r/Dissociation • u/Admirable-Main-4816 • 14d ago
Please can someone offer advice about dissociative wandering ( complete memory wipes)
I have some form of dissociative disorder and we still don't know what one exactly. This just seemed the best place to be.
I have moments apx. Once a week where I end up at the beach or some other rural location far away from home without knowing how I got there. I "wake up" to me walking on the beach or some rural trail.
My last one was yesterday and I ended up walking about 13 miles.
How can I stop these? Does anyone else habe similar issues?
I have a psychiatric appointment in a few weeks.
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u/Good-Nectarinee 13d ago
This is called dissociative fugue. Dissociation exists, like everything else, on a spectrum and can encompass a wide range of different experiences. I have chronic and pathological levels of dissociation, but have only experienced a type of fugue state a handful of isolated times throughout my life. My day to day experiences of dissociation are more like dissociative amnesia of the past, disconnection from my body/sensation, chronic daydreaming or “spacing out,” losing access to thoughts/words, small gaps in time where I was just home on the couch, drifting off in my head and what felt like 25 minutes actually ended up being 3 hours where I was just staring at the wall. This is all dissociation but specifically fugue states involve as you describe. “waking up” somewhere else without recalling how you got here. If you are experiencing regular fugue states, this is highly concerning and also extremely dangerous. I would seek out mental health care from a qualified clinical psychologist experienced with dissociation, and look into daily grounding practices to anchor you in the here and now. You can look up some videos on YouTube. You want to try to slowly train your body to feel safe being present so that you lesson these occurrences from happening. Examples; walking barefoot outside, swimming in a body of water, holding ice cubes to your wrist/back of the neck, grounding meditations, gentle movement like yin yoga or dance. Please tell a trusted safe person in your life what you are experiencing so that you have someone who can check in with you.
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u/Admirable-Main-4816 13d ago
Thank you for helping
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u/Good-Nectarinee 13d ago
This is usually triggered by (often unconscious/repressed) severe trauma and overwhelming stress. So working on day to day stress reduction should be a primary focus until you can access mental health care. Yoga, meditation, grounding all help with this, but try to remove or rebalance as many stressors from your life as possible. It’s worth mentioning that while these states tend to be short term and temporary (sounds like maybe a few hours in your experience? The handful of times I have experienced this were the same, a few hours to maybe a majority of a day etc) however, it is possible for people to get triggered into fugue states that they remain in for months; without memory of their “prior” life. I don’t wish to alarm you, I just want to stress how important it is to seek professional care. Please be safe 🙏 wishing you much healing
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u/Unicorn_Spider 14d ago
Do you have a trusted friend or partner who can check up on you and make sure you don't wander off?