Dissociation is a disruption in the integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, and perception. Dissociative symptoms include derealization/depersonalization, absorption, and amnesia. These experiences can cause a loss of control over mental processes, including memory and attention.
As DPDR often causes individuals to doubt their own reality, sufferers also experience feelings of confusion and develop memory issues as they begin to doubt whether or not their memories are their own. This can also lead to confusion and lapses in memory known as Dissociative Amnesia.
Dissociation involves disruptions of usually integrated functions of consciousness, perception, memory, identity, and affect (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, numbing, amnesia, and analgesia).
Abstract. Dissociative amnesia is a disorder characterized by retrospectively reported memory gaps. These gaps involve an inability to recall personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.
People with dissociative disorders are at increased risk of complications and associated disorders, such as: Self-harm or mutilation. Suicidal thoughts and behavior. Sexual dysfunction.
Feeling like you're looking at yourself from the outside
Feel as though you are watching yourself in a film or looking at yourself from the outside. Feel as if you are just observing your emotions. Feel disconnected from parts of your body or your emotions. Feel as if you are floating away.
Periods of dissociation can last for a relatively short time (hours or days) or for much longer (weeks or months). It can sometimes last for years, but usually if a person has other dissociative disorders. Many people with a dissociative disorder have had a traumatic event during childhood.
Outlook / Prognosis
For most people with dissociative amnesia, memory eventually returns, sometimes slowly and sometimes suddenly, which makes the overall outlook very good. In some cases, however, the person is never able to fully recover their lost memories.
Psychological or emotional trauma can result in memory loss. A person's brain may suppress memories as a protective mechanism to prevent the retrieval of painful emotions associated with a traumatic event. Memory loss can occur as a byproduct of repeated situations such as child abuse or domestic violence.
Memory loss may be a sign of dementia. Dementia also affects thinking, language, judgment, and behavior. Common types of dementia associated with memory loss are: Alzheimer disease.
Dissociative symptoms include brain fog, out of body experience, watching self from a distance, emotional numbness, delayed reactions, difficulty making decisions, and bad memory.
It can affect your sense of identity and your perception of time. The symptoms often go away on their own. It may take hours, days, or weeks. You may need treatment, though, if your dissociation is happening because you've had an extremely troubling experience or you have a mental health disorder like schizophrenia.
Dissociation and depersonalization disorders
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), dissociative disorders that feature dissociation or depersonalization are: Dissociative amnesia: People forget information about themselves or things that have happened to them.
Depersonalization-derealization disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic.
What is Trauma blocking? Trauma blocking is an effort to block out and overwhelm residual painful feelings due to trauma. You may ask “What does trauma blocking behavior look like? · Trauma blocking is excessive use of social media and compulsive mindless scrolling.
Physical, emotional, and psychological trauma can all play a factor with memory loss. You can experience permanent or temporary memory loss depending on the type of trauma.
Trauma can shutdown episodic memory and fragment the sequence of events. The hippocampus is responsible for creating and recalling episodic memory. Trauma can prevent information (like words, images, sounds, etc.) from differ- ent parts of the brain from combining to make a semantic memory.
If someone with the disorder is experiencing ongoing trauma, then dissociation can become “fixed and automatic” outside of one's control, with some people reporting that they've been stuck in a dissociative period for weeks, months, or even years at a time.
Yes. If you have the right diagnosis and treatment, there's a good chance you'll recover. This might mean that you stop experiencing dissociative symptoms. For example, the separate parts of your identity can merge to become one sense of self.
If someone with major dissociation does not seek help, Dr. Hunter says it could get worse over time. She explains that you may find it difficult to feel safe or maintain a healthy long-term relationship.
Eye contact is broken, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt, and clients can look frightened, “spacey,” or emotionally shut down. Clients often report feeling disconnected from the environment as well as their body sensations and can no longer accurately gauge the passage of time.
One's mind going completely blank. A sense of watching oneself from the outside. A disconnection from surroundings. Glazing over or feeling lost.
Triggers are sensory stimuli connected with a person's trauma, and dissociation is an overload response. Even years after the traumatic event or circumstances have ceased, certain sights, sounds, smells, touches, and even tastes can set off, or trigger, a cascade of unwanted memories and feelings.