WRITTEN BY BUTTERNUT / SHRIMP SYSTEM
Dissociation is a cognitive disconnect from yourself and your surroundings, and amnesia is the memory loss that is caused by dissociation. Lets say you, as the host of a system, are having an argument with your significant other. You could start to dissociate due to the fact that your brain connects it to similar previous traumas. In the case of a system, this could potentially cause another alter to front to handle the situation for you. Another alter fronting causes a disconnect between yourself (host) and the stressful situation. Since dissociation occurs, this creates amnesia, so your brain can pretend that the stressful or traumatic situation didn't happen. However, while you, as the host, may forget what happened, the alter that experienced the situation, or even another alter, may remember. If no alter remembers certain events that occurred, they can most likely be retrieved with time and healing.
There are 3 ways amnesia is usually experienced: Localized, Selective and Generalized. Localized amnesia is when you're unable to recall a specific event or specific events in a specific period of time, usually related to stress or trauma. Some examples of this could be forgetting months or years of abuse as a child, forgetting an entire relationship in any length of detail, or maybe even forgetting an entire grade of school.
Selective amnesia is when you forget only some events during a specific period of time or only part of an event. This can be something like going to class and only remembering certain parts of the lecture, having a conversation and only remembering a few things about it, or remembering going somewhere but not what happened there.
Generalized amnesia is when you forget your identity and life history, such as who you are, where you live, where you have been, your friends and family, who you've spoken to, and how you experienced, how you felt, what you thought, what you sair, waht you did, etc. Some people who experience generalized amnesia can lose the ability to access well-learnt skills or formerly known information about the world. Generalized amnesia is rare, but can be commonly seen in combat veterans, sexual assault survivors, and people experiencing extreme stress, conflict or other trauma.
Blackouts and Greyouts are both unofficial terms for types of amnesia. Blackouts fit under Localized/Generalized amnesia, where Greyouts fit moreso under Selective amnesia. A Blackout is when another alter fronts for a period of time, and when you finally come back to front, you have absolutely no idea how you got in the situation you are currently in or anything another alter said or did. A Greyout is when another alter fronts and you only remember bits and pieces of what happened when they were fronting. You may have a vague idea of how you got into the situation you are in, or maybe not. It's different for everyone.
There are 2 types of dissociation; depersonalization and derealization. Depersonalization and derealization are both usually experienced similarly and are dealt with the same way.
Symptoms/experience of Depersonalization:
Symptoms/experience of Derealization: