vbnaut - I wouldn't be so sure that amnesia of that type is THAT completely uncommon. People who go through a really traumatic experience like witnessing violent deaths or something I thought were not uncommon to not be able to remember it. That was my understanding anyway. But again...we're getting a bit sidetracked here and should stay focused on spoonit's wacky girlfriends.

lol nice try.you can admit you were wrong... It's ok bud.

but yeah you're totally right... the fact that i assumed what you were saying had something to do legal issues was entirely because im a law student and had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that you changed one word in my post to "illegal" and then provided 0 other reasons why you thought it was inappropriate.

im such an idiot; how could i jump to such a stunningly incorrect conclusion.

and im not a lawyer.

Trying to catch up on answering the questions that matter.

Answered the first 2 questions earlier. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I have no idea. I have no idea.

Answered 1st paragraph earlier. I thought I answered 2nd paragraph earlier but I'll answer it here again: she's seen multiple groups of doctors and therapists over this.

Thanks.

No. Thank god.

AFAIK, the main aim of her therapy is to work on her anxiety and stress issues. Integration, if such a thing exists, seems to be expected to work itself out in the process of dealing with these underlying things.

Sucks man. Thanks.

Answered this 2nd paragraph earlier. I'd be absolutely thrilled if/when things got back to normal. It seems really strange to me that anyone would think otherwise.

No money DID, everyones solid?

She knows how people are (especially on the Internet), so I don't think it gets to her too much.

Thanks.

It's okay, she lol'd.

It's been brought up, and we were told it wouldn't be of much use. From what I understand, it can be used to help bring out personalities that don't want to come to the forefront, but that seems to start going down the path of it being kind of forced and contrived to me.

Her parents probably would be the most upset about it for getting called out on their bull****. No one we know IRL has read it, but some poker people I know via the Internet have.

Answered this above, and I thought I'd answered it previously, but she's seen multiple groups of doctors and therapists over this.

I agree, but it happens.

I've considered it, but I'm afraid I'll screw her up worse than she is. Besides, I have plenty of true stuff to tell her that surprises her just as much, like a black guy getting elected president or that we're engaged, etc.

1. I have no idea.
2. Answered similar in a previous post, but considering I didn't have sex with a minor, and I didn't have sex with anyone who didn't realize they were an adult, I can't see any merit to it.

Thanks.

Sup man.

"I never thought he'd do it to her" + "I didn't want to put her through [court stuff] when she'd already been through enough" = her standard response. She feels extremely bad about it.

No. <-- And one of the biggest things that pisses me off about the resulting situation.

I have no idea. She's had dreams about the abuse though. I don't know if she repressed it, but there have been times when she has like flashbacks about some of it. I talked earlier about how she did this over a turn signal, I think. If I didn't, I'll tell that one later but I'm trying to run through these and get caught up.

My goal and my hopes for the situation are for her to be eventually back to normal. What the chances are of that happening, I don't know.

From what I've read and also been told from a number of the people she's worked with, this kind of amnesia is common among people with psychogenic seizures.


Note to self, through post 375.

That's a bit different -- in those situations there is a specific event that can't be remembered, or a short time surrounding the event. One does not forget who they are or who their acquaintances are. I don't believe there is a single case of this happening neurologically outside of very widespread brain damage, like the kind that happens degeneratively in Alzheimer's disease.

But now we learn that the seizures are psychogenic? If that was said before I missed it. That means that she is not actually having seizures, she is only behaving as if she is having seizures. Psychogenic seizures are not accompanied by any epileptic activity in the brain at all.

Fwiw I would also like to read all the words you could write up about her parents, etc. I would read it, if that matters.

I might be alone on this, but I think if you're gonna rush, you should skip questions and write detailed answers instead of answering every question briefly.

Awesome thread regardless.

Great thread. Sorry about another sex question but how have you had sex with Matilda? She seems like that would definitely not be her thing.

OP, this thread is absolutely amazing, and I'm Grunching here 'cause around post #241 it was nothing but LM questions, but this is really interesting and I'll go back and reread everything that I've skipped sooner or later.

What I'm really curious about are the kind of breakthrough moments that it seems like you've had with Michelle's different personalities. What were they like? I mean, when you were first talking to Rebecca or Matilda and got them to open up about some things that resulted in them diminishing their self-destructive behavior, what were those moments like?

Also, maybe this was addressed somewhere else, but at what point did you find out about your fiance's abuse? I ask because I'm actually in a relationship right now with a girl who was sexually assaulted before we met, and I found out about it around 9 months into the relationship, but there were some behaviors that creeped up over those 9 months that made me think "Whoa, **** this, let's move to greener pastures," but which after finding out that there was a pretty serious reason for them, lead me to want to help her through her trauma, and I'm curious to see what your thoughts are in your situation re: whether you would have stuck around from the beginning if you knew this kind of stuff was going to come up, or if you stayed because you already knew you loved her before all of these other issues arose.

A+ thread, and I know that some people have been talking about how you're nuts for sticking with her, but that's just not how it works, right?

Have either of you read The Minds Of Billy Milligan or Sybil?

Have you looked at physical causes for Michelle's seizures? Like chemical imbalance, blow to the head or virus? Has she had an MRI or CAT scan?

Is it likely the seizures are causing the personalities?

Do you find any outside factors cause the seizures? A friend of mine very rarely get grand mal seizures and it seems like dehydration/sun light/heat can bring them on.

OP, excellent thread. Wish you both all the best

Has writing this thread, and Michelle following it, altered the dynamic between you in any way? Have any of the questions / issues that been raised ITT provoked discussion and re-evaluation of things in your relationship? Has this been a positive experience for you both?

wait, wtf, sybil is over 3 hours long?

Mentioned much earlier that the seizures were psychogenic. Also worth mentioning for the trolls that the word seizure as used in your quote above refers to the brain activity, not the physical activity.

She's shown up mid-stroke before. It was kind of awkward. We stopped.

It was some serious twilight zone ****. I don't know any other way to explain it other than they had/have impulses that were extremely difficult to control because of the overwhelming emotion they felt, and I guess once they released some of that it became a lot easier.

Answered this one in detail earlier.

Answered this one in detail earlier.

The relationship between the seizures and personalities isn't particularly clear. My opinion is that they're only related to each other via whatever stress/trauma/other causes that are the real underlying problems.

Stress, things like getting really upset etc, and things that cause sudden spikes (for lack of a better word) of anxiety seem to cause them the most. Sometimes they're seemingly random, but I'm sure that's just because I don't know what the reason is. I went into some detail earlier (I think) about a certain kind of turn signal in a car caused them because it reminded her of one of the times with her uncle.

Thanks.

Not really. We've always talked about this stuff a lot, so there hasn't really been any change there. If anything it's had a negative effect on me because I've spent so much time on the thread that I could have used for other things. It's also a little bit stressful to read some of the bs randoms say on the Internet, but I mean they're randoms on the Internet, so what else did I expect?


Note to self, through post 386.

shes come undone

with regards to her amnesia, is it like the film '50 first dates'?

I apologize for this line of questioning, I am not trying to troll. I am a neuroscientist/psychologist, so I am just interested in that side of things. To clarify, a seizure normally refers to uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, but a psychogenic seizure is not accompanied by any uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, it is psychological/emotional in origin. In other words, the person looks like they are having a seizure, but neurologically they are not.

Truly fascinating thread. GL to you both.

Yeah that's what I was trying to clarify as well.

Fwiw to you, the process went something like she has the episodes, we end up at the ER like hey wtf is going on, EEG and other tests are run, neurologist is like okay so your brain **** is normal btw were you ever abused or have some kind of trauma earlier in life (her mom was with Michelle and I that day and actually said, "No" to which I flipped), neurologist notes the tension in the room and is like well whether you want to admit it to me or not something's up, here go see this person who works with ppl with psychogenic seizures, and that's how we ended up with her main therapist through all of this.

do all of the personalities squirt?

5 ****ing stars
I love you, most absurd/beautiful story ever sounds like you guys are a happy couple tho
f the haters

When she has the amnesia, has anything ever not checked out? Like the brother thing not knowing he ever left, has anything she's done made it seem like she could be lying about certain parts of her multiple personalities?

Absolutely outstanding read. Thanks spoonitnow, and best of luck to you.

Would love it if you had the time to shed some light on some of the debates going on ITT about the various medical explanations for the behavior!

I wonder if people might appreciate an ask me about thread from nautilus where people could really get into it about various mental illnesses? Then people who are really close to something like op could choose whether they want to weigh in or avoid.

To clarify: while I do have a Ph.D. in psychology, I am not a clinical psychologist or therapist. I do neuroimaging research in cognitive neuroscience. I have read a bit about DID over the years as my research interests include the self and consciousness, but I am by no means an expert in mental health or dissociative disorders.