Dissociation and Dissociative Disorder Mnemonics (Memorable Psychiatry Lecture)

Dissociative disorders (including dissociative amnesia, depersonalization-derealization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder or DID) are among the most confusing and poorly understood conditions in all of psychiatry. Part of this has to do with the fact that many healthcare providers have a hard time describing what dissociation even is! In this video, we will dive into the phenomenon of dissociation and then explore the 3 disorders that feature dissociation as a key part of the pathology.

Learn more about dissociative disorders, including their DSM diagnostic criteria, epidemiology, prognosis, and treatment, in this high-yield mnemonics-filled lecture intended for all healthcare providers, including doctors, medical students, psychologists, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, social workers, and more!

ATTRIBUTIONS
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[mikeconn]

After watching this video I originally left a snarky comment about DID and then went out to walk the dog. Your thoughtful and compassionate words stayed with me and when I got back I deleted the original comment and now I think I'll just say thank you.

[Valacarne]

Thank you very much! This Video describes my life perfectly fine

[bereketsintayehu]

Can I enter the contest #amfromEthiopia (Africa)

[maxxizacc]

I was a Kid who disasosiated his whole childhood as a result of trauma. I wake up at 4am every day now to spend time with myself doing meditation, reading, writing and studying topics that catch my interest, kinda like psychology, to truly find my true self and i gotta say, its not like ive fixed myself but i have truly found the map. Good luck to anyone struggling with this.

[izzy]

The DID bit is WRONG! There are different alters that patients will experience as separate individuals not moods. They don't FEEL different because the patient is completely severed from the experiences of another alter in most cases. Alters often have different interests, their own name, tastes or abilities - these things are cut off from other alters. This seems to have been confused with BPD. Patients will describe different characters in their mind and lived experience. Please go and find a correct explanation, getting it wrong will hurt sufferers and leave many undiagnosed. He completely missednout OSDD, these patients are similar to DID but their existance means that these two disorders mean they are, combined, as common roughly as bipolar disorder. I have OSDD so I know this. These alters are often internal only, too, to are not shown though behaviour, such as alters chatting amongst themselves or talking to another alter who is fronting. Sometimes they don't talk they just share thoughts or feelings across the barrier and lots of other things. We are not separated moods! They reflect moods at times and respond to triggers but are not just someone having g extreme moods. And they aren't usually one mo etc to the next, they can be long switches or lo g periods I. The front. Oh there's so much and this video is damaging.

[alexpender]

I think an example of a normal person's comission errors might be something like "I thought I wrote that down" or "I seem to remember doing the laundry but I guess I didn't." As someone who experiences dissociation, my comission errors are much more glaring and vivid. For example, I once became aware, out of nowhere, that a memory of sleeping with a certain person. I hadn't been drinking around that time, so blackouts weren't an option, and I didn't have any evidence to suggest that I had done it (like, it's not like I had woken up naked next to them). I simply just...remembered it. And I really wasn't sure if it had happened or not. I wasn't sure how to find out. It seemed weird to ask, "by the way, did I sleep with you ever?" so I just decided to wait until the next time we hung out and see if the vibe had shifted from the platonic vibe we had before, and it hadn't, so I concluded that I never did. Another very vivid false memory I had surfaced one day as I was getting ready to go to my job at walmart, where I was working at the time. Halfway through getting ready, I remembered that I had gotten fired, specifically for climbing on the shelves (to stock the higher shelves that I couldn't reach) and smoking in non-smoking areas. Both sounded like things I would do, so I looked through my text messages, and I hadn't TOLD anyone I had gotten fired, and something felt suspicious about it, so I decided to go to work anyway, just to be safe. I figured if I had been fired, they would just tell me, "hey, you don't work here anymore." So I clocked in as usual, and it turns out that I hadn't been fired after all.

When you said "the only thing it can really compare to is being briefly lightheaded, " I'm assuming you left out the other comparable thing due to youtube censorship. But for most "regular" folks out there, it basically feels like being incredibly stoned, but less fun. It's that feeling where everything looks sort of...different...but you can't put your finger on exactly what's different about it. You feel kinda fuzzy. I also think of how the kids on Charlie Brown only experience interactions with adults as "wah wah wah woh wah wah". Obviously it doesn't sound like gibberish, but I often feel like I hear the words someone is saying, but I can't make out a meaning of them. If you wanna experience something like that, I'd recommend looking up "what english sounds like to foreigners, " and watching one of those videos where actors basically make english-sounding nonsense dialogue, where words are out of order or made up. Think dyslexia, but with your ears. It's like listening to alphabet soup.

[K--uh]

This video was somewhat superficial. You missed the most common type of memory problems, that is also classified as dissociative amnesia and is prevalent in chronic complex dissociative disorders (DID, DDNOS). Significant memory gaps for positive and neutral everyday events (not just traumatic ones), where information, usually of autobiographic/episodic nature suddenly becomes unavailable, especially under stress.
E.g if you work at a hospital and have ONE patient the previous day, and the next day (or even the same!) cannot remember if it was someone with lung cancer or a heart condition when you have to tell others about it. These are pathological dissociative memory problems. Then suddenly you remember everything and then forget again. Also, situations when you can't remember what you did a few minutes ago and start to do the same thing again, and people need to remind you. And people with real dissociative disorders need to write everything down, just everyday things that people seem to remember. This is very common for people with dissociative disorders and is also classified as dissociative amnesia. It's not only when you forget major things like where you were born etc.

[vicreatives]

Im an individual with D.I.D, and this video is honestly very accurate and informative. DID or any other disorders similar to it can honestly- be really terrifying at times for both me and my alters. Im still a teenager, i have to go to school, i have 2 rabbits im fully responsible about, friends i have to hide my disorder from and a mentally abusive mother, it’s extremely difficult to live with this at my age. Theres too much misinformation about my disorder that makes others look at us like we’re freaks. Which news flash people! We aint. We’re just like anyone who is a singlet (singlet is a term for people who aren’t a system, meaning you dont have DID or OSDD-1a/1b) and we just want to heal and have a relatively normal life

[NevaJWilson]

When I would try to explain it to people they act like they don't know what I'm talking about. Things don't look real and distorted it's really frightening. When my husband beat me up. I went numb and pretty much blocked it out. I lost five years of memory at my job.

[Obedient-Faith]

I think the description of what it feels like to have DID was off; the video made it focus on emotional states more than anything but I experience it more with variety of thoughts desires and opinions as well as emotions and it literally feels like being a different person. However I like that you point out comorbidities being likely to cause the such dysfunction. I was a homeless addict and I attribute that more to depression/anxiety/trauma than to dissociation, and when I got sober and God gave me peace, I became able to function and contribute to society. If the other mood disorders were still affecting me and my parts the way it did before I could not function as highly as I do now. Glory to God for that.

Also treatment through therapy that focuses on communication between parts is very relevant and helpful since I have both parts with borderline tendencies and some hypersexual and some suicidal parfs and parts that are strictly Christian and believe those parts are rather sinful. Coming to an understanding that it was “not me” has resolved the anxiety about my behavior for the time being, while also motivating me to get these parts of myself the help they need . Instead of self-blame and shame, I can be proactive about recovery and work out whatever issues cause those parts to act out.

[hhh-]

I am diagnosed with dpdr but most likely have osdd-1b. (Cannot be classified as DID bc I do not have clear cases of blackouts) I was given anti seizure medication to help with my dissociation, which it actually does help a little, I think it ties pretty close to how similar dissociative episodes are to dissociative seizure. It's really interesting. But I am not going to lie, therapy did like 80% of the work. I do have to mention when I first started meds I was in time where I was under constant dissociative state. Where I wasn't mentally present majority of the time, graying out on a daily basis and amnisa in many parts of my past and it's been like this for majority of my life. Mayhaps that's why the meds worked lol. Thank you for this vid! Not alot of ppl talk about DID like that, since we love putting individuality towards alters and really seperate them apart from the host as their own person. And since it's so misinformed even in professional settings, my past therapist had dismissed my concern of my alters bc how they r triggered by emotions, she sees it as just "my way of regulating emotion by using 💫creativity💫" (mind you, im an adult already) or clinics who refused to take me when I raise concern about alters bc they think "DID is too severe to treat" (even though I don't even fit the criteria for it, they didn't care they just assume since I have alters it's automatically DID)

[PhantomWanderer]

I remember in college I wrote a letter about how I felt like 4 different people. This video helped me make the connection that this was my DID.

[williamkelley]

In a nutshell, there is more money to be made by the medical industry in treating a condition than in solving the problem outright.

[EmmA-lnhe]

I've long described moments where I act in incoherence with my core beliefs and principles as "absences", moments where "I'm not there", where "I'm not aware of what I'm doing or that I'm constantly talking". It really hit me a couple of days ago and now I know that it's dissociation.
The best way I would describe it is kind of like in Severance. It's literally like that, my consciousness checks out in the elevator and only reconnects after the episode.
I would remember the general aspects (if I was talking, I'd remember the topic, but not the details of what I was saying). I also have no recollection of what happened right before the episode, how it started, etc.
I know general stress is a trigger. It also happens after being in freeze response.
Other than that, my social life is melting pot of rejection due to my misbehavior which I don't recollect in detail and I'm too afraid to ask because of the shame and guilt around those episodes that I can't control, which can generate stress and send me into another episode...
So instead of going into that spiral, I chose consciously to isolate myself for a while, because I can't bear the pain I'm causing to others as well as to me.
I've also taken some steps to get some help but it's the summer so everything is Slow and it'll take some time before it happens, so in the meantime, time off so that I don't do more damage...

[monmolcan]

I’ve had dissociation for three years now day and night not ending and I’m so scared that I’ll never feel love for anyone. Meds have worked a little to make me forget it but not much. Mental health education is not very good in our country so it’s very difficult to find something that will actually help..

[PhantomWanderer]

I disassociated my entire childhood and I’m having the hardest time trying to reconcile everything. I always felt weird. Every so often I would stare at my hands because I felt like I was out of place. Even now sometimes I have to do a lot of grounding to bring myself back because I want to stay in my disassociation

[diaBaeYourFave]

well done! well said! hope this reaches and helps alot of people with DID

[MeSaytan]

i certainly have DID after hearing this... i dont feel like i have multiple people in me i feel like i have no people in me but many nobody. and i keep being shattered even more... but i know i have a basic goodness... and i also know i have elohim with me always.
Mars and Jupiter conjunct at 16* with moon opposed at 16* today. Last Gemini mars-jupiter was in 1989, same month as fall of berlin wall, teinamin squar protest(mandela effected), and world wide web was proposed.
And When Mars began its cycle in aries this year The moon was 16* from Saturn which was at 16* in Pisces and 16* after that was Mars and 16* after that Mercury and 16* from that was Venus...
Also on the 6/6 new moon happened with Venus sun and moon at 16* Gemini; and Mercury was at 66* or 6* of Gemini.
On july 16th this year was the 10th of the first month of the islamic calendar, known as Ashura, the holiday for when the red sea split, adam was forgiven by god.
In 1 corinthians 13 Love is mentioned 16 times.
In Revelation there are 16 refrences to the number 7.
On 9/11 flight 77 felw 77 minutes in to 77 foot pentagon sitting on 77th meridian flying at 777fps and september eleventh and world trade center and united states equal 77 in ordinal gematria.
Daniel 9:24 has the prophecy of 70 weeks; or 70 7s.
Daniel 12:1 talks about michael the prince.
Revelation 12:1 talks abotu a woman clothed in the sun with moon at feet and crown of 12 stars.
In gematria: Coronavirus Outbreak, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, Antichrist, Revelation and Apocalyptic all equal 121.
121 days before Tom Hanks birthday he is the first celebrity to report getting covid.
Sirius XM made 121 the covid station.
On 1/21/20 the first case of covid came to King County Seatlle Washington.
Word play/etymology: Nazi/not see, Nuclear/new clear 2020 vision, see at all seattle, trump/pence trumpets.
Mandela Effect/M.E. is big, life WAS like a box of chocolates you should know what your getting, bearing what stain,
statue of liberty now on its own island, why does johns hopkins university equal 121 now, after having the 'S' from Heavens from the KJV being put on it...
'Most Everyone is Mad Here'= Cheshire Cat.
'Pick up your Couch and Walk'-KJV Jesus
"fk yo couch nigga" -Dave Chapel
You will be one with me as I am with the Father 😛
No, I am your father!
Behold the lord your god is one. Echad and Ahava equals 13, love and unity in hebrew.
I am the thinker, the veil on mona lisa....
Lucifer, Masonic, Simple, English, Gematria, Occult, Holiday, Jesus, Cross, Parables, Gospel, Messiah, Forgiveness all equal 74. America was founded on 7/4.
Do you see what I see? No, but do you see what I am showing you?

[Lola-Yo]

This is so incredible. This is the only video that accurately describes my symptoms. I worked it out for myself that I probably have DPDR. I was never diagnosed and didn’t mention it to any doctors. It has changed over the last 15 years and in the last 4-5 years, I experience alien blurry thoughts in my memory part of the brain. When these thoughts crop up, I’m concentrating so hard to recognise them, until I realise I actually don’t recognise them as my own. It’s very unpleasant but only last a few minutes. I suffered prolonged bullying in the workplace many years ago, which is when it started.

[tinatupper]

Makes me wonder if PTSD is part of this disorder. Like people who have it probably disassociate to protect themselves. I was in a narcissistic relationship and my memory was terrible. I also had issues retaining new information. Now I’m a year and 6 months out and my memory is getting better, but when I have episodes of triggers, I won’t remember much of what happens during this time. Maybe this sounds dumb, but I wonder if that’s why antidepressants don’t work for me.