# Memory Loss



## WinkelTripel (Dec 10, 2012)

Hi ya'll. I've recently been properly diagnosed by a psychologist with depersonalization disorder. Having have experienced derealization and depersonalization for at least the past ten years on and off, what really got me to a psychiatrist and subsequently the psychologist was not the intense derealization I have been experiencing chronically since I got sober about a year and a half ago, but my sudden and recent memory loss. I know a distorted sense of time is a big issue with DPD (is that how you guys abbreviate it?). I have found a supreme lack about the topic on here so far. I have been writing about it since I started seeing the psychiatrist and found myself really struggling to articulate it. Here is something I have written about memory loss so far.

"I also have realized that a lot of this has to do with my sense of self. When I am with people, I am able to gauge a sense of self based on relation to others. I am talking to my friend so-and-so. I must exist. I know what makes so-and-so laugh, and I know what so-and-so likes, so I am that around so-and-so. My sense of mimicry is a true talent. I catch myself mimicking characters all the time. I am good at some language pronunciation because of mimicry. When I am alone all that is stripped away and I am just sitting with myself. No longer are others a reflection for a strong sense of self. Perhaps this is why I mostly experience derealization when I am alone. It is almost always nowadays. My memories are all skewed-this I still do not understand. I can't recall a lot of things, and the precious few I can recall I cannot place on any sort of chronological timeline. When I am alone I am left with the now conscious knowledge that there is a serious lack of self-knowledge and it is terrifying. Are my memories dependent on others as well? I feel like they are there, they must be there--I have not hit my head recently, there is no reason for them to be gone--but I just can't recall them. My sister will ask me if I remember this and tell me about this or that, and memories I know I once had and in the past probably articulated nostalgically with her now I just draw a complete blank. Like the person running the file cabinet of my memories is on vacation indefinably."

I've been writing a lot about this lately, but the memory loss is probably the most disturbing. Has anyone else experienced this? Is this common for DPD?

This whole thing really sucks by the way.


----------



## Midnight (Jul 16, 2011)

My mind feels completely empty and I still live in fear because of memory loss. It is so intense. People ask me about previous events and it feels as though they never happened. It's like my entire life history, even my memories as a child have been wiped away. It's the worst thing a human being can experience.


----------



## WinkelTripel (Dec 10, 2012)

Yes, my mind often feels completely empty. What I am most afraid of, though, like most people who experience DP and DR, that I am losing my mind. Not the insanity, but everything else, everything I thought that defined me and made me who I am, especially my memories, are suddenly just gone.


----------



## David_Somebody (Dec 12, 2012)

I'll be in mid-sentence and forget what I was just talking about. I also have a history of drug and alcohol abuse mostly trying to cope with this DPD nonsense. I thought once I got clean my mind would be clear and after about a year of soberity, that was not the case. Ginkgo biloba is supposed to help with memory.


----------



## WinkelTripel (Dec 10, 2012)

Yes, I was a drug addict too for many years. When I got sober last May, I dealt with some depersonalization, but when my mom died, I became really aware of how screwed up my perception of time was, as well as becoming aware of the memory issues. My psychologist told me memory loss is very common with DPD, more likely due to the inability to stay present than any damage done during my time as a drug addict. I realize now I also used drugs to deal with depersonalization and depression.

I've never heard of ginkgo biloba, but I'll have to look into it.


----------



## inferentialpolice (Nov 26, 2012)

DP/DR with co-existing gaps in memory is, according to the diagnostic manuals, more than mere depersonalization disorder. Assuming there is no organic cause or drug-influence associated with the memory gaps, then under the diagnostic description the type of dissociative disorder would be known as DDNOS. I have found in my reading that because the more involved kinds of dissociative disorders also have DP as one part of their symptom complex, looking at just DP risks that someone's true dissociative state could go misdiagnosed. You may want to see the articles on dissociation at www.strangerinthemirror.com, and the associated book Stranger in the Mirror: Dissociation, the Hidden Epidemic. There is specific three phase psychotherapy treatment that is available for DDNOS (which some therapists might refer to as a form of complex PTSD) that is different than what one might try to use for straight DP.


----------

