#amnesia and confabulation

[airas-story]

The Confabulation Complication

“It’s called confabulation,” Stephen said, not quite looking in Tony’s direction. It was… disconcerting. Confusing.

Tony hummed, trying not to let his frustration with the situation show. “Sounds like a party.”

Pepper let out a pained noise. “Tony.”

Tony winced a little, because Pepper had been crying almost since the moment he’d woken up. He didn’t like it when Pepper cried, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to fix this.

Especially when… when he wasn’t actually sure what was wrong.

“It is the creation of false memories,” Stephen continued, still not looking at Tony. “As compensation for the loss of real memories.”

Tony froze, because… because confused by the situation or not, he was smart enough to put together the pieces. He stared at Stephen for a long moment before glancing at Pepper.

Stephen looked painfully awkward, Pepper looked devastated. “So,” Tony started slowly, looking back at Stephen. “When I asked for my kiss and you looked like I was talking gibberish, it wasn’t because you were sticking to the ‘No making out while in the hospital’ rule and it’s because you and I… don’t kiss.”

“We are not together, no,” Stephen agreed. Was he… was he even Stephen? Did Tony… Did Tony actually know him at all? So many of his memories didn’t match what Stephen was telling him.

He looked away. “And Pepper?”

Pepper’s smile was tremulous. “We do kiss,” she said.

Everything felt surreal. “I… I thought…” He tried to search his memories, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. He remembered kissing her, but that was… a long time ago. “You broke up with me.” He knew that.

Didn’t he?

“We got back together,” Pepper explained. “Both times.”

Both times. He only remembered her breaking up with him once.

Tony… Tony didn’t know how to deal with any of this. “We’re together,” he said, trying to wrap his mind around it. He glanced at Stephen. “And we’re not.”

“Never have been,” Stephen said, he still wasn’t looking at Tony.

It… hurt.

Conceptually he knew it shouldn’t. Because he and Stephen… they weren’t a thing, apparently. But Tony was having a hard time making himself believe it. The memories were stark and visceral. Laughing with Stephen, kissing Stephen, curled together on the couch with Stephen doing their separate work.

“What are you even doing here, then?” Tony asked, feeling suddenly defensive. “You’re not still a practicing doctor, and I’m pretty sure there was no magic in that fight.” He wasn’t certain of that, because the memory of the fight was confused and messy. 

That was probably something he should let someone know. Especially since he was, apparently, having memory issues of a different kind. He kept his mouth shut.

Stephen sighed. “You told me you had trust issues and asked if I would be involved in any future medical emergencies so much as I could be. You said that as far as doctors went, I ‘wasn’t bad’.”

“I…” He swallowed, tried to make sense of everything, but he couldn’t. “I’m checking myself out,” he said.  They were in the compound—right? Was he actually sure about that?—it should be easy to get out of here.

He couldn’t deal with this.

“Tony, you should—“ Pepper started.

“Against medical advice if necessary,” Tony said. “I don’t want to be here.”

He wanted to be somewhere safe. Wanted to be in his lab where he could start trying to piece together the truth.

“Tony.” Stephen’s voice was gentle; Tony flinched. “There are tests that that the doctors should run.”

Instinct told Tony to give in, because this was Stephen. Tony always gave into Stephen when he used that sort of voice; Tony had made too many jokes about being weak for Stephen’s pretty eyes.

But apparently those memories didn’t actually mean anything, because they weren’t real. Tony had never made those jokes. It would be incredibly inappropriate to start now. He shook his head, ignoring the pulsing ache that came with the movement. “I’m not exactly dying right now. Any tests you take will only tell you things that you apparently already know. I want out.”

“We don’t know how bad the damage is,” Stephen said.

Tony ran a hand over his face. “Well, if I die from unexpected complications, you can both say ‘I told you so’, but frankly—“

“Tony.” Pepper sounded distressed. “Don’t say that.”

“I don’t want to be here,” Tony repeated. “I… I need to be alone. I need to figure this out.” He ignored both Pepper’s and Stephen’s protests as he got himself unattached from the hospital bed.

They gave in.

Mostly because Tony didn’t give them a choice.

Stephen eventually disappeared in a portal—Tony’s instincts said to go with him, but those instincts were wrong—while Tony fled from the compound med wing he’d been trapped in.

The lab was gapingly empty when he reached it. It was a relief in some ways, in other ways it felt wrong. His body ached—he didn’t even fully remember what had happened to get him into the hospital wing, the fight blurred, especially near the end—and his head hurt.

“FRIDAY?” he asked.

“Yes, Boss?” she asked, her voice was careful and tempered, as though she knew he was vulnerable.

“Is it true?” he asked. “The whole… confabulation thing Stephen was talking about?”

“Yes, Boss.”

Tony swallowed hard. “So, I’m not in love with Stephen.”

“You and Doctor Strange are friends, boss.”

Friends. Friends. Right.

“And me and Pepper?”

“The two of you are engaged.”

Engaged. Engaged. Tony was engaged. To Pepper. He didn’t remember that. He remembered her breaking up with him. He remembered her telling him that he was just… too much for her. That she just needed him to stop. That had happened, right?

Tony had never been able to stop. Had she changed her mind or was this just another attempt at something that was doomed to fail?

Or was the break up he remembered even true? Tony thought he knew why she had broken up with him. But what if that was a lie too?

He struggled to breathe for a moment.  Everything was messed up.

He wasn’t in love with the person he thought he was in love with; no, he was in love with someone he remembered moving on from.

He wasn’t in love with Stephen. That was just his brain lying to him.

He was in love with Pepper. 

Pepper, who he could only remember hearing say he wasn’t enough and was too much and… and that they weren’t right for each other. But he wasn’t sure if that was even true. She had agreed they’d broken up, but maybe he was remembering wrong the reasons why. Because he was engaged. So he couldn’t have been too much and not enough and not right for her.

Right?

Tony didn’t know.

Because he didn’t know which memories were real and which memories were false. 

He just knew that everything was wrong.

And now… now what was he supposed to do?

[esamastation]

Part fifty-nine of Shizuroth, aka, the SOLDIER General's Self Saving Shizun.

Ao3 link.

Previous parts: fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-fix, fifty-seven, fifty-eight

-

By the end of the day Tseng has been left with answers, questions and a whole lot of sections unfelined in his original assessment to be removed as no longer applicable. Sephiroth… neither behaves nor reacts as expected, that much is clear. But that's not the most concerning thing, at all.

Sephiroth's Energy Alignment is. His cultivation is a concern. As is the fact that the man is absolutely certain that it can be taught to anyone.

There is a number of theories about what is happening to Sephiroth. Professor Hojo has one theory, the Science Department as a whole has another. Tseng himself had added a few more theories to the list, which have now been proven wrong.

Sephiroth's cultivation isn't Wutai in origin. It's similar in nature, self-improvement and self-betterment, the cultivation of your self in order to advance in your abilities is certainly part of it. But what Sephiroth is doing is taking all that to a metaphysical - or perhaps magiphysical - level. He is quite literally cultivating the energies inside himself, honing them in manner unheard of, into something no one has ever theorised.

And Tseng can't deny that it does indeed seem like it might be an Ancient doctrine. Sephiroth can already perform magical feats without Materia - and according to the man himself, he's still in the beginner stages.

"What will happen once your cultivation is complete?" Tseng can't help but ask, after the day's training and meditation is over and they're making dinner.

"I will ascend to the heavens as a new god," Sephiroth answers loftily and then laughs softly at the look Tseng gives him. "Cultivation is never complete. It doesn't have an end goal. It is a process and a journey - one you dedicate your whole life to."

"... During which you get more and more advanced in your abilities?" Tseng asks, setting aside the chopped vegetables.

During the day he's noted two things. One, Sephiroth reacts best to direct, unambiguous questions. Two, he can't resist a chance to explain. The man had also relaxed immediately when Tseng began asking those questions - and began imparting information with much greater ease.

Tseng had adjusted his approach accordingly.

"Isn't that the goal of everyone who is in progress of learning anything, to get better?" Sephiroth asks and adds the washed rice into a pot, closing the lid. "Cultivation isn't exactly a sliding scale with set points of improvements, but yes, the more you practise, the better you get."

In other words, there's no such thing as being done with Sephiroth's new practice. If the man was given leeway, he'd stay here indefinitely, training and meditating. Hmm. 

Well, it's good to know that there's definitely a way to remove the man from the volatile equation that is Shinra. 

Tseng makes a mental note to procure a permanent and suitably secluded safehouse for Sephiroth, should the need arise, and then moves onto preparing the rest of the food.

Sephiroth watches him with that smug look of satisfaction he's had on for most of the day, and then asks, "Tell me, Tseng, what do they think of all of this back at Shinra?"

Tseng glances at him. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm curious," Sephiroth smiles. "I know they have theories. I would like to know what they're saying."

Tseng shakes his head. "So that you can adjust your behaviour accordingly?" he asks pointedly.

Sephiroth huffs. "No, of course not. I just think it would be funny, that's all."

Tseng gives him a look, not believing a word of it. "One of the theories is that you have a case of confabulation."

Sephiroth blinks and then frowns. "What does that mean?"

"You have amnesia, you've forgotten most of your life - but not all," Tseng explains. "You remember some things and are subconsciously leaning more into those things. They take more space in your awareness and have higher importance. Your brain, unbeknownst to you, fabricates memories and knowledge around those few things, giving you a false sense of expertise in matters you probably only perceived peripherally."

Sephiroth looks taken back. "Like what?" he asks, sounding stunned.

"Home decor, fashion, Wutai martial arts, monster knowledge - tea?" Tseng points to the Wutai tea set, Sephiroth's most prized possession here, after his sword. "What little you remember you cling onto and wrap yourself around, to make it seem like you have a past, likes, habits, and preferences."

Sephiroth blinks at that, his brows arching, and Tseng adds, "Though you drank tea before, it was without such ceremony. You've expanded a minor habit into a full on hobby."

"Huh," Sephiroth says, sounding fascinated now. He folds his arms, looking at Tseng in a new light. "You really think that?"

No, not really. Sephiroth's new habits aren't just self-deluding mind-fronting in the face of his amnesia. He's far too well practised and skilled in them. It's not just the tea drinking - everything new he's doing now he does with an unnerving amount of prior knowledge.

His new talent as a teacher is the most damning of it all. It's not just knowledge - it's both expertise and experience. Sephiroth teaches like a man who's been doing it for years, who's had hundreds of students, and who both enjoys what he's doing and is very good at it. It's a mix of qualities that only time and practice can give you.

"I don't know what's going on with you," Tseng admits. "But I know it's not something you got from a simple Mako injection."

Thought he still isn't sure he'd call it necessarily Ancient knowledge. He's seen the things Aerith does without thinking, without effort, as natural as breathing. What Sephiroth is doing definitely takes effort.

Tseng still can't quite reconcile them as somehow being the same, with how fundamentally different they are. Though after today…

He's not so sure anymore.

Sephiroth hums, his expression going serious as he looks away. Then he shakes his head and offers, cheekily, "Tea, while we wait for the rice to cook?"

Tseng hums and joins him at the tea table, tugging at the knees of his trousers to keep them from stretching as he sits down. Sephiroth makes tea like an old Wutai master, pouring the first steep away and then pouring for them both. 

The tea is, of course, perfectly prepared.

For a moment they're quiet, listening to the fire crackling in the stove and how the rice pot start to bubble.

"Are they really trying to recreate what happened?" Sephiroth then asks quietly, somewhat guiltily. "With someone else?"

Tseng considers his mood and then answers honestly. "Yes. With several others. Almost the entirety of the SOLDIER program has been tested for viability, though very few suit Professor Hojo's criteria."

Sephiroth's full bottom lip draws into a line. "How many are…?" he can't seem to bring himself to finish the question.

Tseng fishes out his PHS and pulls up the report. "There have been four casualties - SOLDIER Second Class Laxey Jansen, and SOLDIER cadets Mick Rowley, Dient Wreck, Justus Owley, and Gus Fusel," he lists, watching Sephiroth's reaction closely as the man's face tightens with discomfort. Tseng continues, "There have been a number of candidates in and out of coma, too many to list. And there's one case of brain death, cadet Cloud Strife."

The teacup in Sephiroth's hand shatters to a thousand pieces.

-

>:3c

[creature-wizard]

So is realizing you were sexually abused as a child as an adult always false memories? Because I’ve been deciding if I should try to find a therapist about this if I ever get insurance and it’s like: 1: I don’t remember a Big Event, but a bunch of smaller, weirder things (being forced to undress around relatives, being watched shower that kinda thing) that seem to gesture to ‘probably got molested’, 2: I can’t create a Narritive of it, I only have flashes and a vague idea of when it probably started, 3: I had a terrible head injury at age 11 that was left untreated bc my parents refused medical care (long story, not a religious thing) & i don’t actually remember a lot from before age 10, what I do is consistent with those flashes, but 4: when you look at csa warning signs my child self had All Of Them.

I know false memories are a thing, I understand the science there. But I really don’t have the mental fortitude to be called a liar by another mental health professional. Spent a lot of high school begging the school psych to send child services to my mom’s house at least for my siblings sake and got told I should just be a better daughter. My sister’s a therapist & is always joking about how her clients ‘make up rape stories.’

So like: in your research did you ever come across adults realizing they were sexually abused that seemed legit or is it all cults and scams? Because I do think the trauma or whatever is negatively impacting my life and a big chunk of my mental illnesses but also. If I made it up I don’t want to be branded a ‘liar about their lovely father’

I think you’re doing important work, and please don’t feel obligated to answer this.

Oh gosh no, I wouldn't say that it's always false memories. It's always possible to have memories that you can't quite access because the neural pathways to them have become weak, and have something kinda jostle them later. I've experience this kind of thing myself on occasion (the memories didn't involve abuse, btw). It's just that when you go trying to force memory recall (such as through hypnosis), it's very easy to start confabulating, and exposing yourself to conspiratorial content can give your mind stuff that can get mixed in with memories of very real abuse and ultimately muddle what actually happened.

IMO, you shouldn't necessarily need to create a Narrative around these? It should be fine to just write them down and bring them up with a therapist, and tell your therapist what you suspect. It probably wouldn't hurt to bring up your sister's behavior, either. No good therapist is going to accuse you of lying (and your sister really should have her therapy license revoked).

Editing to add/clarify that dissociative amnesia is also a real thing! So like, yeah, it's entirely possible for someone have memories of trauma that their brain can't fully access because they were dissociating.

[sysmedsaresexist]

News Flash ⚡️

Formation and Functions of Alter Personalities in Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Theoretical and Clinical Elaboration

Ozturk, Sar 2016

This is a super interesting article, especially this part about manifestation of symptoms.

Sar and Ozturk propose that the clinical syndrome of dissociative disorder becomes manifest after the “traumatic turning point” which does not need to be the worst traumatic experience in the life of the subject. The postponed process may take start in any age; usually becoming clinically manifest in early twenties of age.

The article is from 2016, and I've talked extensively about discovery around early twenties. I very much expect to see this age slowly become younger and younger as internet-savvy systems enter the clinical population. The internet made it so much easier to see the symptoms in yourself, so people are recognizing the signs at a younger age.

More interesting tidbits:

Each alter personality has independent and different judgements about these internal and external processes because an alter personality is associated with a particular group of perceptions of the individual about oneself that was experienced in the context of a limited aspect of reality. Each alter personality recognizes its own existence and the traumatic experiences in a “single-minded way” rather than utilizing self-reflection.

#mood 😞

I don't fully agree with everything in the article. There's a lot of hard wording about how alters must work that don't feel like they fully apply to us, but maybe it did when we were younger, or maybe, as above, I suck at self reflection. It doesn't explicitly state so, but this article appears to be about those with heavy and severe amnesia, in the very early stages of discovery and treatment.

I do like the way they suggest categorizing alters.

Several authors have described alter personality types: Child, persecutor, helper, opposite gender, memory trace, and suicidal alter personalities are among them. In our view, a classification of alter personality types should take into account their functions rather than its mere appearance. One classification may be based on their relationship with narratives: Normalizing, exaggerating, sociological, memory type, confabulating, etc. A second way of classification takes into account the relationship between alter personalityand the“sociological self” which is defined as the aspect of the individual devoted to adjustment to the social environment and to protecting one’s psychological self (i.e. one’s unique aspects): Claiming, polarizing, competing, abusing, distorting, cruel etc.

[theredpharaoah]

Why Sue And Elisabeth Don’t Seem To Remember What The Other Has Done:

Note: In a post yesterday I said that Lizzy(the consciousness of Sue and Elisabeth) has performed confabulation. I pointed out then that I only used “confabulation” because I was blanking on the actual term.

Between the audition and Sue meeting Harvey, Lizzy(the consciousness) has artificially split her consciousness. How she does this - it seems to me - is through dissociative amnesia. I believe that Lizzy can’t make sense of the difference in treatment she experiences as Elisabeth and Sue. So in order to make sense of it, she has to conceptualize them as two different people. She then associates Elisabeth with all of her “bad” traits and Sue with all of her “good” traits. She lives for the love and adoration of society, and so it’s easier/more comfortable for her to believe that something is wrong with her, than to believe that something is wrong with society. Because if it’s the latter then she’s gonna experience ontological shock, and probably nihilistic dread. Lizzy lives her entire life for the sake of other people. She has no family, no friends; nothing. Learning her reason for living is fake or could be poisonous would be devastating for her(though what she does instead isn’t any better).

This is why they don’t consciously remember what the other one was doing. However we can see that they do have unconscious knowledge of what the other was doing; the organs falling out the back of the catsuit before Elisabeth wakes up, and Sue pulling the chicken wing out of her belly button before she wakes up. The unconscious in psychoanalytic theory and I believe in contemporary psychological theory as well, communicates mostly through metaphor; signs, symbols, and dreams. This is why it’s not being outright stated or remembered what the other is doing. This dissociative amnesia is psychogenic. It’s not an effect of The Substance, she’s doing it to herself.

[tuesdayscanons]

Okay, I poured far too much time into researching amnesia (because if I'm gonna do this, I'm going to try to have some accuracy, goddammit) and holy moly is this more complicated than I expected it to be.

I think I found a believable source of confabulation (false memories) that could theoretically cause the symptoms I'm going for, but it's not a "recover completely out of nowhere" sort of deal. Only 20% of cases are reversible and recovery can be slow/incomplete.

...meaning PB would have to keep up the charade for months, if not years.

Pretty large hole to dig oneself in.

I probably won't go with this because having Bojack drink himself into believing PB is his husband, possibly forever, feels like a bit...much.

Just know it's a possibility.

[osddid-i-do-that]

It’s always valid for you to feel your feelings. You can’t control what feelings you have or how intensely they hit.

However, this does not mean that:

They are always proportionate to the reality of the situation

that any way you express them to others will (or even MUST) be taken well

or that other people must do things in a way that avoids you feeling like that

Feelings can be a result of previous trauma, reality distortion/alteration (memory issues, amnesia, confabulation, delusions…), RSD (or any other condition that makes you more sensitive than the average person), being in a difficult emotional state, difficulty reading or conveying tone/body language, or a regular misunderstanding.

Do:

Respect your feelings!

Acknowledge your feelings!

Investigate and talk through your feelings with someone you trust! (Venting is healthy!)

Don’t immediately treat your feelings as an absolute metric for every situation!

[videtur-existentia]

As I said before, AI at best is a pathological human brain with amnesia.

Google AI Overview

Yes, some universities have a tradition of including a "snake fight" portion in thesis defenses, where students fight one of the university's snakes. The quality of the student's thesis determines the size of the snake they must fight, with better theses resulting in smaller snakes. After the committee reads the thesis, they tell the snake master how good it is, who then chooses the snake. In some northern European countries, an external examiner called the "opponent" fights the snake on the student's behalf, with the opponent's skill level based on the thesis's quality.

[airas-story]

I'm a sucker for angst ironstrange especially amnesia!Tony (and usually happy ending at the end) please make more lol <333

So this is a continuation of the Confabulation Complication. There will probably be either three or four parts depending on the route I take. We have not yet gotten out of the angst.

“Boss?” FRIDAY interrupted. “Miss Potts is requesting access.”

Tony glanced at the wall of windows. They were blacked out and he couldn’t see Pepper, but that meant that Pepper couldn’t see him either. “Tell her I’m busy.” And he was. He’d had FRIDAY gather all of the pertinent footage of the past five years and was skimming through it.

There was a possibility that he’d lost and confused memories from before then, but Tony could handle that later.

Things that had happened in the tower or the compound were easiest to find, followed by things that had happened while he was in his armor.

But there were far too many things that hadn’t happened in either of those situations. He was irritated to realize that he’d spent more time with Stephen—Strange? Tony wasn’t sure—in his sanctum than in Tony’s space. He had almost no data points to tell him how to react to Stephen.

Then again, Tony could just avoid being around Stephen. He could completely skip out on that particular complication.

He could just avoid everyone for that matter, because he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be around most of them.

Some things he remembered weren’t too far off. He remembered JARVIS dying, he remembered Ultron. He very much did not remember Thor picking him up off the ground by his neck or Steve throwing his shield at Tony’s chest and sort of wished he didn’t know about either incident now.

“Boss,” FRIDAY said. “You’ve been in here for three days. Miss Potts is getting worried.”

“Tell her I’m fine. Just getting caught up on my past history.”

He’d watched the break up with Pepper first. The first one. It had been… well, it had been almost exactly as he remembered it. It left a sick feeling in his chest and he’d had FRIDAY give him a presentation of their relationship in the time since.

He’d analyzed the footage desperately. They were good together, right? Not perfect, but that was an entirely unrealistic expectation. But good. He glanced to the side where he’d saved the video of Pepper pulling him into his arms in the aftermath of Ultron and JARVIS. The compassion and love on her face was real and his own expression when he looked at her was somewhere between desperate love and aching need.

That was real.

He didn’t remember it, but it was real. It was good.

“Miss Potts suggested that you may have better luck talking it out with her.”

Tony shook his head immediately. He wasn’t ready to face her. She didn’t deserve to have to deal with a fiancé who didn’t even remember loving her. That was why he was doing this, so he could find the pieces of history that would show him how to love her again.

Or at least how to pretend until it was true.

Because it’d be true again, right? He’d fallen in love with her before, surely he’d fall in love with her again?

He had to. Because this was Pepper.

“Tell her I’ll see her soon,” he said.

He could tell FRIDAY didn’t like the answer, but he had no doubt that she passed it on.

He turned back to the footage of the past he only remembered distorted pieces of.

A spark of light to his left interrupted his scanning and Tony looked over to see a portal opening a few feet away.

Tony froze. The sight of a portal opening into his lab was familiar and the way his stomach flipped with pleasure was entirely instinctual. The nausea that followed was a more appropriate response. He very much did not want to deal with seeing Stephen. He couldn’t bring himself to react though as the portal opened and Stephen stepped through.

Tony’s averted his gaze immediately. He couldn’t look at Stephen. It’d just confuse him.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asked.

“Miss Potts called me,” Stephen said. “She asked me to come convince you out of your lab.”

Tony swallowed hard. Pepper played dirty. “Well, you tried. You failed, but you tried. You should probably head back out, now. Tell Pep I’ll be out once I’ve figured out—”

“You’re not going to get your memories back watching footage,” Stephen interrupted. “That’s not how it works.”

Tony clenched his jaw. “I’m not trying to get my memories back.” Not really, at least. His quick dive into confabulation had already told him it wouldn’t be that easy. Sure, he hoped it would spark something, bring back the memories that would make everything make sense again—not that he’d gotten lucky, yet. No, he wasn’t trying to get his memories back, but he could train himself off of the footage, could at least pretend to be the person people expected.

He’d always been good at that.

And hey, fake it til you make it. Tony’d always been good at that too.

It didn’t help much with Stephen, who Tony had abominably little footage of. From the corner of his eye he saw Stephen shift, moving closer.

Tony stiffened. 

“Tony, I know that you’re confused—”

“You don’t know anything, actually,” Tony retorted. “I’m fine. Give me a week and no one will be able to tell the difference.”

Stephen didn’t answer immediately; the silence was strangely alarming. “What is that supposed to mean, Tony?”

Tony waved at the footage. “I’m relearning what people expect to see. It won’t be—”

“Tony,” Stephen sounded vaguely horrified. “That’s not in any way healthy. Pretending to be someone you’re not—”

“Is what I’ve done most of my life,” Tony said shortly. “I know how to mask, Stephen. Now, you’ve tried your best, but I’m not in the mood to be convinced out of here.”

Stephen let out a tired sigh. “Tony. You’ve been in here three days. Your fiancé—” Tony flinched, ”—is worried about you. I, as your friend—“ Tony flinched again, “—am worried about you.”

“Yeah, well take your worry somewhere else. Like I said, a week, and then—”

“And are you going to do that with me?” Stephen demanded. “Is that all I’m going to get from you from now on? The person you think I expect to see?”

Tony whirled to face Stephen, frustration spiraling out. “What else am I supposed to do, Stephen? I don’t… I don’t even know if I really know you. The you I remember… The you I remember loved me.” God, why did everything have to go so wrong? “The you I remember would have kissed me in that hospital room, self-imposed rules about kissing be damned. The you I remember would…” He swallowed. “I don’t know if I even know you, yet. I remember kissing you. I remember teasing you whenever I managed to make you blush. I remember curling up with you in the sanctum and just… enjoying each other’s presence as though we didn’t need anything from each other but each other. And that’s all a… that’s all a lie. I don’t… I don’t know you.”

And it hurt. It hurt that Tony had versions of a life that didn’t exist inside his head. It hurt that he wanted it so much when he knew he wasn’t supposed to. It hurt to know that there was no chance he’d ever have that.

“You know me, Tony,” Stephen said quietly. “We may not have kissed, but you certainly teased me plenty. You’ve spent hours working in the sanctum, just spending time with me. You’ve—”

“Stop,” Tony demanded. “Stop. I don’t know you. I’m not sure I want to know you.” 

Stephen flinched back, hurt crossing his face. “I’m your friend, Tony.”

Tony ran a hand through his hair, the rough gesture tugging at snarls that probably needed to be brushed out. “You don’t get it, Stephen. I’m in love with you. But it’s all a lie.”

Everything was.

[creature-wizard]

Heya! I noticed RAMCOA believers post about how "implanting false memories have been disproven" and how implanting flase memories was spread around by some False Memory Org.

I was wondering about your take on that.

So basically, after people started getting suspicious of all of these "memories" people were coming out with, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was founded to try and investigate whether memories could be confabulated.

That, of course, made the conspiracy theorists Big Mad. In the literature I've been reading, they've been claiming that the FMSF was actually created by the Illuminati and practice Satanic rituals and everything. They claimed that DID gave you photographic memory, and claimed that repressed memories couldn't degrade because they'd been "locked up." Literally, here's Fritz Springmeier's words from Deeper Insights Into The Illuminati Formula:

Further, traumas that are so severe as to cause amnesia walls, are locked up by the mind and preserved. They are like a mummy in a tomb in Egypt, that is still locked up in its preserved state. Memories that aren’t locked up can deteriate and be contaminated, just like a dead body that is left to rot, but programming traumas are not in that category of memory.

This, of course, is total bullshit. But it's honestly not surprising to hear from the guy who claims autism is caused by failed alter programming, phrenology is real, Down's syndrome can be cured with craniosacral therapy, and babies can learn to read at six months old by listening to subliminal tapes.

Now like, I've heard that some of the people involved in the FMSF were not good people, and may have been trying to cover up some shit. But I haven't looked into that very deeply, because we don't need to take the False Memory Syndrome Foundation at their word to know it's possible to cultivate false memories in people, if only accidentally. We only need to take a look at the New Age starseed movement, which in many ways works very much the same as the RAMCOA/alter programming community.

People who get into the starseed movement encounter literature that tells them how to figure out if they're a starseed or not, and the bulk of it is a list of vague and nonspecific symptoms that could be explained by many things, especially ADHD, autism, and general trauma from living in This Society. Then they learn how to discover their past lives as starseeds, which includes hypnosis. People discover their "past life" memories, which are frequently extremely vivid and emotionally-charged - and we know they simply cannot reflect real events, because New Age mythology is made out of pseudohistory, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. I wrote a couple of posts on confabulated memories among starseeds here:

Hypnosis is unreliable for memory recovery, and this is one way we know

False past life memories among the starseed movement

So not only has it not been disproven, but we can very easily observe it for ourselves in the New Age starseed movement.

(I also personally prefer to refer to it as "confabulated memory cultivation," since "false memory syndrome" is a needlessly pathological term.)

[loveandknowledge]

A Matter of Identity

“Our efforts to ‘re-connect’ William [a patient who bridges his abysses of amnesia by fluent fictions of all kinds] all fail - even increase his confabulatory pressure. But when we abdicate our efforts, and let him be, he sometimes wanders out into the quiet and undemanding garden which surrounds the Home, and there, in his quietness, he recovers his own quiet. The presence of others, other people, excites and rattles him, forces him into an endless, frenzied, social chatter, a veritable delirium of identity-making and -seeking; the presence of plants, a quiet garden, the non-human order, making no social or human demands of him, allows this identity-delirium to relax, to subside; and by its quiet, non-human self-sufficiency and completeness allows him a rare quietness and self-sufficiency of his own, by offering (beneath, or beyond, all merely human identities and relations) a deep wordless communion with Nature itself, and with this the restored sense of being in the world, being real.”

- ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ by Oliver Sacks

[thebestestbat]

more ric grayson thoughts, sequel to this post. now i am thinking of what may have been a more realistic post-TBI ric.

in that post i said that these are the places i think there was damage to ric's brain:

right temporal lobe (point of impact, local injury)

left temporal lobe (as shown in a brain scan)

right frontal lobe (implied by ric mentioning loss of motor function)

he also fell backwards right after getting shot, and in the words of the one-shot campaign podcast, adults falling is bad. but i will assume that did not cause additional significant damage.

Disclaimer 1: there are other brain structures that if damaged could cause loss of motor function (not paralysis, but nonetheless resulting in difficulty walking). however i am going to assume ric was talking about spastic paralysis/paresis caused by damage to the motor cortex in the frontal lobe. sort of occam's razor there.

Disclaimer 2: TBIs cause diffuse damage, i.e. even though the point of impact was in one place, many different factors (fast head rotation, bleeding, brain coming into contact w the skull, etc etc) can cause widespread damage in many different places. i'm just going with these three(ish).

Disclaimer 3: ric would not have all of these symptoms, and he may have symptoms i did not list. these are just things i believe are possible and im thinking about them.

Disclaimer 4: i am not a doctor.

impacts of damage to the right temporal lobe

i think that his damage here would be most severe because this is where he was shot. just a guess though.

ONE. this part of the brain takes creates long-term memories. he may have difficulties creating new memories (anterograde amnesia, which ric does not have) or accessing old memories (is this retrograde amnesia? anyway, ric's got that).

TWO. this part of the brain helps process visual input. he may have agnosias (not being able to recognize familiar objects by sight) or propagnosia (not being able to recognize familiar faces by sight). this is different from a memory or language problem.

THREE. ric may also have trouble using tone while he speaks, or understanding other people's tone.

impacts of damage to the left temporal lobe

ONE. this part of the brain is responsible for processing speech, i.e. auditory comprehension of language. ric would likely have an aphasia (not being able to understand or use language effectively). he would have difficulty finding words. he may have a hard time understanding what people say, and maybe problems reading or writing as well. he would be more likely to have a fluent aphasia, where he may use a lot of words when he speaks, but what he says does not make a lot of sense, and he may not know that he isn't making sense.

impacts of damage to the right frontal lobe

ONE. loss of or lowered voluntary movement in the arms/hands, legs, and lower half of the face. right frontal lobe damage would impact the left side of the body (so left arms/hands, legs, face). not necessarily all of those body parts would be impacted, and may be impacted to different degrees.

ric was unable to walk immediately after his injury. we see him in PT for this, though it's not clear where exactly his weakness is. I SUBMIT TO THE COURT THIS EXPLANATION: right frontal lobe damage caused paralysis of his left leg.

it's possible that his left arm and left lip were also weak or paralyzed while he was in the hospital.

TWO. general cognition impacts.

difficulty with executive functions

difficulty with attention span

sensory overstimulation

difficulty with short-term memory

changes in personality

lack of insight into changes caused by the injury

confabulation (in connection to ric's memory loss): making up stories to fill in gaps in memory

links to sources: one, two, three, four, my own brain

[docgold13]

365 Marvel Comics Paper Cut-Out SuperHeroes - One Hero, Every Day, All Year…

May 5th - Ms. America Chavez

In her childhood, both America and her younger sister, Catalina, suffered from a rare and deadly genetic disease.  The girls’ mothers, both renown researchers in the medical fields, brought their daughters to the private island of a wealthy and eccentric benefactor so to attempt a highly experimental treatment.  The process, which seemed to draw mystical energies from a parallel dimension ended up working and cured girls of the disease; it also had the unexpected result of awakening incredible powers within young America.  She now possessed incredible strength and resiliency as well as the capacity to fly at high speeds.

It became evident that America and her sister were being used as text subjects in a nefarious plot to create world-conquering soldiers.  America’s mothers destroyed the machines used to empower their daughter and attempted to escape.  America got away, but her mothers and sister were apparently killed.  The shock and trauma of seeing her family killed was too much for young America, causing her to fall into a dissociated state where all memories of her past were suppressed to such a degree as to mirror total amnesia.  She ended up in the care of a kindly family named the Santanas who took America in and eventually adopted her.

America’s efforts to recall her past caused her to confabulate a fantastical tale of her origins.  She came to believe that she heralded from a parallel dimension, a realm where her mothers possessed incredible super powers they used to forge a utopia.   Furthermore, America came to believe that she had traveled to this earth to follow in her mothers’ footsteps and fight for justice in a universe less fortunate than her own.  

America’s convictions about this fantasy were further compounded by the reemergence of her powers.  Not only did she possess flight and vast strength, but she also discovered that she could create star-shaped portals that offered access to other dimensions across the multiverse.      

Much to her adoptive family’s chagrin, America began to use her abilities to act as the super powered vigilante called ‘Ms. America.’  Her activities led to a rift between her and the family and she ultimately chose to leave them, resuming her original last name of Chavez and venturing out on her own to become a superhero.  

Following a brief stint with the group known as The Teen Brigade, America sought out the Young Avengers.  She had witnessed a parallel reality where Kid Loki had tricked Wiccan into giving over his tremendous magical powers and wanted to ensure this same turn of events did not occur in the 616 reality.  As such, Ms. America joined the Young Avengers (primarily to keep a watchful eye on Kid Loki).  

Later, America was recruited to be a member of The Ultimates, a team of heroes who dealt with galactic and inter-dimensional threats.  While continuing on as a member of The Ultimates, America also made time to act as a part of her friend Kate Bishop’s new iteration of the West Coast Avengers.  During this time she began a romantic relationship with a young woman named Ramone Watts.

After numerous adventures both on her on and as a member of super teams, America was eventually sought out by her sister, Catalina.  It turned out that her sister had not died and that she possesses the same powers as America.  She tried to convince America of their true past, which was quite difficult in that America had become so fully invested in the delusion she had created for herself.  Yet she was finally able to accept the truth and the two sisters acted together to put a stop to the man who had empowered them in the first place and free the other test subjects that he had kept in stasis.  

Afterward, America reconciled with her adopted family and has continued to try to come to terms with her fractured sense of personal history.  More recently, Ms. America has accepted an offer to serve on Hawkeye's new Thunderbolts squad.  

A version of America Chavez appears in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, debuting in Dr. Strange in The Multiverse of Madness and portrayed by actress Xochitl Gomez.  The heroine first appeared in Vengeance #1 (2011).  

[sophieinwonderland]

Hi! We're sorry to bother, but do you have any resources or advice for better accessing headspace/innerworld? We know ours exist and when people aren't fronting they're there, but we don't remember much of our time in headspace when fronting? And only get feeling of what it looks like most of the time if that makes any sense?

It's alright if not! It's just been a thing that's been bugging us lol

If you can visualize what it looks like, you should be able to go there through meditation. You might want to check out this page for help on better visualizing it:

I've heard similar stories a lot, and I want to give a personal opinion that might be somewhat controversial, but makes the most sense to me based on research I've done.

There's a concept referred to as confabulation. This occurs when imagined memories are created to fill in memory gaps. Someone with amnesia might confabulate elaborate stories to explain how they got to a place when those memories are gone, and they'll believe it completely.

I believe that a lot of inner world experiences might be this; imagined memories confabulated after the fact. When Abby becomes active, she often has a vague sense of having been in her castle the whole time, even though she can't name anything she did there and we logically know that's not how it works. We're aware the that the sense of her being there isn't accurate, but it still persists and is comforting to her.

I imagine this is just much stronger for some systems. I think that the brain is naturally inclined to fill in the blanks for identities to maintain a sense of continuity, whether those gaps are caused by a singlet forgetting or from a headmate not being present.

Of course, I suppose it isn't impossible for some memories to have actually been experienced through parallel processing and kept separate in systems with memory/thought separation. There's not really any way to know for certain. And I wouldn't be surprised if it varied from system to system and some even experienced both.

[earthterri]

Treatment for amnesia

To diagnose amnesia, a doctor will do a comprehensive evaluation to rule out other possible causes of memory loss, such as Alzheimer's disease, other forms of dementia, depression or a brain tumor. In this disorder, a person may lose personal memories and autobiographical information, but usually only briefly. Mild head injuries typically do not cause lasting amnesia, but more-severe head injuries may cause permanent amnesia.Īnother rare type of amnesia, called dissociative (psychogenic) amnesia, stems from emotional shock or trauma, such as being the victim of a violent crime. This is especially common in the early stages of recovery. Head injuries that cause a concussion, whether from a car accident or sports, can lead to confusion and problems remembering new information. Certain medications, such as benzodiazepines or other medications that act as sedatives.Degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.Tumors in areas of the brain that control memory.Long-term alcohol abuse leading to thiamin (vitamin B-1) deficiency (Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome).Lack of adequate oxygen in the brain, for example, from a heart attack, respiratory distress or carbon monoxide poisoning.Brain inflammation (encephalitis) as a result of an infection with a virus such as herpes simplex virus, as an autoimmune reaction to cancer somewhere else in the body (paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis), or as an autoimmune reaction in the absence of cancer.Possible causes of neurological amnesia include: These structures include the thalamus, which lies deep within the center of your brain, and the hippocampal formations, which are situated within the temporal lobes of your brain.Īmnesia caused by brain injury or damage is known as neurological amnesia. Any disease or injury that affects the brain can interfere with memory.Īmnesia can result from damage to brain structures that form the limbic system, which controls your emotions and memories. Normal memory function involves many parts of the brain. If someone you know has symptoms of amnesia, help the person get medical attention. False memories (confabulation), either completely invented or made up of genuine memories misplaced in timeĪnyone who experiences unexplained memory loss, head injury, confusion or disorientation requires immediate medical attention.Ī person with amnesia may not be able to identify his or her location or have the presence of mind to seek medical care.Additional signs and symptomsĭepending on the cause of the amnesia, other signs and symptoms may include: Dementia often includes memory loss, but it also involves other significant cognitive problems that lead to a decline in daily functioning.Ī pattern of forgetfulness is also a common symptom of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), but the memory and other cognitive problems in MCI aren't as severe as those experienced in dementia. They may understand they have a memory disorder.Īmnesia isn't the same as dementia. People with amnesia usually can understand written and spoken words and can learn skills such as bike riding or piano playing. Isolated memory loss doesn't affect a person's intelligence, general knowledge, awareness, attention span, judgment, personality or identity. Someone may recall experiences from childhood or know the names of past presidents, but not be able to name the current president, know what month it is or remember what was for breakfast. Recent memories are most likely to be lost, while more remote or deeply ingrained memories may be spared. Most people with amnesia have problems with short-term memory - they can't retain new information. Difficulty remembering past events and previously familiar information (retrograde amnesia).Difficulty learning new information following the onset of amnesia (anterograde amnesia).Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU).Hospitalists & Internal Medicine Physicians.

[vincentpanday]

A memory that works backwards? Part 1

they say that it is a good thing that you cant remember your birth

probably the trauma is too much to take... i should know, considering it is what i do for a living....

maybe it really is a kind of selective amnesia.... an age refined reflex we chose to develop to escape the reality we are forced to face....

or of course, it simply may be that we forget.... and that may be a good thing....

but what if you wanted to remember?

what if you consciously wanted to dive deep...... really deep...

how far could you go.....

is it the same for you as it is for me....

what if we had assistance....

like photographs....

would we confabulate..... would we make up stories..... like my son sometimes does.... its clear that he doesnt remember..... but he will say....’i remember that’.... i am sure he doesnt.... but who knows...

so if we did try... to go far back.... as far as we can..... how would it work....

in the next post.... i will tell you what happened when i tried....

or have you forgotten already.... because all this happened before.....

hasnt it?