Time Loss

I always thought when people said blackouts they meant a very obvious and sudden loss of time that leaves you disoriented and confused and wondering where you are/how you got there.

I've never had that, so I assumed I didn't lose time.

But apparently that's not always the case? We were just reading and came across the term 'fragmentary blackout' and went to read up about it and....suddenly realised that it was describing the vast majority of our lives.

But....we're never confused as to where we are/how we got there. We may not always know the answers, but we never really bother to ask those questions. And when we do enough comes back in fragments anyway that it's never been an issue.

We're all a little flabbergasted right now. Do normal people /really/ go around able to remember all of their life all the time?! How could they possibly fit all of that in their consciousness?!

So, what exactly is fragmentary recall? Because their are parts of my life that I have no memory of, like huge chunks, but I don't ever get confused to where I am either. I always assumed it was normal to forget a time in that way. Haha.

Fragmentary blackouts are what people call it when they know the general idea of what happened last night and can remember specific events with prompting, but all they can really remember are little fragments of still images and such.

This is apparently what happens when normal people drink, and it is enough of an obvious difference to them that they recognise it as a blackout. :/

I don't drink, but that describes the vast majority of my life. Though the parts that I can properly remember and recall change from alter to alter, we all have this same thing for the vast majority of it, and total amnesia for a lot of it as well. We just don't notice the amnesia unless someone asks a specific question about it. And then when they do we used to (before we were aware of any of this) just switch out to someone who /could/ remember. We still try to switch whenever anyone asks a question we don't know the answer to, so we're trying to get the people around us to not change topics like that/ask random questions, trying to not switch so much to cut down on all the mental fatigue all that rapid switching was causing!

TheHost wrote:I always thought when people said blackouts they meant a very obvious and sudden loss of time that leaves you disoriented and confused and wondering where you are/how you got there.I've never had that, so I assumed I didn't lose time.

Me too. But I've come to suspect that even when this does happen people are very good at rationalising it to themselves and therefore not really realising that it's 'abnormal', and not necessarily being disorientated by it. Example: I once lost seven hours, but never realised it until months later when I was thinking back to that day and noticed that events I thought happened one after the other couldn't have. Still, that's rare for me. 'Fragmentary blackouts' describe most of my life, now I've come to think about it. I always thought I had a good memory, but actually I mostly remember things as though I'd been drinking pretty heavily my entire life (I haven't ). My therapist once asked me about something which happened when I was 22 and I had to admit that I couldn't remember. I'd always thought I remembered that period of my life, but this was a blank I'd never noticed until he drew my attention to it. I wonder how many more there are...

I experience the same thing, I have large gaps in my memory and most of the time something has to trigger a memory or someone has to bring it up. I can't really sit down and go through my memories unless they're the common stories I tell. My childhood memories are actually just a compilation of the stories I've heard my family and friends tell about me. When they would tell it I would imagine how it would be from my point of view and over time I sort of constructed my childhood memories. It's weird to think that I don't have any of my own.

I never knew about fragmentary blackouts but now that you describe them that is my entire life. Usually after a couple days to a week that's how my memory is, images and tidbits. I used to think I just had a bad memory but now that I know about my DID it makes more sense.

I also have small "blackouts" but I don't notice that I have them until someone is like, "Don't you remember me telling you?" Or "Don't you remember that time when you..." I usually have no memory of it but I just try to pretend I know what they're talking about. I've never experienced disorientation afterwards or not knowing where I am, I rarely notice the gap.

TheHost wrote:Do normal people /really/ go around able to remember all of their life all the time?! How could they possibly fit all of that in their consciousness?!

They're are actually some who can, though usually even normal people have to think about a memory or have someone mention something to remember. But what I've noticed is that when their memory is prompted they get the entire memory. The conversation, the place, the smell, the noise, all of it. Where as, I just get flashes of people or an event.

They also seem to have a better long term memory, I actually rely on my friends most of the time to help me remember. I call my close friends my "Memory Keepers" because if someone asks me a question and i don't know, I'll ask my one of my friends and they can usually answer it easily. Which sometimes confuses people but they usually don't ask questions. It always astounds me that they can remember their own memories and mine as well, I would like to know how they do it.

Time loss can be hard to find. I've never thought I lost time, but I'm suspecting there are actually years missing from my memory. Sometimes, it seems to happen for daily stuff as well (I have, as of yet, only had one instance of possible time loss.) Whenever things are 'gone', they're not just gone, it rather seems like there's a lock on the memory. I know it's there, and I know I knew it before, but I just can't reach it (just like when you just can't remember a certain word). And I think memory disappears after a while (so the time loss isn't really noticeable). This is called delayed time loss or something like that.

I noticed most of my memories only contain the event (the facts) and images as well. The idea of getting the feeling/smell/etc. back is just foreign to me. I can remember I felt a way, but (almost) only as a fact (it does happen I get the feeling back, but it's very rare).

Example: I once lost seven hours, but never realised it until months later when I was thinking back to that day and noticed that events I thought happened one after the other couldn't have.

I know the feeling. I thought I something happened straight after the other (I was stretching it when I was thinking it was happening days or weeks in between), but about 6 months ago after looking through my medical records - I found out there were two years in between. I remember coming to in the car and hearing my mother (she had very big news) - but I didn't recognize it as time loss until years later, and even then I thought it was mere weeks or days. Two years, nothing at all in between there that I remember. Weird to realize but it does explain a lot of things.

But apparently that's not always the case?

Not at all. Most all of my time loss at this point is very covert. It used to be overt but after becoming an adult it very much is not.

Best of luck with this.

Mostly, time loss only becomes an issue when it is brought to our attention because we've been late getting back or missed something and it always seems to be due to some traumatic event occuring along the way which we have no recall of.

But....we're never confused as to where we are/how we got there.

We have been extremely unstable lately due to the recall and constant reliving of some traumatic events that took place eons ago. When out shopping recently, we have not been able to recall which supermarket we were in or what we went in there for. And we have had to think long and hard as to where the car has been parked.

Hello !

I often wonder how much time I might lose, but then, in my experience, I'm often unaware of lost time until someone tells me something that happened during that period of time that I absolutely do not remember. Therefore, the extent of my time loss is unknown to me.

What I have noticed is how my perception of time (is|can be) distorted. My memory seems unable to store information about events that include a monotonically increasing indication of time. As such, my memory for events is (increasingly) jumbled. On a larger scale, I can situate events from my life on a timeline (like childhood, which I don't remember much, high school, university, now; not very precise, but not bad). On a smaller scale though, good luck, I could tell you that some event happened 6 months ago when in fact it's been 2 years. I also have problems with my schedules ... Not making it easy with homeworks, housework and other stuff.

time loss is rarely noticeable, especially at first, and sometimes it doesn't happen depending on how much your system works at keeping up the appearance of normality. cassandra used to almost always be co-consciousness, but not always in control, because black-outs can be noticeable and can cause worry and can call unwanted attention to you, so our system usually didn't let any black-outs happen and if they did, they tried to not let them be noticeable to anyone, including cassandra.

these threads might be interesting to you:


-- System structure- not DID?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101109.html

-- I can't switch: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101893.html


-- Your experience in uncovering alters time-line (Possible Trigger Warning, discusses different experiences of alter/DID suspicions, discovery, and realizations): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic94601.html

-- Not losing time or blacking out, what's wrong with me?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic97504.html

-- DID without amnesia? (the "main" content is on pages 2-3): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic95529.html

-- Is anyone like this in their DID?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic93929.html

-- Is this normal in the DID world?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic97249.html


-- Co-consciousness & Co-hosting?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic99350.html

-- Switching Symptoms (Possibly Triggery): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic102917.html

-- Long vs Short Switches: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic103012.html



- cassie (age ?)