Absent-mindedness in “Growing Up Haunted” by Jennifer Finney Boylan (post 2): Author works as bank teller and misplaces ten thousand dollars

As I continue to read this memoir, I’m on the alert for multiple personality types of memory problems: memory gaps, dissociative fugues, or striking examples of absent-mindedness.

One possible example of the latter is when the author works as a bank teller and misplaces $10,000 by the coffeemaker (1, p. 162). This is the climax of repeated incidents of carelessness in money handling, told as an amusing anecdote of absent-mindedness, possibly due to the author’s preoccupation with writing a poem between customers.

Absent-mindedness is usually nothing more than being preoccupied, but please search “absent-minded” for examples of its relation to multiple personality.

1. Jennifer Finney Boylan. I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted (A Memoir). New York, Broadway Books, 2008.