Dissociative Amnesia

What is Dissociative Amnesia?

Dissociative amnesia is when a patient’s mind blocks out important information about yourself, causing “gaps” in your memory. One of the most common reasons your mind blocks things out is to protect yourself from unpleasant, upsetting, or traumatic experiences.

This is not the same as simply forgetting something. In most cases, you still have the memories, but you can’t access them.

Dissociative amnesia often results from highly traumatic experiences, including abuse, war, and natural disasters. People with dissociative amnesia are at increased risk of self-harm or suicidal behavior.

Patients should seek emergency care if a patient develops disturbing thoughts about harming themselves, including thoughts about killing themselves or harming others. If you have these thoughts, the patient can call one of the following:

• Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (US). Call this line by dialing 988.
• Local emergency telephone numbers. Mental health organizations and centers in your area can provide resources and help with crisis lines.
• 911 (or your local 911): Call 911 (or your local 911) if you feel you are in immediate danger of harm. If you suspect that someone you know is trying to harm or kill themselves, the patient should also call 911 or your local emergency number.

What is Dissociative?

All of your experiences are based on multiple brain processes and abilities working together. They are:

• Memory.
• Consciousness (awareness of self and surroundings).
• Identity.
• Emotions.
• Perception (senses such as sight and hearing).
• Motor skill (controlling your muscles so you can move).
• Conduct.

Dissociation is a defense mechanism your mind can use to prevent one or more of the above from working with others. It can affect how you experience and understand things that happen and what you remember.

Dissociative amnesia is when dissociation causes amnesia (amnesia).

How Dissociative Amnesia Works

To understand dissociative memory, it is helpful to know a little about how memory works. When you think about the events of your life, you use the so-called autobiographical memory. It is like a library in your mind, where each book is a memory of an event in your life.

To create the memories that fill the library, your brain goes through step by step:

• Encoding: This is when your brain forms a memory. It’s like writing your brain and publishing a book in your library.
• Storage: This is how your brain stores memory. Your brain keeps the book in your library. Your brain also takes notes so you can refer back to it when needed.
• Quest: This is when you go back to your library, open a book, and use memory information to remember what happened.

Types Of Dissociative Amnesia

Dissociative amnesia is the most common dissociative disorder. People with this condition experience episodes of amnesia in which they forget important personal information.

These amnesias are extensive and transcend the realm of normal forgetfulness. The information that people forget is often sensitive or traumatic.

People with dissociative amnesia can experience different types of amnesia. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), people with this disorder can experience different types of amnesia: local, selective, persistent, systemized, generalized, and dissociative fugue.

Localized Amnesia
Localized amnesia means that someone is unable to remember a specific event or sequence of events, creating a gap in memory.

These memory deficits are often related to stress or trauma. For example, a person who experienced childhood abuse may forget all the time. People with localized amnesia often have more than one episode of amnesia.

Selective Amnesia
Selective amnesia means losing only part of the memory during a certain period. For example, it may mean forgetting some, but not all, parts of a traumatic event.

A person can have both selective and local amnesia.

Persistent Amnesia
In this type of amnesia, the person forgets every new event as it is. A specific traumatic event can trigger this permanent forgetting.

Systematized Amnesia
Systemized amnesia is the loss of memories of a certain category or person. For example, someone may forget all their memories related to a certain person.

General Amnesia
This rare form of amnesia occurs when a person completely forgets their identity and life experiences. They may forget who they are, who they talked to, where they went, what they did, and how they felt.

Some patients with generalized dissociative amnesia can lose previously acquired abilities.

This form of amnesia often occurs in survivors of sexual assault, combat veterans, and those who experience extreme stress or conflict.

The Symptoms Of Dissociative Amnesia

DA can be characterized as follows:

Memory loss
Memory loss can be total (generalized) or related to a certain period (localized). If you have DA, you may forget things related to personal history, identity, or events, but you retain general information.

In certain types of memory loss, such as dementia-related memory loss, a person has difficulty forming new memories. In addition to memory loss, DA patients appear to be able to form new memories and maintain cognitive function.

Patients with DA often seem to care little about their memory loss, while other types of memory loss can cause a person distress. When DA wears off, most people regain their memories.

Association to Trauma
Dissociative disorders such as DA are often associated with a specific traumatic or stressful life event. Examples include abuse or participation in military combat.

People with DA may not remember information related to this traumatic episode. One example is a person who has experienced abuse and does not remember details or information from when the abuse occurred.

Duration
Many DA cases are short, lasting hours or days. In some dissociative amnesia cases, they may last longer.

Cannot be explained by another disease
Memory loss can often be explained by another disease. However, memory loss in people with DA cannot be explained by other conditions, such as brain damage, stroke, or alcohol or drug use.

People with dissociative amnesia may also exhibit certain behaviors or symptoms associated with amnesia. These may include:

• Lack of awareness. People with dissociative amnesia may not realize that there are gaps in their memory. This can continue until the amnesia affects part of their identity, or until someone points out or questions something the person knows they should remember but can’t.
• Flashback. People with dissociative amnesia may experience flashbacks when retrieving memories. Flashback view is more than just remembering something unpleasant. People who have them describe them as reliving a traumatic event or experience to the point where they can’t tell it from reality.
• Confusion or disorientation. People with dissociative amnesia (especially the generalized form) may seem ignorant or have difficulty understanding what is going on around them. In very severe cases, people may not show or be aware of their identity.
• Relationship and trust issues. People with dissociative amnesia often have difficulty forming friendships or romantic bonds.
• Traveling or wandering (dissociative fugue). When someone wanders or travels in time that they do not remember, this is called dissociative fugue. It is rare and memory loss usually only affects short periods.
• Even when people are aware of lost memories, they usually avoid, minimize, or rationalize why they cannot remember.

Causes Of Dissociative Amnesia

DA is associated with traumatic or very stressful events. Examples are:

• In combat during the war
• experiencing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
• being a victim of or witnessing a crime situation
• experiencing a natural disaster condition (such as an earthquake or hurricane)
• severe relationship, financial, or work stress.

There are several ideas as to why these events may lead to DA. A complex combination of these is likely to contribute to the development of the condition:

• DA is caused by the brain’s attempts to deal with or protect you from painful memories by dissociating from the traumatic experience.
• Stress caused by traumatic events disrupts the brain’s ability to recover personal memories associated with that time.
• Genetics may contribute to the onset of dissociative episodes, according to certain research.

What Are The Risk Factors For Dissociative Amnesia?

Experts believe that several factors can increase the risk of developing diffuse memory loss. This is partly because the risk is cumulative, meaning it increases as a person has more risk factors. If the trauma is longer, repeated, or more severe, it usually worsens the condition.

Research also suggests that genetics may be involved in this disease. While genes can not cause dissociative amnesia disease on their own, they can lower the threshold for it to happen. That means a person with a family history of dissociative amnesia disease may develop it with fewer contributing factors.

Diagnosis Of Dissociative Amnesia

Doctors diagnose dissociative amnesia based on whether or not a person meets the DSM-5 criteria. The criteria are:

• The person cannot remember important personal or family information.
• Human symptoms cause anxiety.
• A person’s symptoms prevent him from functioning normally in a social environment.

The doctor will also perform a medical and physical examination to rule out other possible causes.

They may use MRI scans to look for structural causes, blood, and urine tests for toxic causes, and electroencephalography (EEG) to rule out seizures.

Treatment Of Dissociative Amnesia

DA treatment goals include:

• Alleviating symptoms of memory loss, connecting with the environment and surroundings
• Helping to deal with traumatic or painful events safely
• Improving functioning

DA treatment includes therapy and medication. :

• Therapy. This can include things like psychotherapy ( talk therapy), cognitive behavioral therapy, and hypnosis.
• Medicines. There are no drugs specifically to treat DA. However, medications can be used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety disorders.

How do I take care of myself?

If you have dissociative amnesia, it’s important to remember that you can’t control it. patient mind does this on its own to try to protect you. Nor can you force yourself to remember. Instead, it is better to focus on patience. Many people recover lost memories over time.

It’s also important that you feel you can trust your mental health provider. Trust factor is very important in effectively dealing with and managing the effects of dissociative amnesia diseases. Not everyone “clicks” on the first provider they see. You may be depressed if it affects you early. But it’s important to remember that this is common and many people need to see more than one specialist before they find one that fits their needs and personality.

FAQ

Reference

• Mph, Z. S. (2023, September 24). What is dissociative amnesia disorder? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/dissociative-amnesia#types
• Professional, C. C. M. (n.d.). Dissociative Amnesia. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9789-dissociative-amnesia
• Seladi-Schulman, J. (2019, October 12). What Is Dissociative Amnesia and How Is It Treated? Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/dissociative-amnesia#symptoms
• Mph, Z. S. (2023, September 24). What is dissociative amnesia disorder? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/dissociative-amnesia#diagnosis