According to this website on dissociation which is in my signature, the definitive boundary line between DID and other dissociative conditions and OSDD is "true amnesia"...missing time.

My take off is...

Dissociative amnesia is where you don't remember the traumatic event...it's blocked from your conscience.

With DID, you like have missing time, holes in your timeline, regardless which alter you are at the moment.

It's like, it was Monday, now it's Wednesday. It was 2009, now it's 2013.

It's not like losing your keys, or more you came too and find that you are at work 4 hours later, or talking to someone and realizing that you just got there...

What you did this morning and yesterday is like...I don't know, I wasn't there.

You only remember a few hours yesterday, depending on who is up front.

Oh, I love this one..."what's your birth date...ummmm, hang on...[I'll be right back...come on guys]..."

I hope this helps someone from an affected individual get some sense of definition.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2

According to this website on dissociation which is in my signature, the definitive boundary line between DID and other dissociative conditions and OSDD is "true amnesia"...missing time.

I'm no pro, just affected. My take off is...

Dissociative amnesia is where you don't remember the traumatic event...it's blocked from your conscience.

With DID, you like have missing time, holes in your timeline, regardless which alter you are at the moment.

It's like, it was Monday, now it's Wednesday. It was 2009, now it's 2013.

It's not like losing your keys, or more you came too and find that you are at work 4 hours later, or talking to someone and realizing that you just got there...

What you did this morning and yesterday is like...I don't know, I wasn't there.

You only remember a few hours yesterday, depending on who is up front.

I hope this helps someone from a non-expert, just an affected individual.

here in the USA the definition of Amnesia is loss of memory, not loss of time. here loss of time can mean all kinds of things like not paying attention to the time when doing something, I know many people who lose time and they do not have any mental disorders.

here loss of time is when someone has a chunk of time (minutes, hours days weeks months that pass ) that can not be accounted for or a chunk of time in which they did not do their job.

example a friend and I were talking on the phone and before we knew it we had been on the phone for half an hour. it didnt seem like a half hour but the clock said a half hour had passed while we were talking.

another example of time loss. last winter when i became ill I lost time with my job, meaning I did not work for a few days while I was ill.

here in my location amnesia is anything that a person can not remember due to physical or emotional reasons...

example while camping one time I got hit in the head. i ended up with a concussion, for a couple hours I could not remember anything,

another example when a friend of mine was in an accident they had amnesia from getting knocked unconscious.

another example many sports figures end up with head related injuries and amnesia from the sports injuries.

in my location the definition of the word true is anything that is not faked. the only way amnesia and dissociative amnesia is not true is if the person is faking they have the physical injury or faking they have a mental disorder which they dont have.

example not too long ago CNN did some reports on a woman that had scammed people out of money by faking she had cancer. it was not true that she had cancer..

my location the difference between Amnesia and dissociative amnesia is that Amnesia is caused by physical means (a brain injury or getting hit in the head), whereas dissociative amnesia is caused by mental means (stress, trauma caused the person to mentally block out the memory of that stressful or traumatic event through the use of dissociation.)

some people with dissociative amnesia only block out one event which lasts only a matter of minutes....example my wife has dissociative amnesia surrounding choking on a meat bone. her family tells the story and she has no memory of those few minutes it took for her parents to dislodge that bone. it was only a matter of a few minutes but to her it was so traumatizing that she does not remember it.

here in my location with DID...the person doing the dissociating doesnt have that memory but the alter that takes over to handle that event does...

example I did not remember getting lost in the mine shaft (I dissociated) and another alter took over. since the alter was the one in control that alter had the memory of getting lost in the mine shaft. after my alters all integrated with me I had that memory back again.

Originally Posted by amandalouise

here in the USA the definition of Amnesia is loss of memory, not loss of time. here loss of time can mean all kinds of things like not paying attention to the time when doing something, I know many people who lose time and they do not have any mental disorders.

here loss of time is when someone has a chunk of time (minutes, hours days weeks months that pass ) that can not be accounted for or a chunk of time in which they did not do their job.

example a friend and I were talking on the phone and before we knew it we had been on the phone for half an hour. it didnt seem like a half hour but the clock said a half hour had passed while we were talking.

another example of time loss. last winter when i became ill I lost time with my job, meaning I did not work for a few days while I was ill.

here in my location amnesia is anything that a person can not remember due to physical or emotional reasons...

example while camping one time I got hit in the head. i ended up with a concussion, for a couple hours I could not remember anything,

another example when a friend of mine was in an accident they had amnesia from getting knocked unconscious.

another example many sports figures end up with head related injuries and amnesia from the sports injuries.

in my location the definition of the word true is anything that is not faked. the only way amnesia and dissociative amnesia is not true is if the person is faking they have the physical injury or faking they have a mental disorder which they dont have.

example not too long ago CNN did some reports on a woman that had scammed people out of money by faking she had cancer. it was not true that she had cancer..

my location the difference between Amnesia and dissociative amnesia is that Amnesia is caused by physical means (a brain injury or getting hit in the head), whereas dissociative amnesia is caused by mental means (stress, trauma caused the person to mentally block out the memory of that stressful or traumatic event through the use of dissociation.)

some people with dissociative amnesia only block out one event which lasts only a matter of minutes....example my wife has dissociative amnesia surrounding choking on a meat bone. her family tells the story and she has no memory of those few minutes it took for her parents to dislodge that bone. it was only a matter of a few minutes but to her it was so traumatizing that she does not remember it.

here in my location with DID...the person doing the dissociating doesnt have that memory but the alter that takes over to handle that event does...

example I did not remember getting lost in the mine shaft (I dissociated) and another alter took over. since the alter was the one in control that alter had the memory of getting lost in the mine shaft. after my alters all integrated with me I had that memory back again.

Thanks for being here. There is so many versions out there that the waters get a little murky. Words and terminologies get rearranged or some kind of twist is introduced.

Others have different ways of voicing the samething.

Of course, I do mean loss or no memory which does equate to missing time. All I know is, time flies!

[finding_my_way]

i have experienced both, not necessarily consistent every single day though.

for me, i have forgotten memories, things i 'feel' yet have no memory for, beginnings and ends with no in between of the actual trauma, things i was told i was witness to with zero memory (years after i was told repeatedly my childhood wasn't 'that' bad but was finally admitted to by my mother).

i also have chunks of time that are 'missing.' i have never done well with timelines because i do not know what year things happened or always even what age i was. i look at pictures and can't base timelines that well (maybe because my hairstyle changed so much lol)....but have lost several years combined due to the chunks of time i have lost...but i also have just blurry chunks of time lost.....well, eventually i guess it ends up being completely lost....i tend to remember a tiny bit while dissociated and then once the dissociation lessens (depending on how severe it is and what type), it becomes fuzzy for me but then days or weeks later, i am not able to remember it.

can you have missing time without actually switching to an alter? because for me, i don't think i have ever had one fully take over, at least not very often. i've always been blended with one or a few but haven't always known it either (easier to figure out as i've gotten older though, just not which one anymore).

i have the 'normal' type too with time passing while watching tv. being tired can cause that type for me.

i have justified the above not 'normal' time loss just because nothing odd or unusual ever occurs, so i tend to think it doesn't mean the same or matter as much or something.......i also don't do things in my life, so it doesn't affect me except going through it and the after effects mentally and physically of it. it takes a real toll on my body/mind, etc. and can be incredibly distressing for me.

i lost two or three straight months due to severe grief and dissociation early this year. that was really scary. i can understand why it happened, to be protected, but i'm not sure i ever lost that much time before....it tended to generally be here and there for a few hours a day or sometimes a few days at a time up to a few weeks of fuzzy headedness.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by finding_my_way

can you have missing time without actually switching to an alter?

yes missing time can happen under many different situations with many different normal, mental and physical problems too...

you ever here the saying ...sorry I didnt get back to you sooner I lost track of time.... thats what it means the person was so busy with their life that they dont always keep track of every single detail of their life and dont always keep track of the time.

I no longer have alters and sometimes I come home from work and my wife says how was your day and I say good, cant tell you half of what went on because I have no idea but it was a good day.

my wife went out of town for a few days and when she came back the only thing she could remember was the hotel had a great menu and it was a great class reunion. but more details than that it was all fuzzy, run in together and a bunch of i really dont remember...

Another example rape survivors usually dont remember all the details. they may remember the abusers face or hands and not remember anything else...

the brain is an amazing thing it only keeps what happens to be important to us at the moment that something is going on. each person has their own ways that they remember things. and in most cases there are normally gaps in a persons memory where they have spaces of time in which are not accountable for.

[finding_my_way]

Originally Posted by amandalouise

yes missing time can happen under many different situations with many different normal, mental and physical problems too...

you ever here the saying ...sorry I didnt get back to you sooner I lost track of time.... thats what it means the person was so busy with their life that they dont always keep track of every single detail of their life and dont always keep track of the time.

I no longer have alters and sometimes I come home from work and my wife says how was your day and I say good, cant tell you half of what went on because I have no idea but it was a good day.

my wife went out of town for a few days and when she came back the only thing she could remember was the hotel had a great menu and it was a great class reunion. but more details than that it was all fuzzy, run in together and a bunch of i really dont remember...

Another example rape survivors usually dont remember all the details. they may remember the abusers face or hands and not remember anything else...

the brain is an amazing thing it only keeps what happens to be important to us at the moment that something is going on. each person has their own ways that they remember things. and in most cases there are normally gaps in a persons memory where they have spaces of time in which are not accountable for.

the reason i asked is because sometimes how some of my dissociation goes, it throws me into this kind of in between state where i'm not in reality 100% yet not dissociated 100%...and it's like this odd limbo in between state where i cannot move, speak, etc. and is filled with a lot of fear. i don't know if that's also a type of flashback maybe. but it also is a type that leaves me with a fuzzy and then non existent memory a few days after. it's one of the types where i don't always feel blended with another part/fragment whatever it is but haven't figured out quite 'what' it is.

i have a few different types of dissociation, but by that i mean it can present in a lot of different ways....but all of it leaves me with the inability to fully remember what happened during it.

it is only difficult when i am dissociating and have things i have to get done because i am who is here pretty much all the time (used to not be as present years ago)...and it makes it hard to get through that quicksand feeling and get done what needs to get done....and there just is no time for that...not like i have a choice though because it often happens so fast, and i can never stop it.