Dissociation Amnesia occurs when you disconnect from your thoughts, feelings, memories, and sense of self/identity. Dissociation occurs for many people in simple ways, such as getting lost in a book, daydreaming, or “spacing out” on a long drive; however, it’s fairly easy to come back to the present reality. Dissociative amnesia includes memory loss that extends beyond normal forgetfulness. It’s often linked to the experience of a traumatic event. Diagnosis of dissociative amnesia is done through medical examination and psychological evaluation and is best left with trained professionals. Nonetheless, there are signs and symptoms to look out for when considering if someone has dissociative amnesia.
Recognizing Symptoms and Causes of Dissociative Amnesia.
Observe mental disruptions. Dissociative amnesia involves a breakdown of memory, consciousness, perception, identity, and/or personal awareness. These disruptions cause changes in functioning at home, school, work, relationships and personal life.
These mental disruptions can include loss of identity or parts of identity (such as name, occupation, or address), forgetting members of your family, like not recognizing your spouse or children, or not knowing where you work or what you do for a living.
Women tend to experience dissociative amnesia at a higher rate than men.
Examine types of amnesia.
Typically, someone with dissociative amnesia is not aware that there is a lapse of memory — one of the symptoms is decreased self-awareness. Dissociative amnesia affects memories that still exist in the brain, but are deeply buried. They may resurface later. Dissociative amnesia can occur in one of several different ways:
Localized amnesia — You may have no memories of a traumatic event. For example, if you have a paragliding accident, you may be unable to recall any details related to the accident for several days.
Selective amnesia — You may have incomplete memories from an event. If you were in a car crash, you may remember seeing the car coming, then block out the rest of the memories.
Generalized amnesia — You have problems remembering any facet of your life. You cannot remember your identity, your past, nor significant people in your life, like friends and family members.
Continuous amnesia — This is similar to generalized amnesia, except in this case you are aware of your current surroundings.
Systematized amnesia — You experience very specific memory loss, such as memories related to your dog or a loss of all memories regarding your grandmother.
Dissociative amnesia with fugue — Dissociative fugue involves a loss of memory and identity, marked by wandering or traveling away from home and one’s regular life.
A person experiencing a dissociative fugue may leave home and start an entirely new life and identity.
Explore amnesia duration. It’s hard to say how long the amnesia may last. It appears to come on spontaneously without any indication of decreasing memory function. For some, the amnesia may last for minutes. For others, the memory loss can last for hours, or, rarely, months or years. Often, the memories will come back, particularly those related to identity, but some memories may not. It doesn’t appear that having familiar things or people helps memories return. Most memory comes back spontaneously.
If you forget something temporarily, then recall it again later, it's probably not dissociative amnesia.
Explore causes of dissociative amnesia. Dissociative amnesia results from experiencing a stressful or traumatic event and subsequently blocking out information related to the experience or one’s own identity. The memory gaps may span long periods of time or may apply to the specific event that a person witnessed or experienced personally.
The amnesia may include memory loss of certain events, people, or time periods. For example, a war veteran may block out memories associated with combat or whole chunks of time, like the deployment experience.
Some types of amnesia occur as a result of a traumatic or highly unpredictable childhood, or a stressful time of life, such as war. For children, the identity is still forming, so a child may be more able to step outside the self and see the trauma as occurring to someone else. A child who dissociates may use dissociation as a coping strategy for stressors.
Note interpersonal difficulties. People with dissociative disorders often have difficulties relating to other people and have problems in work situations. Those experiencing dissociation may not cope well with stressors and may dissociate at inappropriate times by tuning out or by disappearing. Coworkers may view the individual as unreliable or erratic.
Just because someone has interpersonal difficulties does not mean he will suffer from dissociative amnesia.
Exploring Medical Causes
Diagnose medical causes. The cornerstone of dissociative amnesia is that it includes a level of forgetting that goes beyond typical forgetfulness and that cannot be explained by a medical condition. See a medical practitioner to rule out medical causes. A medical cause for memory loss can include brain injury or brain disease, certain cancers, or other disorders.
Your physician may run tests to see if memory function is related to these causes.
Examine lifestyle factors. Dissociation can result from drug and alcohol intoxication. Drugs and alcohol can affect the brain in such a way to cause lapses in memory or “blackouts."
Note whether drugs or alcohol have been used lately or frequently, and in what amount.
A lack of sleep can also cause feelings of dissociation unrelated to medical or psychological causes.
Look for symptoms of dementia. Dementia is characterized by memory loss, but also has other defining markers. The cause of dementia occurs in the brain and affects nerve cells, not psychological trauma. If the cause is dementia, other problems will occur outside of memory function, such as difficulty finding words, problem solving, and coordinating movements. Someone with dementia may experience confusion and disorientation.
Sometimes, dementia may be caused by certain medications or vitamin deficiencies. When these are the cause of dementia, symptoms may be reversed.
Differentiating Psychological Diagnoses
See a psychologist. If no medical causes are discovered, see a psychologist for diagnosis. A psychologist uses diagnostic assessments as well as interview to diagnose dissociative features, rule out other diagnoses, or examine any co-occurance with other psychological diagnoses.
Typically, a psychologist will give you a standardized questionnaire to determine if you have dissociative amnesia.
A psychologist may examine features related to dissociative identity disorder. These are more severe identity confusion disorders.
Sometimes, dissociative amnesia can be related to anxiety. A psychologist may rule out anxiety as a cause for dissociation.
A psychologist may examine features related to dissociative identity disorder. These are more severe identity confusion disorders.
Sometimes, dissociative amnesia can be related to anxiety. A psychologist may rule out anxiety as a cause for dissociation.
Distinguish from other memory disorders. Besides dissociative amnesia, other disorders exist that involve memory function and identity. When examining features of dissociative amnesia, consider how it differs from other disorders. Rule out other psychological disorders of memory, such as:
Simple amnesia — Simple amnesia is memory loss that results from brain injury or brain disease, and involves a loss of information from memory.
Depersonalization disorder — Depersonalization involves feeling like you are outside of yourself or your body, like you are watching your life from above or through a movie screen or as if in a dream. If you have depersonalization disorder, this will occur on an ongoing or episodic basis. For more information, check out How to Overcome Depersonalization.
Dissociative Identity disorder — This disorder involves having multiple emerging personalities or identities that express at different times in one person. Different personalities may emerge at different situations or events. People with DID may also have dissociative amnesia and/or dissociative fugue. For more information, check out How to Know if You Have DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Examine co-occurring disorders. Sometimes, people with dissociative amnesia have other mental health diagnoses. For instance, some people with Cluster C Personality disorders-- associated with anxious and fearful thinking and behavior-- such as Antisocial Personality disorder, Dependent personality disorder, and Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder may have a higher incidence of dissociative amnesia. There may also be evidence linking dissociative amnesia with Cluster B disorders (Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic Personality disorders). When considering a diagnosis of dissociative amnesia, it’s important to explore personal history of personality disorders.
To inquire about co-occurring psychological disorders, seek a diagnosis from a psychologist.
Ruling Out Psychological Diagnoses
Note differences with PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur as a result of a stressful event, leading to symptoms of extreme stress. In some people, PTSD can include flashbacks of a traumatic event and avoidance of places or people who remind you of the event. You may experience detachment from other people or feel emotionally numb.
People with PTSD tend to experience a heightened sense of arousal following a traumatic event. The memories may haunt them and the people may go to great lengths to avoid memories of the event.
Observe symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). People with OCD may show dissociative tendencies related to their diagnoses of OCD. Obsessive compulsive disorder is characterized by obsessive, uncontrollable thoughts followed by compulsions in order to decrease stress caused by the thoughts. It appears that people with OCD often show signs of dissociation as a way to cope with distress.
In ruling out OCD from dissociative amnesia, one must inquire whether there are obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors present.
Rule out panic disorder. Some people who experience panic attacks report experiencing depersonalization or dissociation immediately preceding or during a panic attack. The panic attack can feel like the person it witnessing things as an outsider or from outside the body. Symptoms of a panic attack include shortness of breath/hyperventilation, racing heart, a choking feeling, sweating, hot/cold flashes, and a fear of dying or losing control or going crazy.
When ruling out a panic disorder, one must ask what immediately precedes and follows the dissociative feelings. It may be related to panic attacks or anxiety.
For more information about panic attacks, check out How to Recognize Panic Disorder.
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