“Inner Voices: My Journey With Psychosis And Schizophrenia” an autobiography by May-May Meijer: Unexplained Memory Gaps

Both the author’s book (1) and her essay, “What I Have Learned From My Psychosis” (2), describe it as a typical case of recurrent, flagrant psychosis, which is successfully treated with antipsychotic medication, except that the medication does have its side effects and her interpersonal relationships and level of function are never quite as good as before.

However, in addition to psychosis, she also has memory gaps, a symptom typical of multiple personality, not schizophrenia: During her hospitalizations for psychosis, when her sister comes to visit, she speaks to her sister in English only—this is the Netherlands, and their primary language is Dutch—and has no memory for having done so (1, pp. 108, 162). And “My father told me that I also often didn’t remember his visits or my sister’s” (1, p. 221).

There is no indication that she discussed these memory gaps with her psychiatrists. As I have been saying in previous posts, patients usually don't volunteer this information, and psychiatrists usually don't know enough to ask.

1. May-May Meijer. Inner Voices: My Journey With Psychosis And Schizophrenia. Translated from Dutch to English by Karen Loughrey, Kumar Jamdagni, and May-May Meijer. Netherlands, Amsterdam Publishers, 2019.

2. May-May Meijer. “What I Have Learned From My Psychosis.” April 14, 2019. https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/04/learned-from-psychosis/