Emotinal amnesia?

Hi there,

one question: Do you believe that it is possible to have amnesia just for emotions?

I stumbled over DID in search of a self dx since my therapist won´t give me one....

I alswas felt like a quit ambivalent or unconsinstened person, but with multiple recurrent patterns, but didn´t considered to be DID serious. When considering DID I would say that i/we am/are highly co-conscious (as no time loss) except for what I asume would be the core personality (who is aware of the rest but is just blurred and emotinal empty for the rest and hence fast forgotten). But my host is emotional extremly numb and can remember that, what i consider the traumatic events, that lead me to "split" (in my case the traumata weren´t individual so extreme (for traumata), but altogether severe). But I can´t remeber any emotional aspect and to remember it don´t lead to any emotinal response otherwise, btw I don´t have any flashbacks.

But since amnesia is considered being part of "real" DID and I do remember the traumata but without the emotional part, which I would consider an "Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness"(criterium c).

Any thoughts on this?

ps: I am aware that it is possible that one have amnesia about the amnesia, but I consider this in my case to be highly unlikely.

Janus

I can relate to a lot of this. I think emotional amnesia is definitely possible, and I would use it to describe my own experiences. For instance, we were in a terrible car accident at age 7. We remember specific things about it, we have images in our head, recall a general chronological sequence of events (with some holes that we have attributed to natural memory loss over time) but never any emotions. We don't remember being scared, or in pain. Until one of our young ones "showed us". That was a surreal experience. I think "emotional amnesia" is a tool my psyche has used throughout the years to protect me when feeling emotions wasn't "safe", or even to protect from bad memories.

Do you know why your T won't diagnose you? Other than this, how is your relationship with your T? My T is not qualified to diagnose me, out of many T's I have seen, she is the second one I have told. The first one, we didn't trust, so one of us tried to tell her, while the rest made it seem not like DID. Anyways, based on your answer to the above questions, I might consider seeking a new, or second, T/psychiatrist. I am currently looking for one myself.

I was never ambivalent, but I was "nice" "passive". Anger and sadness became unsafe to express, so they were stored away.

Hi Janus, Hey Janus. Luna and LC here. And yes, we do believe that it's possible to have DID with only emotional amnesia. DID's a very personal disorder, it can vary a lot from person to person. Amnesia is just a common symptom that's a main clue for dissociative disorders in general. You don't have to have full black-out amnesia to have DID. A fuzzy memory, or a loss of emotional memory, are common too. Like, early on when Kat would come out, Cassandra would feel this rush of rage, and then Kat would be in control. But she didn't feel the rage anymore. She didn't feel anything, and doesn't feel anything when she remembers stuff, but she saw everything and knows what happened, even if some parts are a bit blurry. But Kat, she still remembers everything. What she felt, details of what happened, what was said, stuff like that. While Cassandra doesn't remember any emotion, only what happened, with parts of it kinda blurry. Sorry if we're repeating ourselves. We tend to over explain sh*t sometimes. I definitely wouldn't rule out DDNOS/DID as a possibility for you. It sounds like there's a good chance, from what you've said so far, that you could have it. Hope sh*t becomes more clear for you and that things work out. Later! ~Luna Later. ~LC

Many traumatized people who do not have a dissociative disorder nonetheless do dissociate aspects of their traumatic experiences. Often the emotions are walled off, and may stay that way for years or even a lifetime. However, as we get older the walls do tend to break down, and then we experience our raw emotions as if the original trauma were still happening.

Having dissociative amnesia for emotions is certainly possible when one has experienced a trauma and can certainly cause a problem in some cases. Whether it is connected to DID or not can't really be determined by us here unfortunately. I would certainly think that if you have the ability to dissociate the emotions from your traumatic experiences, it is worth you investigating further to try to find out the extent of the dissociation you are experiencing.

Initially, I only thought I was depressed because I seemed to be completely apathetic to everything all of the time. That was what initially made me seek help. It took me a lot longer to figure out that the apathy was due to the fact that I was constantly dissociating emotion, I only really figured that out once I had been diagnosed with DID. So that is partly why I say, even if you are noticing that you don't have memory of your emotions for traumatic events, it is worth investigating it further...

Thanks for all these replys!

@ doe-eyed

In fact I do not get along with my T that good (partly due to the fact that she keeps making me switch into a rather defensive/passive-agressive pattern/alter). But getting a T at all is quite problematic (due to them being completly overbooked) or afterwards switching (due to healthcare-system(i am from germany btw)), so I am more or less stuck with the one I have...
The reason I don´t got an dx (or why I am not being told about) was justified with "that I won´t be able to handle my dx and it is therefore therapeutic unreasonable to tell me".
But telling me that I have something I won´t be able to cope with is ?!?

But in favor of her I must say that I can understand it is hard to work with someone who seems unwilling to change, as I (host) am not able to change my other alters (to speak in DID), or at least don´t feel so. And my "second main" alter (the one mentioned above) is not willing to do so. -.-

@ salted lipstick

Depression (and that i kinda crashed) was also the cause why I began to seek help.
My self dx way lead me from depression to spd with bpd features to (c-)ptsd to here.
And I would also say that my host is constantly dissociated and i have experienced futher DD symptoms in form of derealization and depersonalization (both with intact reality-testing).
So I would say that something in the DD spectrum is very likely.

Janus