A long story - please help

Hey, I'm new to the forum... but what bought me here is that my long distance girlfriend... recently lost all her memories.. lost her identity.. didn't recognise her brother when she looked at him square in the eyes..

I'll tell a lil story.

Basically, my girlfriend is bipolar - she used to be in the army and has suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from it, although I'm fairly certain that has been cured. 2 weeks ago she started getting a fever.. a swollen neck and all the lymph nodes had swollen too. I thought this must be just some kind of tonsilitis or pharyngitis or something. A week later, she started getting better.. I speak to her on the phone every night and we fall asleep listening to each other... we've done that for some time now.

Last week she started acting extremely strange.. on wednesday night I hardly spoke to her... the following day I spoke to her a bit, but she seemed extremely angry and down... she told me she hadn't gone to school that day... which worried me.

I found out later on that she infact been kicked out her house in the freezing cold in unsuitable clothing for about 5 hours during the night (thats why she couldnt contact me) .. and I know when she gets really stressed.. she looks to the attention of drugs to take her mind of things (even though I don't like her doing that).

The following day, on a Thursday I think, she acted calmer.. and I got to talk to her well, and I was feeling chirpy.. she had booked tickets to come see me this weekend just gone..

Although something was on her mind, she said she had to go to a party - she had loyalties to attend to... she started talking about doing things for her brother (which when i spoke to her brother later.. he said he'd never make her do the things she claimed to have done (those activities are irrelevent)). I had begged her not to go out to the party... but she kept saying she had to get ready etc etc... I felt it were best to leave her alone, so I switched off my laptop.. got off skype etc and went to sleep.

The following morning I find out she had come home immediately... just as I switched my laptop off.. she had waited for me for 4-5hours.. and she told me it had really ###$ her up.. she then went to a party for a couple of hours before coming home at 4am.

Now it's a Friday... I can't remember the exact details about early on in the day.. but I'm fairly certain she wasn't in school, because she was fever'ish.. her fever was getting worse.. she was throwing up, unable to hold food down, had a temperature of 103 fahrenheit... this was in the evening.. my gf doesn't express her feelings much as she is afraid to scare people.

Her brother finds her in the bathroom.. just 10mins after I got off the phone with her, throwing up... semi conscious and unable to hold herself up. He texts me off her phone going "what the hell is wrong with her??" ..i reply saying "i dont know.. thought he had a fever" .. he tells me what she's doing and carries her to his car and rushes her to hospital despite my girlfriend not wanting to go.

When she gets to the hospital... she gets an oxygen mask, IV's attached to her and all sorts... I manage to contact her via txt.. she starts to go dellusional and says she has to go home and pack for the journey the next day... she starts ignoring what people says and just focus's on getting ready to get on the plane. She rips out the IV's and tries to move.. but she lacks a lot of energy.. doctors restrain her and sedate her... The following day.. she tries to do the same thing, although she just falls out of her bed..

3 hours before the plane departs... she signs out of the hospital...she takes her brothers car keys which for some reason she has... takes her car (she's lost a lot of blood by the way).. drives it to the airport... getting a dent on it somehow. Messages me from the airport asking me not to tell her brother where she is... naturally I told her brother where she is, coz at the moment I thought she was dying.

Stupidly, I told her that I told her brother... she signs off AIM. Her brother rushes to the airport with a friend and finds that there is already an ambulance there... with my girlfriend on a stretcher..

Continueing that day... later on, her brother decides she is stable enough to take home... soon to realise it was a bad idea as I speak to her.. she starts having crazy dellusions about getting on the plane and saying "i can make it, i can make it" ...her brothers asks me what to do as I then tell him to take her back to hospital...

Sunday... she seems to have rested well... I talk to her later in the day at about 4pm, speak to her for an hour or 2... everythings seems good, sweets comments are shared and everything seems fine... I lull her to sleep slowly...

A couple of hours later, whilst I am talking to her brother and his girlfriend... she wakes up, starts crying uncontrollably... won't stop crying, Her brother grabs her gently and holds her... as he see's her sobbing eyes look at his... she says "who are you?" ...about an hour later the doctors urge the brother and his gf out of the room..

This is when things got REALLY weird... It's Tuesday now I beleive, I spoke to her today... she still remembers nothing.. doesn't remember who she is, who her brother is, who I am..

I talk to her though, she seems to say similar things to what she said last time I showed her certain pictures. She says the words "i feel im missing something.." .. and I knew when she was in hospital.. she was murmuring my name while she was semi-conscious.

She also says that she has weird pains in her head. She says she is confused... and that she gets panicked.. and she said she wishes she was herself again.

She's forgotten brief moments in the past.. but that may be because of alcohol or stress or something, but nothing like loss of identity.


So my question is... how is this related to each other? Is she in a Fugue State? ...how long will this last? ...what should I say to her when I next speak to her? ..how can this can cured quickly?

I'm missing her immensly.. it feels great to have spoken to her today, but I want the person who loves me back... even though I still managed to relax her within 20mins of conversation...


P.S. I got no idea which amnesia/dissociative section this is meant to be in, so don't punish me.

I am guessing the trauma caused her to forget so much. It's something the brain sometimes does without being able to help it. When she will begin to remember things is something I do not know. With my dissociative experiences though, the memories sometimes do not come back until years later. For so long I totally forgot about the severe abuse I underwent; the memories did not come back until years later. On this day though, I just remember some of the abuse I underwent, and that the sexual abuse was severe. Almost all my memories of sexual abuse was blacked out though. I mostly remember the severity of the abuse. Certain things, sometimes remind me of memories that were forgotten as a result of dissociation, than are remembered again. So, maybe pictures and other things will remind her of things. You should try telling her about her past memories and explain to her she has blacked out. What else may have happened is she may have gotten so physically sick, that it effected her mentally.

hi XleoD.

Ok, first of all i must tell you that i think i had a dissociative fugue back in 2005-2006 (I left home on January of 2006, and you can see some of my posts as 'yeh-' (another nickname i use(d) on this site) (even tho i could still get into the account if i wanted to).

What is a dissociative fugue? is when some of us couldn't really deal with the stress going on in our lifes (be frustation, poverty, emotional and/or physical and/or sexual abuse (even tho obviously sexual abuse involves emotional abuse), physical withdrawals, physical illness, etc) and suddenly (this being key word for a dissociative fugue) we have an opportunity to 'leave it all behind' and we go somewhere else not really telling anyone, (except maybe very few people).

What happens when we get to that 'somewhere else'? we are the happiest we've been in a while, but all of a sudden we start getting homesick and missing our previous life and even tho we may be happy at the new place we get depressed.

What happens next? We return home.
What happens next? We realize that it was a mistake to 1.- leave so suddenly and not dealing with out problems as we should've instead of running away from them and 2.- it was also a mistake to return.

This ambivalence creates confusion.

Now, i must tell you that i'm not only past that, but that, before i left home, i was a marijuana addict and i suffered a lot of stress while working at the new place and withdrawing from THC (i think this was the MAIN stress factor that contributed to me to 'lose' my identity, personality and emotional memories of the people i love) So in my case it was physical illness (And the stress that goes through it) what most likely '###$ me up'.

What i think happened to your girlfriend is that the fever was higher than you people thought and she didn't really communicated you guys this and then while on the delirium she 'lost her idenitity'.

I think she needs to comprehend what happened to her in order to realize that she didn't lost her identity but that it was stress what '###$ her up'. Dissociative Fugue is very difficult because all of a sudden we don't identify with the things we like (like for example i really like Green Day, Painting and my personality)

The good thing about this is that now i'm learning to deal with stress and i have learned that people with dissociative identities are not joking just as people with amnesia and depression are not joking as well, Also i'm no longer a marijuana addict.

Sometimes things happen and even tho in a way i have lost contact with all of my friends ever since (because how was i supposed to interact with them without a personality hu?) i look forward to enjoy time with them.

The memories are not 'totally' gone, but it's more like 'emotionally gone' (she may remember you, but you may mean nothing to her now, so be understanding of this as is probably more difficult for her than for you) with comprehension she may see that what happened to her while part her fault (by not dealing or communicating her feelings in the first place) it's also 'her brain's fault' (because it's true, the brain automatically blocks the memories of a trauma (it can even block fifteen years of addiction to a subtance) (meaning the period when the person abused the substance never really 'happened').

Nowadays i'm gonna start working and cope the best that i can with any possible stressor. It is stress what (i believe) causes every 'form' of mental and/or emotional illness.

I also think that no one can 'help her' regain her memories and that (in my opinion) she needs to see that every part of her 'new' identities are also her. (even tho if some of these parts are unlikeable to her, she should try and (with effort) change them).
She may show a lot of aggresivity and anger product of frustation (in this case, for not being able to 'go back to old self' or from a 'why me?' point of view).

I may have had brain damage product of my marijuana sudden withdrawal (or product of my marijuana abuse), but i'm looking forward that my brain fixes itself (because i've done my job and now it's my brain's responsibility).

Note: The melancholy (for losing our 'precious' previous self) can be so painful as to drive oneself to suicide.

Cheers.

thanks for that post made things more clear to me.

I'm curious... if this amnesia is contracted from Dissociative Fugue state or from Hypothermia... when it eventually goes and her memories start to return.. will she remember me? I've known her for 3 months prior to this, and I seem to have had a big impact on her life - not just according to her, but according to her friends.

She's taken some drugs during this time, not loads but definitely some, will this have an effect on her remembering her memories?

I'm scared to the bone that when she does remember stuff... i'll just be a nobody to her

XLeoD wrote:I'm curious... if this amnesia is contracted from Dissociative Fugue state or from Hypothermia... when it eventually goes and her memories start to return.. will she remember me? I've known her for 3 months prior to this, and I seem to have had a big impact on her life - not just according to her, but according to her friends.

She's taken some drugs during this time, not loads but definitely some, will this have an effect on her remembering her memories?

I'm scared to the bone that when she does remember stuff... i'll just be a nobody to her

Will she begin to remember you? Maybe, just maybe though.

How she remembers you, depends on the type of impact you have put on her life. For example, now I remember one of my friends around the time I was getting abused by someone else. It's been years, and finally I am remembering her. I believe the abuse I suffered from was her fault because of the drugs she influenced my abuser to consume. She gave me so many blissful moments though, that even though a lot of the abuse is her fault I can't hate her. I can't even judge her badly. If you make or have made her happy enough, you don't need to worry about being a nobody to her. When, I began remembering people, they no longer were a nobody to me. Drugs, certainly could make someone's memories not come back good enough. Even prescription drugs could.

well.. i was there helping her sleep every night. I apparently cured her insomnia... and all sorts of other things.

..I can't wait years for her to remember me

I still talk to her now though.. even though she doesn't remember me... is that a good thing? will it help her remember me more when she does 'wake up' ?

XLeoD wrote:well.. i was there helping her sleep every night. I apparently cured her insomnia... and all sorts of other things.

..I can't wait years for her to remember me

I still talk to her now though.. even though she doesn't remember me... is that a good thing? will it help her remember me more when she does 'wake up' ?

It may assist her in remembering you more. I think it's a good thing she still speaks to you.

cool

A way that may assist in you being able to help her remember who you are is, showing her photo albums which include moments spent with you, and videos of moments she has spent with you and others.

unfortunately I have no actually met her... she is somebody I initially met online and we had plans for her to come over to see me and stay with me for an unknown amount of time.

Although I've sent her pictures of myself I might send her pictures of herself hehe