User:Carlkyline

Common Reality of Dissociative Fugue Dissociative Fugue is a loss of personality in the past hours or days, maybe years. Agatha Christie disappeared for eleven days and was later found in a hotel without memory of what happened throughout that week. She experienced total amnesia during her fugue state but her previous personality remained in-tact. That would be a more severe example of dissociative fugue. The effects differ vaguely, although what is proven is that what Agatha did during the week she disappeared, was a coping mechanism in result of physical or mental abuse in her past, most likely as a young child. The condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is more common than it may seem. Through personal research two out of five people have experienced symptoms. But keep in mind they are mild symptoms, nothing as severe as a disappearing for a week with no recollection. Symptoms from stress are the most common, feeling as if a whole week has gone by so fast you can’t even remember what you ate for lunch the day before. What seemed to be an easy way for me to help people understand was, pretend you were a radical animal rights activist and PETA was your entire life. Then you spent a weekend actively slaughtering goats to sacrifice to Satan, but Monday came you went back to work for PETA feeling thoroughly guilty for what you had done. DID is just that, but without the guilt or ability to remember the slaughter. This is what is called a personality “switch.” One may have two, or twelve different personalities which may include different ages, genders, races and morals. When an event happens that is physically or mentally abusive a “switch” will occur until the abuse stops. So to say if a young man was rejected by his mother at early childhood. He can’t handle rejection twenty years later, so he takes on different personalities to cope with the rejection. DID has become vague in its diagnosis, it was popular that doctors would use this diagnosis because of the overlapping symptoms with Bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia and dissociative fugue. Some patients may experience a broad band of overlapping symptoms which are summed into one diagnosis which is DID. The severity of the symptoms most likely is caused by the amount and severity of the abuse. What I haven’t found are patients who have overcome this mental illness by their own self-discipline, it’s hard to say whether they have actually overcome this by themselves because that is most likely just another coping mechanism. Is new personality is just omniscient over their own mind attempting to control the other personality(s)? Although dissociative fugue is just a symptom of DID, its characteristics are similar including memories and lifestyles of other personalities. The fugue state can be dangerous with suicidal tendencies, depression, murderous thoughts and ironically many other overlapping symptoms of similar disorders. Controversies about fugue and DID come up judging it as an actual diagnosis or a side effect of therapy. In return of the arguments, the development is still considered a theory and is largely more popular in North America. There is a good chance at some point we have all experienced symptoms of this vague condition.