Symptoms
Dissociative Amnesia
Someone with dissociative amnesia will repeatedly have periods where they cannot remember information about themselves or about events in their past life. They may also forget a learnt talent or skill.
These gaps in memory are much more severe than normal forgetfulness, and are not the result of an underlying medical condition. Some people with dissociative amnesia will find themselves in a strange place without knowing how they got there. They may have travelled there purposefully, or wandered in a confused state.
These blank episodes may last minutes, hours or days – and rarely, months or years.
Depersonalisation-derealisation Disorder
‘Depersonalisation’ means feeling detached from yourself, observing yourself and your feelings and thoughts as if they belong to someone else you are watching in a film. Some of the typical symptoms are:
• out-of-body experiences
• loss of feeling in parts of your body
• distorted views of your body
• a sense of detachment from your emotions
• feeling like you are unreal
Derealisation’ means seeing other people and the environment around you as dream-like and unreal. Objects may change in shape, size or colour. Typical symptoms are:
• feeling like a normal environment is unfamiliar
• a sense that what is happening is unreal
• feeling detached from the world
• a perception of objects changing shape, colour, size
• feeling that people you know are strangers
You might experience one or both of these problems if you have been diagnosed with depersonalisation-derealisation disorder, and will probably be aware that these experiences aren’t reality.
Episodes of depersonalisation or derealisation may last just a few moments and come and go over many years, or may be ongoing.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Dissociative identity disorder, or ‘multiple personality disorder’, is the most extreme of the three types.
If you’ve been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, you may feel uncertain about who you are and struggle to define yourself.
You may feel the presence of other identities, which may each have their own names, voices, personal histories and mannerisms.
Typical symptoms are:
• feeling like a stranger to yourself
• being confused about your sexuality or gender
• feeling like there are different people within you
• referring to yourself as ‘we’
• behaving out of character
• writing in different handwriting
Someone with a dissociative disorder may also suffer from:
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• depression
• mood swings
• anxiety and panic attacks
• suicidal tendencies and/or self-harm
• headaches
• hearing voices
• sleep disorders
• phobias
• an eating disorder
• obsessive-compulsive disorder