Dissociative Disorder

R S, a 47 year old had a sudden loss in consciousness and fainted in his house, he was brought to the hospital by his son. Soon his MRI and CT scan were conducted, reports of which indicated that everything is normal, however upon further physical examining and questioning, it was found out that severe damage to the memory of R S had been done. He had no recollection of memory formed in the past 2 years, he continuously inquired about his wife, who had died a year back, but he had full recollection of his job, where he was a bank manager and retired in 2008. He was disoriented with time as for him the year was 2010; in actual the current year was 2012. He recalled his childhood, where he had repeated class 9th. R S had no recollection about himself or others he had met in the past 2 years. His condition was explained to him after that regressive therapy was started, where he was told about facts he had forgotten of the past 2 years.

We were called upon a home visit for N D, age 34. Upon evaluation it was observed that she was unable to speak much, with closed eyes lying on bed and if pushed to speak her breathing became fast and abnormal. Her eyes didn’t respond to light and she didn’t react to the physical touch inflected upon her. Her physical examination was within normal limits. When inquired about her history, it was revealed that she recently lost her daughter in a car accident; she was there in the car too but remained unhurt with only minor injuries. She cried a lot at the loss of her daughter, in a few months time she became extremely quiet and her health continued to deteriorate and she became bed ridden. Her appetite too decreased significantly in the recent past. Misses N D was diagnosed with Dissociative Stupor.

R S, Mrs R S, 26 is a sales officer and a MA in economics, recently she was given a task to present the annual sales report. She was a bit nervous and scared. As soon as she took the podium and started her presentation, R S felt she was silent and somebody else was doing the talking on her behalf, the way that person was talking was very different from the way she talked. The voice was coming from her but she couldn’t associate herself from that person talking, it was as if another person had entered into her body and talking on behalf of her. As we looked at her family history some startling facts came to light. R S had lost her mother in a car accident when she was 11 years old, she had no siblings and her father raised her alone after her mother’s death. She can’t recall of any such previous instances that she experienced recently, but she had been treated as a child for anxiety, panic and depression as a child after her mother passed away. But ever since the day of her presentation, dissociation has started to surface frequently atleast once a day, where she feels she has no control over what she is saying, to whom she is talking to and what she is talking about, R S feels that person is a completely different individual.

A 37 year old B T was in prison for 4 years on account of attempted rape, later he was found to be innocent and released from jail. Soon after returning home, he without informing anyone left home and came to the village, where he had grown up. He assumed the same name, which he was referred to as a kid Bijju and started working in a factory. After the police verification of the employees of factory was done, it was found that the photo of Bijju matched with a missing complaint filed in Delhi by his family. Later he was brought to Delhi and it was found out that he had no recollection of the 4 years he spent in jail, furthermore he failed to identify some of his family members and repeated several times that he was 33 years old not 37.