.
    - Squarel 12y ago

jonalmeida 12y ago

Wow, such an amazing read! > A few hours after she first told me, I took some time to read up on dissociative identity disorder. Shouldn't he have read up on DID in detail when she first told him about rather than when the episode happened? Seeing this mid-way through the event makes it seem like he didn't really do his homework beforehand. > at its worst, she said, she would not only struggle to identify who she was, but even what she was; unable to process the concept of her own humanity. This is a really interesting state to study; not knowing your own humanity. Are there any good references to DID that one without prior knowledge can read? EDIT: Thanks everyone for clarifying. I'm not sure why the down votes though, it was genuine confusion.

noazark 12y ago
I believe that, "A few hours after she first told me", refers to the conversation around Christmas, 4 months before the DID episode occurred.
kbenson 12y ago
I think he meant first told him, that Christmas morning. He's just using that as a lead-in to discussing some specifics of the illness at a later point in the story.
MrJagil 12y ago
Regarding your first point, judging from the "after she first told me" part, I think he did. Though i agree, it was weird to jump in time like that.
Dylan16807 12y ago
Downvoting doesn't always mean you did anything wrong, it can mean you have incorrect information and the comment being gray is there to warn people.
- jonalmeida 12y ago
  A comment should suffice in that case, shouldn't it?

MrJagil 12y ago

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 real (hallucinations) and thinking or believing things with no basis in reality (delusions). Contrary to popular misconceptions, people with schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities. Delusions are the most common psychotic symptom in schizophrenia; hallucinations, particularly hearing voices, are apparent in about half of people with the illness." (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?page=2 http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-dis...)

hga 12y ago
In my very limited contact with people who were suffering from schizophrenia, it's clear their minds, their ability to think, is broken in some fundamental way. This is indeed completely different, the person can think properly, it's just that some things are gone. If it's like my girlfriend who had it when with me, this woman regressed in time a bit, not so far she forgot that previous boyfriend, but enough to forget the current one. But I wouldn't be surprised if DID can be more nuanced.
- vinbreau 12y ago
  Agreed. I've lost three friends over the years to schizophrenia. I knew them all well before, during and after. Their minds are simply broken, their reality is not the same as ours. One believed he was a ninja protecting the world, another saw himself as the hero of a WWIII future, the third wanted to bind his spirit with alligators to grow his spiritual totem. DID sounds very, very different.
  - MrJagil 12y ago
    How so? Genuinely trying to understand, as DID was formerly characterized as multiple personality disorder, and the way you describe your friends seem like it would fit (i.e. a dissolved idea of identity). I know 3-4 people with schizophrenia, and none of them displayed the kind of wild delusions you're describing (though I am not discounting them! Don't get me wrong). In my experience schizophrenia manifests itself more like a worse form of anxiety, paranoia and depression mixed together (all my friends are under treatment and medicated).

pastas 12y ago

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 discussion on that is reaching for a justification of involuntary action where there is none. Now the boyfriend writes an overly-dramatic piece about it for the beacon of overly dramatic hipster fanfare: vice. Its his little proclamation of how much he loves a girl that manipulates him with ease. Maybe many of you of upvoted this identify with that aspect.

mentalhealth 12y ago
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.
- bnegreve 12y ago
  > There's definitely not enough information in the article to draw that conclusion. On the other hand, I don't see enough information to discard this hypothesis. I'm tempted to believe the author of course, but I don't think this is not plausible as an explanation for this truly crazy story.
rmxt 12y ago
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.

theVirginian 12y ago

This is an interesting story and if I were a psychiatrist I would be fascinated to study how consciousness can be separated from the ego. In addition, props to the writer; call me selfish all you want but I could absolutely never love someone in a romantic way who had this kind of issue.

delinka 12y ago
They say that you can't choose who you love. I'd suggest that whether to love them wouldn't be an option. You might fall in love, later learn about your SO's diagnosis, and decide you wanted to change yourself to continue to be with them. However, knowing that you're not personally equipped to deal with these things and that the "object of your affection" might be better off without you is a certain kind of wisdom.
- theVirginian 12y ago
  Exactly, I think I might continue to love that person but I don't think I would be equipped to deal with an event such as the author described and then continue to be "sexually" attracted to them. (not sure that term quite captures it but you get the point)
  - mod 12y ago
    I like imperfect stuff. It has more character. I can't really see how finding a flaw in a person could change my attraction to them (particularly sexually, though I know you said that wasn't exactly what you meant). Especially this flaw--it's not a moral failing. Moral failings are, indeed, distasteful. If it's 3 hours per year, I can certainly handle that to be in love.
frandroid 12y ago
First you love the person, THEN they have this thing happen, THEN you keep on loving them in spite of it. Like everyone else you love. Or maybe you didn't love them enough in the first place.

peterwwillis 12y ago

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 medications being taken. Some people don't tell you about these things until they happen.

agumonkey 12y ago
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.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  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.
  - taivare 12y ago
    A second cousin , as a child , her father had cancer at the time, he awoke one night and his little girl was just about to stab him with a big kitchen knife, apparently based on what the family said , his little daughter had no recollection of the drama the night before, she became a totally normal adult with no mental problems.

mst 12y ago

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.

m_mueller 12y ago
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.
- mdisraeli 12y ago
  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 dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues. The idea of finding your place, finding familiarity, centring yourself. Something you are very used to doing normally and when safe is important, as is having that also associated very strongly with being safe. For some people, photos will work well for this - they might capture moments with strong association with safety and happiness. Some people may be able to instead use an object, a talisman of sorts. For others, or for when the disassociation is worse, a single grounding method may not be enough. It's about building the complete story - getting home and watching something familiar. The grounding only happens from weight of evidence. Finally, there's something you don't hear talked about much. Coming back around from disassociating can be utterly terrifying in it's own right. Both as one tries to return, and after coming back. Having multiple entirely different means to ground helps with this.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

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/014521349390088M http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01452134939... was cited by a [1] http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Memory-Greg-Iles/dp/1441808183 http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Memory-Greg-Iles/dp/1441808183

duaneb 12y ago
Note that the concept of 'suppressed memories' is not very well accepted by the psychological community. People can be convinced that they remember something they don't, so it's extremely difficult to tell between a 'suppressed' memory and a false one.

hga 12y ago

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.

kazinator 12y ago

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!

outworlder 12y ago
That is an horrible thing to say. She is not 'flaky' as a spoiled socialite would be, she has a mental disease. One that only seems to crop up from time to time. 'Poor relationship material'? She is still a human being in need of support. I'd say you're poor relationship material.
- kazinator 12y ago
  I'd say you know nothing about me. My life experience tells me that it's not worth meeting broken people and supporting them, fixing them and so on. It's a good way to make yourself miserable. If you have a pattern of doing this, it says something about you. Maybe you don't think you deserve better or something, or you need to feel that someone depends on you and needs your support. Latching on to needy people and supporting them doesn't mean that you're good relationship material in any objective sense; it's just your self-image of what you think makes you "good" is in a relationship.
- stickfigure 12y ago
  This isn't quite fair - it's not so much that it's horrible to say, but that it's easy to say when you aren't emotionally invested in the relationship. Nobody would criticize someone who jumped ship if this episode happened on a first okcupid date. There's a reason this subject didn't come up in their conversation for eight months, and I don't blame her for that. On the other hand, I know a guy who was about to break up with girl when she got a cancer diagnosis. He stayed with her for years, miserable, because he didn't want to be that schmuck. Relationships are complex. It's poor form to criticize someone who stays, but also poor form to criticize someone who leaves - there's a lot more going on than just one issue, even if it is a big one.
- scott_s 12y ago

6d0debc071 12y ago

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.

kbenson 12y ago
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.
protomyth 12y ago
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.
- bhayden 12y ago
  I would guess the issue with this is a lack of working short term memory. You could show her but she's not going to retain the information. By the time she saw photos in the story you just read, the worst of her episode had passed and she was returning back to normal. The issue is likely more to do with confusion and not understanding surroundings more than it has to do with not knowing who he is.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    Its really not a video for her benefit. I hope it will keep her attention and calm her down, but I really believe there is the possibility of getting shot by some bystander and believe a video on her phone might calm the situation an allow people time to think.
pbz 12y ago
Depends on the part/alter. Some have a different image of themselves and wouldn't recognize "themselves" in the picture. Some may think you're trying to trick them.

sjtrny 12y ago

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

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Because she's experienced it before and it doesn't happen instantaneously? Even some of the most fast-acting drugs still have a ramp-up. I'm thinking, IV propofol, if you've experienced it before (and even if it's your first time), you can tell that something is happening.
bhayden 12y ago
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.
- brazzy 12y ago
  Same with my ex girlfriend, though her disorientation doesn't last as long. It was scary the first time when she asked me "who are you?" but eventually I got used to and it even had funny aspects. Such as the time when she collapsed on the bedroom floor, me making sure she doesn't hurt herself and when she comes out of it, asks me "What happened?". I tell her "you had a seizure" to which she replies, quite resolutely, "No, I didn't!"
pbz 12y ago
Sometimes one can feel it as a headache or inability to stay present. At other times it can be instant.
mapt 12y ago
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 random event, like a lightning strike; Their expectations, moods, and desires play a role in the onset of crises. The temptation is to split their agency, their consciousness and their participation into a boolean and say they either have it or they don't have it, that psychiatric disorders must be entirely out of someone's control before we give them a pass on "But it's their fault" and "Just snap out of it!". But allocating problems this severe to the realm of personal responsibility and purely voluntary deviancy is not very helpful to anyone. The most infuriating thing about having a family member with a personality disorder, my own dive into ab-psych, is that they can turn it on and off in certain contexts, they can be triggered and they can avoid being triggered, but not in a context where you need them to, where you beg them to. It is a way in which they are acting, an unhealthy coping mechanism and pattern of thinking that colors all their thoughts - but it is not something that they can't control or observe at all, only something that they don't usually control or observe well enough to avoid causing problems. There is no clear line between their disorder and their voluntary behavior and their personality, it is one unified whole. Do we hate them for that? What's the use? Who does that help? Before we started medicalizing these things, we relied on public shaming and ostracism to control them until the person's behavior got so out of control they became a danger. While it's a cruel way of doing things that we have wholeheartedly rejected, it was surely at least somewhat effective, because of this voluntary component, because telling yourself "Keep it together" is not a 0% effective treatment technique. The country did not suffer from a 26% mental illness rate in times past, and I think it's foolish to assume this represents pure underreporting. Mental illness at least partially conforms to the outlines of the society which defines it - immigrants to the US find themselves substantially healthier than the US on arrival, but develop statistically average rates of US mental illness over time; Symptoms shift from whatever is recognized in their home country to symptoms more in line with US-recognized disorders. We have decided, rightly or wrongly, that classifying these things according to an insurance-industry handbook, and doling out pills like candy, and pretending these people have no control whatsoever over their disorder in order to relieve them of social responsibility for it, is the correct approach. While the truth is more complex, I tend to find this more humane than some other national attitudes towards the topic, and I have no better approach to offer. Edit: The problem is, when you acknowledge that these things are maladaptive and problematic behaviors that someone presently does not control well, rather than some kind of seizure that completely robs one of consciousness... you get people popping up who want to go back to the boolean definition again and deny there's any problem whatsoever, claim that they're doing this for attention and faking it and horrible hoaxers who are sucking the precious fluids from our society... There may be too many douchebags out there for a nuanced view to prevail. I see this post already has one, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147386 . The problem is the boolean: A 100% controlled premeditated affectation must represent a malicious manipulator, the theory goes, while a 0% controlled mental illness strikes a victim, all victims, like a bus hitting an innocent pedestrian. But the mind isn't so simple, and the onus of personal responsibility is not a cure-all.

csense 12y ago

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 is actually a feature, not a bug. In ancient times people often had to deal with being abused, enslaved, etc. Maybe being able to blank out really unpleasant experiences helped young slaves tolerate their abuse without becoming totally insane or going the route of suicide or rebellion (assuming the latter's success rate was negligible, rebellion would basically be the same as suicide from the standpoint of evolutionary pressures). Which ultimately helped them survive and reproduce. Then once the mechanism exists, it can still get triggered naturally in modern humans if they're abused, or artificially by drugs.

pbz 12y ago
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.
- drinchev 12y ago
  Can you give more specific examples of "We all dissociate, but to a much lesser degree". Looks interesting to do more googling on that, but I have no keywords.
  - pbz 12y ago
    Have you ever driven home and when you got there you weren't sure how it happened? You didn't remember driving the entire time. Your hands were at the wheel, but your "mind" was somewhere else.
    - 12y ago

jacobsimon 12y ago

Is anyone else wondering what movie they were watching?

bhayden 12y ago
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).
sebkomianos 12y ago
You think it could be linked to her DID episode?

will_brown 12y ago

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.

MollyR 12y ago
That's very interesting. Alzheimer's and this kind of disassociation disorder could be affecting the same "pathway" or something. Thanks for this comment!

pavel_lishin 12y ago

> She'd wake up with no memory of what had happened, and wouldn't want to know. This was probably the most painful part of that whole story. Naturally, I was thinking of my wife and myself as the main characters throughout the whole story, and while it would be incredibly difficult to go through this, it would be harder if she woke up the next morning and didn't want to acknowledge or know about what had happened the night before. (Unless I'm totally misreading that sentence, and the author is saying something different.)

pbz 12y ago
It's difficult and unpleasant to acknowledge what happened. By doing so they would have to acknowledge and deal with what happened in the past (that caused DID in the first place). Part of therapy is to take them on this road. They're able to cope with reality because they're able to compartmentalize their history. Hearing about it, while necessary, weakens the coping mechanism that helped them survive. So you can imagine why they wouldn't want to hear about it.
- crazypyro 12y ago
  I've seen that "exposure" therapy is often used in the treatment of OCD, another form of anxiety disorder. Patients with OCD often have an anxiety about something and use their quirks and rituals to avoid/ignore the anxiety. To help them cure their rituals, they must actively try to experience the often very extreme anxiety that some situation puts them in. Is the treatment similar in cases of DID?
  - pbz 12y ago
    No, that would be too much for a DID patient and could lead to further splitting (creation of new parts). First step is to teach them to stay grounded, to stay present and not take the easy path and dissociate (i.e. go away). When struggling to stay present someone with DID may exhibit OCD patterns -- scratching, grabbing, fiddling with fingers etc. -- all without realizing. However, when this happens there's usually some level of co-consciousness with a part that is suffering or has OCD. So in this case the OCD behavior would "belong" to that part while some other part is "out" (they'd actually both be "out" at the same time). It's a very complex disorder.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

Online, I've met people with a different form of the same condition, or maybe a related condition: they seem to have multiple persons in their head, and will occasionally switch between them. Like many mental health issues it's difficult for me to think about because I have no frame of reference.

chrischen 12y ago

She should record a video of herself reminding herself so she doesn't have to rely on George.

GotAnyMegadeth 12y ago
Would she recognise that it was her in the video?
- chrischen 12y ago
  If she can remember George, she can recognize herself. Otherwise, George wouldn't work either, anyways.

belorn 12y ago

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?

mdisraeli 12y ago
It is often difficult to get a diagnosis of PTSD when you've not been at war or subjected to a singular catastrophic event. And even if you did, there may not exist treatment pathways for those with PTSD from more complex or long lasting situations :(
pbz 12y ago
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.

fsiefken 12y ago

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.

lisnake 12y ago
I used to experience same things after I lose consciousness (happened a lot when I was a teenager). I remember one case, when upon gaining consciousness I was pondering for a whole minute what kind of strange metal columns I see on a horizon. After what felt like a mountain of memories falling onto me, I realized that I'm lying on a floor of a lecture hall, and these columns are just chair legs.

ghshephard 12y ago

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.

pdpi 12y ago
Real life is not a film. We're talking about a disorder that's likely caused by a traumatic event and is associated with _proper bad_ anxiety. You don't necessarily respond to logic in those cases, you respond to things to which you have a strong emotional response -- and which will, hopefully, comfort you. Reversely, when you see someone in that state rushing for the door, knowing they'd be helpless to deal with actual risks, 'de-escalating' is the least of your concerns. "I must keep her safe, with me" is the only thing in your mind.

DigitalSea 12y ago

I think it takes a strong person to be able to handle a situation like this. I would like to think I could be this strong if my fiancee suffered from the same condition, but I think I would find it too heartbreaking to be temporarily forgotten like this. The part about his girlfriend calling her ex at his requst was a courageous act from her current boyfriend. It must be hard knowing that your girlfriend in her dissoaciate state can forget you, but remember her ex boyfriend enough to trust him. That would be so hard for many people to handle. A really great story. It is great to see a story hit the front-page that isn't neccesarily about programming (not in the software sense).

ssenkus 12y ago

She's faking it, her lame boyfriend just pays the bills.

mirimir 12y ago

That is an incredibly moving story, and it's wonderful how well it turned out. But the author acted irresponsibly. As soon as he realized that his friend was dissociating, in the taxi, he should have called 911/999/whatever and informed the driver of the situation. If this had been a stroke or heart attack, that would have been the obvious move. Why not for dissociation?

hga 12y ago
The girlfriend gave him very specific instructions about what to do if/when it happened, and reinforced them just before it happened with "Promise me that whatever happens, you will not let go". I cannot imagine any scenario in which involving the authorities would have improved the situation and not violated her instructions, which he implicitly if not explicitly had agreed to follow. Most specifically "not let go", and getting her back to familiar surroundings, which per the account and others' accounts is important in stabilizing these events when they go that far.
- mirimir 12y ago
  The situation could have gone to hell, and one or both of them could have been injured or killed. Given that risk, his friend's "instructions" were plainly unworkable. If she had run in front of a car and been killed, for example, her estate might have come after him. If she doesn't want the authorities to be involved, he would need at least a medical power of attorney. And even that would not not protect him from police responding to an apparent abduction. The only strategy to prevent that is to involve them from the start.
bhayden 12y ago
What would the cops or an ambulance do in this situation?
- hga 12y ago
  At worst, take her away from anything familiar, which we've been told by others is not likely to improve the situation (my personal experiences here already started at home, so I can't comment except that my intuition is that this would be very bad). Actually, no, anyone who pays attention knows that the worst case is one or both being maimed or killed by the police. Therefore only invoke them if it's really life or death, as the situation would have been he'd disobeyed the "never let go" charge she left him with. As the police would have almost certainly forced after being called, that is, calling 911 would have almost certainly resulted in a deep betrayal of her, and should result in her side ending the relationship if/when she was back to normal.

mukundmr 12y ago

Very touching. I wish more resources were committed to understanding and solving problems of the mind.

sddhrthrt 12y ago

> "I know you," she said. "I love you." It meant a lot to hear those words. Was this moment as sweet as that when you hear the words from someone you love for the first time? The anxiety of "will she remember that she loves me" ending at "I love you" must be amazing.

thecatspaw 12y ago
> Was this moment as sweet as that when you hear the words from someone you love for the first time? I can only speak for me, and only hypothetically: It would mean much much more in that moment. Someone you love for a long time, maybe your wife, finally remembers you. Sure, its awesome to hear I love you for the first time. Imagine you fuck up big. Really big. She still talks to you, but every time you do, you notice she's still pissed. Not just a bit, but very pissed, angry, and disappointed. She hasnt said "I love you" in a few days, since you fucked up. And then you hear them again. Suddenly, unexpected. The world isnt grey anymore. Its finally coloured again.

UhUhUhUh 12y ago

Being late in the discussion, I wondered how many times in the thread the word "unconscious" had been used. Well, it came back as "zero". This, I think, reflects what happened to psychology/psychiatry over the past, say, 30 years and at least in the US: the generalization of an homomorphism between the brain and the current state of data computing. Although a very useful concept, the "unconscious" has been dropped because it doesn't fit in this morphism. Or does it? Low level processes are somewhat "unconscious" to computer operation. There are memory leaks and odd stuff happening with memory blocks that one could see as the expression of an unconscious. But, as some people pointed out, this aspect is only a sort of malfunction of the system. The beauty of the unconscious in the brain is that it is productive. Strictly whatever it does serves a purpose: it can be protective (as in dissociation to tolerate trauma), it can be optimizing (as in handling survival functions in the background), it can be productive (by constantly scanning its database and I/O for patterns, convergences, anomalies, etc.) and, I believe, it is the very source of creativity. To the point that I wonder if data computing might not benefit from emulating such a sub-architecture... As people pointed out, we all dissociate, somehow, in our days and that’s because we have an unconscious that does all that. It has been a huge loss for psychology to lose the unconscious to the data computing model. And it might be a huge loss for data computing to not try to emulate our unconscious.

jes 12y ago

I searched this thread and didn't find any reference to "Internal Family Systems" therapy. If anyone has any thoughts on IFS, I'd be interested in hearing them. I'm currently reading a book ("Internal Family Systems Therapy" by Richard Schwartz. Additional info here: http://www.selfleadership.org/ http://www.selfleadership.org/