When Is It a Fugue State

Everyone has been running news items about the fellow from the State of Washington who suddenly found himself in Denver and didn't know who he was. The press jumped on it and, of course, it had the ending everyone wanted -- his family saw him and came to get him. Now all is going back to normal.

Normal for this fellow, it seems, is having bouts of amnesia when under stress. This isn't very common, but it is something we do see on rare occasions. A decade or so ago, it was a very hot topic in psychiatry and people were being diagnosed with disorders that included fugue all the time. If you are a film buff as I am, you know that the first film treatment of something somewhat like this was in "All About Eve" the woman who had multiple personalities. Then we had "Sybil" who also had multiples. The debate goes on.

I did work with someone who left his home one morning to take the train into Manhattan and just disappeared. We didn't know where he was and neither did his wife until he called her from the Midwest several days later. He'd found himself on a bus and didn't know where he was going or why. That is a very disquieting feeling, I know, because when I've been driving and deep in thought, I've found myself on a familiar bridge and didn't know if I was going to work or coming home. It can shake you up pretty good for a few minutes.

I just have one question for the fellow from Washington: How is it that you had no identification in any of your pockets? If someone in my family had a disorder that could lead to fugue, I think I'd have labels in their jackets with their name and phone number on each. May seem like a trip to summer camp, but I'd be a lot happier knowing they'd be safer because of that small tag.

Related Topics: Stress Kills , What's Your Crisis Personality?

Technorati Tags: Jeffrey Alan Ingram, stress, fugue