Waking up in a new city with no memory of a person or a former life might sound like the script for a Hollywood movie or a soap opera. Dissociative fugue is the name given to the effect of amnesia associated with the identity of what is happening around, for several weeks or months.
What is a fugue
Dissociative fugue is considered a disorder that separates a person from previous memories of past experiences, feelings, or people in their life. People suffering from it do not remember their identity or any details of life.
Dissociative fugue describes the disease as follows: there is a split in consciousness, while simultaneously reproducing actions. At the same time, people around, seeing the patient, do not understand that something is wrong with him. A typical example of dissociation is being at the wheel of a car and missing your turn due to daydreaming. Thoughts inside split consciousness about where the car is at the moment. The realization that a person has missed their turn tends to put them back on the return route. Thus, dissociation can also occur inhe althy people, but it doesn't last that long.
Is it possible
After severe stress, some part of the memory is blocked and a dissociative fugue occurs. Real life examples:
- 57-year-old husband and father of two, Boy Scout - left the garage near his office and disappeared. Six months later, he was found living under a new identity in a homeless shelter in Chicago, not knowing who he was or where he came from.
- A middle-aged woman buys a newspaper to find out the date and what city she is in, then goes to social services to determine her identity. As it turned out later, she had been missing for 5 years already.
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Agatha Christie was perhaps the most famous writer of all time. In 1926, on the evening of December 3, 36-year-old Christie mysteriously disappeared from her home in England. The next morning, her abandoned car was discovered, but she herself was nowhere to be found. Before disappearing, her husband Archibald threatened divorce. On December 14, Christie was found alive and registered under the name Teresa Neel at the Harrogate Hotel. She claimed she didn't know how she got there. Someone believes that this disappearance was a PR performance and a reunion with her husband. However, there is evidence that Christy was in a fugue state and did indeed lose her memory. On the day of her disappearance, people saw her and claimed that she was not wearing warm clothes, despite the cold season, she seemed confused and discouraged. There isthe suggestion that the impending divorce and the recent death of her mother caused her to go into a deep depression. Agatha Christie died in 1976 and took the whole truth about what really happened to her grave.
How the fugue manifests
Subconsciously separating from all his memories and experiences, a dissociative fugue is activated. Causes, symptoms, diagnosis are always of interest. In some cases, a person may leave work but never return home. Instead, the individual continues to move without a goal, retaining a partial consciousness responsible for his mechanical actions. In the end, he will find himself in an unfamiliar city far from home. He will have no idea who he is or what he is doing in this new city. Sometimes a person with fugue creates a new identity to compensate for memory loss. He can exist in this way for days to months or even years before the fugue dissipates, after which the memory is restored and he returns home.
Symptoms of the fugue condition
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Unplanned trips away from home alone.
- Inability to remember past events and experiences.
- Depersonalization or the feeling that a person is outside of their body.
- Inability to recall a person and details from one's life for days tomonths, in rare cases it can drag on for years.
What to do
Patients presenting with dissociative fugue should be under close medical supervision. The patient's medical history should be examined to rule out an organic cause for the illness (eg, epilepsy or other personality disorder). If no cause is found, a psychologist or other mental he alth professional will interview the patient and conduct psychological assessments. These assessments may include a dissociative experience, a structured clinical interview for disorders called dissociative fugue. Causes of development, symptoms of the disease can manifest themselves with the use and abuse of certain drugs and illegal drugs. For example, patients with alcohol addiction are often in a state of "out" while doing some kind of action, and sometimes make unplanned trips, a vivid example of such a dissociative fugue is the film "Enjoy Your Bath".
Dissociative fugue: symptoms of the disease, prevention
It's not easy to explain the cause of the fugue condition, but people who suffer from the disorder usually have had some major trauma or stress in their lives. War veterans or people who have suffered terrible violence, experienced disaster scenarios, may be more prone to these symptoms. Some psychologists believe that fugue sufferers may have unresolved conflict in their lives that can be added toprobability of anomalous dissociation. It is possible that drug abuse may contribute to the development of this disease.
How common is the disease
Dissociative fugue is relatively rare, with a prevalence rate of 0.2% in the general population. The length of a fugue episode is thought to be related to the severity of the stress or trauma that caused it. In most cases, this manifests itself as single episodes without recurrence. In some cases, the person will not remember the events that happened during the fugue state. In other situations, the amnesia associated with the traumatic event that initiated the fugue may persist to some extent after the episode has ended. Prevention of this disorder can be a conversation with a therapist after a tragic episode of life, good family support and close trusting relationships with friends. If there is no way out for traumatic thoughts, the brain blocks the memory for protection and amnesia ensues.
Psychology according to Freud
Freud suggests that psychogenic amnesia is an act of self-preservation, where the alternative could be traumatic anxiety or even suicide. Unpleasant, unwanted, or psychologically dangerous memories are blocked from entering consciousness. Neurologically normal autobiographical memory processing is blocked by an imbalance of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoids in the brain, especially in regions of the limbic system involved in memory formation.
Such repressed memories can be restoredspontaneously by a particular smell, taste, or other identifier, years or decades after the event. Because it is related to psychological rather than physiological causes of psychogenic amnesia.
Dissociative fugue: symptoms, treatment
Treatment of dissociative fugue should focus on helping the patient and coming to terms with the traumatic event or stress that caused the disorder. This can be achieved through various types of interactive therapies that explore the trauma, and work must be done to create coping mechanisms for the patient to prevent further recurrence. Some therapists use cognitive therapy, which focuses on changing inappropriate thought patterns. It is based on the principle that inappropriate behavior, in this case a fugue episode, is initiated by inappropriate or irrational thinking. The cognitive therapist will attempt to change these thought patterns (also known as cognitive biases) by examining the reasonableness and validity of the assumptions behind them with the patient.
Medication may be a useful adjunct to manage some of the symptoms a patient may experience in relation to dissociative episodes. In some cases, some antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications may be prescribed.
Treatment with Therapy
Creative therapies (art therapy,music therapy) allow patients to express and channel thoughts and emotions into "safe" channels. They empower the patient by encouraging self-knowledge and a sense of control.
Group therapy - A therapist or counselor can be helpful in supporting the patient on an ongoing basis. It also provides the patient with opportunities to gain self-confidence and interact with colleagues in a positive manner.
Family therapy can be part of a treatment regimen, both in investigating the trauma that caused the fugue episode and in highlighting the illness to the rest of the family.
