#greyouts

[multiplicity-positivity]

Dissociative Amnesia

Our thoughts and experiences, and some resources to learn more.

Hello everyone! We’ve gotten a few asks recently wondering about amnesia in dissociative disorders, so we’ve decided to put this post together. We will cover as much as we can about amnesia, and talk about our experience with it.

What is amnesia?

Amnesia is partial or total memory loss that is more severe than common, every day forgetfulness. People may experience amnesia for a wide variety of reasons, such as experiencing a head or brain injury, being inebriated, having an illness or disease that affects the mind, lack of sleep, and extreme stress/fatigue/brain fog. Amnesia (specifically dissociative amnesia) is a really big part of many dissociative disorders (with the exception being OSDD-1B). In dissociative disorders, alters may experience full amnesia (blackouts) or partial amnesia (greyouts).

What are blackouts?

A blackout is when a person or alter experiences a jump in time, or finds that they cannot recall key events from the past. Their memories may feel fragmented, incomplete, or literally “blacked out.” Coming back from a blackout can be overwhelming, scary, and disorienting.

For us, blackouts look like: seemingly “snapping awake” suddenly with no recollection of what we had been doing. Coming to in odd places, like the grocery store or the park or the library, with no idea how we got there or what led up to that point. Feeling like we are jumping forward in time (it’s Monday today, but I blinked and it’s Thursday now). Large gaps in memory, especially memories from our childhood. Fragments of memories may remain as factual information (EX: “I know we went to the store yesterday, but I don’t remember anything we bought or any of the details”), or there may be no lingering information at all (EX: “I can’t remember what happened yesterday and there’s food I didn’t buy in the fridge”)

What are greyouts?

A greyout is an experience of partial amnesia, and the term covers a broad range of experiences. It may mean that a particular aspect of a memory was forgotten, or that you feel emotionally, physically, or otherwise detached from a memory. The memory may exist, but it feels hazy or incomplete when you try to recall it.

For us, greyouts look like: feeling emotionally or physically detached from memories. Able to recall the past but it seems shaky, foggy, hazy or unclear. Retaining some details in memories but not others. Memories feel like a film, or like something that we heard about in a story, but not something that actually happened to us.

How can I tell the difference?

Telling the difference between blackouts and greyouts can be quite tricky! In general, for our system, if we’re able to recall events with some clarity, there isn’t any amnesia. If we can recall only pieces, or feel like the memory isn’t ours at all, it’s a greyout. If our mind is just blank regarding a certain memory, or we can only recall what others have told us, rather than the events themselves, it’s a blackout.

Can I experience amnesia without knowing it?

Yes, and we actually thought we had a pretty good memory before learning about our dissociative disorder and the amnesia that comes along with it! This is because our mind tends to fill in the gaps that it can’t explain or understand. These pseudomemories, or projections, led us to believe our memory was healthy and normal. We’ve since learned that many of the memories we took for granted were just projections from our brain trying to fill in gaps and help us function to the best of our ability. It’s something we had been oblivious to for decades, but at this point we are very aware of how unstable and unreliable our memory is. It is a part of having a dissociative disorder!

Can dissociative amnesia heal/Can my memory improve if I have amnesia?

We think so, yes! Our therapist has assured us that memory can be repaired and healed with treatment and time. Patience and self-compassion can both aid in this process! We ourselves are trying to heal, and our hope is that as our system becomes more integrated, we will be able to recall more memories and recover details as a result. It is a difficult process though, and one that we are actively pursuing through therapy! Some may be able to heal their dissociative amnesia without therapy, but for us, having outside help and a support team is essential to our healing journey.

Sources/Links to Learn More:

Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any further questions, or to share corrections or concerns! Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day!

(Image ID:) A pale orange userbox with a cluster of multicolored flowers for the userbox image. The border and text are both dark orange, and the text reads “all plurals can interact with this post!” (End ID.)

[twiigthetwiink]

How to know if you have dissociative amnesia?

How to know if you have greyouts?

How to know if you have a memory holder?

How to know who your memory holder is?

[notdysfunk]

A few, random, warmup doodles I've done in the past little bit

can u see the arcane brainrot all over these...

[exorsysm]

does anyone else have issues with misremembering things other alters did?

like. you have the memory but its Wrong?

for example, i have a memory of spencer changing our sheets, but in the memory the bed is on the other side of the room. it couldnt be that it was moved and i forgot because that would put the bed in front of our closet and there would be other stuff to move around too.

along with this, several memories that i have from other alters have been changed to be in our house that burned down??? its to a point where i cant tell which happened where.

i also remember these things in third person, so maybe its some kind of grayout? im not sure. help appreciated!

-grey

[yellow-computer-mouse]

Our "I have IRL/DA's" to "Oh I'm just a system without amnesia" pipeline was CRAZY 😭

YES SAME 😭😭😭 we Realized eventually but sigh ,,,

[omegalawliet]

I think what took me so long to realize/accept that i have DID is because I thought you could only have blackout amnesia but there other types of amnesia

[carnage-cathedral]

well now I understand some things a little bit better

[deargravity]

so tired of the evil alter trope. if you’re still writing stories (thrillers, mysteries or otherwise) where the plot twist is Dissociative Identity Disorder, i’ll show up to your house and kill you

[sepiasys]

Sighs in OSDD (bc the amnesia between alters isn't enough and neither is distinction *sometimes*)

Some fun memories, for funsies!!

> Someone having a panic attack because of the possibility someone used our art supplies after finding our stuff was moved around (we reorganized stuff on the dining table), then actually having it full on while walking to work. The moment violent urges happen (wanting to throw our phone, for instance), someone immediately shoves their way to front to get prev to stop. And then it results in no more panic attack! No more of that weird thing called "feelings" /j

> Today but I'll count it. So 🦊 has lowkey been fronting or co-fronting for most if not all of today. 🌼 came out at one point, at least. Well, maybe a few. So anyways boredom at work led to trying our damnedest to think of ANYTHING to think abt to kill time, and hence the horni arrives. But. It's not smth we all experienced? So it felt more like thought experiments. It remains that 🦊 is probably the most repulsed and/or averse of us, all bc they firmly believe (and rlly it's essential to their identity most of the time) that they NEED to be angry or irritable, and if he's not, someone else takes her place. So combine that apathy, disinterest, disgust, wtv with another part that's ACTIVELY INFATUATED WITH SOMEONE/SOMETHING, and I'm pretty sure we're left with 🦊 dissociating in front while whoever else occupies the mind/thoughts in co-con.

> Btw this stuff with 🦊 happened when we got home and were able to absolve ourself from our desires (bc they certainly werent strong enough to be urges imo). He straight up tried to leave front fully, despite it being hard to leave the body, because she didn't wanna be involved (or atleast didn't like it). We were also writing stuff fanfic-ish for it.

[boneless-mika]

“OSDDID is…” *proceeds to only describe DID*

[bluteamplural]

that was fucking WEIRD i haven't had a full blackout memory gap in a while

[multiplicity-positivity]

What is a grey-out? As opposed to black-out?

We’ve made a post on dissociative amnesia where we explain the differences (as we understand them)! You can check it out here:

🌸 Margo

[explanationpoint]

it’s annoying that they tried to make it look like illumination. that’s all. you guys make it sound like Shrek 4 was a nightmare somehow incomprehensible to children but that came out in 2010 and the art style was fine. imagine how you’d feel if they did HTTYD and suddenly everybody looks like they’re in despicable me

people are like genuinely upset about the new shrek artstyle and it’s like. i dont think some of you realize these movies are meant for kids

[systemofuncertainty]

Fuck. Well if today didn't prove it to her/ anyone still denying... idk what will

[brokenmachinemusings]

having a complex dissociative disorder sucks cuz on one hand. what if im faking? on the other i feel like im constantly stucj in a cirlce of trauma responses (fight or flight but also fawn and freeze). and i forget stuff about my favorite media months. if not weeks or even days after indulging in it. yes i have more “pressing matters” abojt my amnesia but using media is a way to cope for me and forgetting about said media feels like im forgetting a part of myself? or how to cope? its odd. i dont know

[rin-and-jade]

Types of Amnesia

Diagram created by me

General criteria for amnesia:

Memory loss

Confusion

Inability to recognize familiar figures/places

Difficulty recalling names or places

Not remembering where you went

Worser ability to remember things that had happened Post on how to handle these kinds of amnesia: click here!

Generalized Amnesia Where a person completely forgets everything about themself and have no recollection of what, where, and who they spoke to. This can describe a blackout switch and may still recognize who they are.

Localized Amnesia Where a person is unable to recall a specific/series of event from the whole, which creates an incomplete picture of the situation. For example, remembering childhood but not the abuse.

Selective Amnesia Where a person only lost some and retain the rest, forgetting parts yet not all of them. This can describe greyouts as it grasps some information/sensory yet not enough to tell what exactly happened. One example is playing the phone and unable to recall what occured, only to jump its memory right to being at bed.

Emotional Amnesia Where a person has an intact memory and it's details on what had happened, but do not remember what the event feels like (e.g. was scared, happy, etc.). One description is that you're watching something that didn't happen to you, because you don't feel like being in the scene itself.

Continuous Amnesia Where a person fails to retain full parts of the event/day, for a set period of time (can vary from minutes to days) and create an accumulative, small bits of selective amnesias, continuously, leaving many gaps in a chronological timeline. This usually happens in times or stress, or abuse.

Fragmented Amnesia Where a person has an unrelated, and/or disjointed memories that does not go with the timeline's order, creating confusion and difficult to grasp the cohesive picture of what truly happened. Emotional amnesia may be present in this type. Bonus for systems:

Amnesia barriers Where a person fronting is not able to recall other alter's memories, which is a form of retrograde amnesia and compartmentalization. Because the fronter will only retain any information before switching out with the next one, the rest experiences anterograde amnesia as it cannot form and remember those memories, unless being coconcious or cofronting (even though, this is not always guaranteed).

Take notes that amnesia can still happen outside system things due to comorbidities like anxiety disorders or depression, this does mean systems are bound to experience more amnesia compared to non-systems folks out there.

Do you have any discussions about this? Or would like to describe your own way of seeing these different types of amnesia? Or have more to add? Feel free to tell them here!

- j