as defined by mayoclinic.org , an american nonprofit academic medical center website that is reviewed as being trustworthy , dissociative disorders are " mental disorders that involve experiencing a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts , memories , surroundings , actions and identities . " as explained above , dissociative disorders are acquired through a developed reaction to trauma to help deflect difficult memories . symptoms include :
– memory loss of certain time periods , events , people and personal information .
– a sense of being detatched from yourself and your emotions .
– perception of people and the things around you being distorted .
– a blurred sense of identity .
– inability to cope well with emotional or professional stress .
– mental health problems such as depression and anxiety .
there are three listed major dissociative disorders , defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders , and dissociative amnesia is one of them .
DISSOCIATIVE AMNESIA IN MORE DEPTH.
the main symptom is listed as being " memory loss that's more severe and can't be explained by a medical condition . " this backs up the fact that this type of amnesia can only be trauma-induced. people suffering from this can't recall information themselves , or events , or people in their lives , especially from a traumatic time and in rare cases can involve complete loss of memory about themselves . this is called dissociative fugue . in all cases of dissociative amnesia , the person has a much greater memory loss than to be expected in the course of normal forgetting . dissociative amnesia can be put into three subcategories :
– localised : memory loss affects specific areas of knowledge , such as a childhood event .
– generalised : memory loss affects major parts of a persons life and / or identity .
– fugue : a person with dissociative fugue has generalised the amnesia and adopts a new personality .
some people with dissociative amnesia describe it as ' drunk amnesia ' , and others with dissociative amnesia find themselves in a strange place without knowing how they got there. they may have travelled there on purpose, or wandered in a confused state . with dissociative amnesia, it can occur suddenly. though, fortunately, when memories do eventually return, they return suddenly and completely, unlike other amnesias where memories are regained slowly and gradually .
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