What is DID?
DID, dissociative identity disorder, or otherwise known as multiple personality disorder, is a mental disorder where a person may have anywhere from just two, to sometimes one hundred personalities. Each personality, or also called “alters” have their own name, age, gender, likes, dislikes, and much more. These personalities can “front” and control the person's behaviors. It is caused by severe trauma that has happened to the person, usually stems from extreme sexual, emotional, and/or physical abuse.
How DID Affects Everyday Life
People with DID experience severe dissociations, which may make them forget, or have a lack of connection with memories, trauma, feelings, and personal identity. This may be an internal coping mechanism where the person may shut down and dissociate from themselves so they can remove themselves from a possible traumatic situation. DID is commonly associated with amnesia, which is forgetting personal information to the extent that it cannot be because of regular forgetfulness, with amnesia you can also experience micro-amnesias, which for example, can be where a meaningful discussion is forgotten from one second to the next. Depersonalization, the feeling of being detached from one's body, and derealization, the feeling that the world is not real, are also commonly associated with DID. Some other ways DID may change the way a person lives is through identity confusion or alteration, where a person may be confused on who they are, for example, ambitions, sexual orientation, and social standpoints. They may also distort times, places, and experiences.
Can I Get DID?
DID is not a contagious disorder. It is caused by a psychological response due to stresses or abuse that happened in childhood ages that may have interfered with the development of someone's personality. But it can occur at any age. The disorder only affects about 1% of the world's population, and women are more likely to be diagnosed with it compared to men. This is because men are more likely to deny symptoms of trauma, and tend to show more violent activity, rather than to dissociate.
Symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment
Common symptoms of dissociative identity disorder include:
Anxiety
Delusions
Depression
Disorientation
Drug and/or alcohol abuse
Lack of self identity
Memory loss
Mental health problems/issues
Out-of-body experiences
Significant memory loss
Suicidal thoughts/tendencies
There isn’t a test that diagnoses DID; it is more of an overview of symptoms and personal history, and doctors perform tests that rule out other physical health issues such as brain trauma. Here is the DSM-5’s criteria for diagnosing DID:
Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self.
Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events.
The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder.
The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices.
The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures).
There also isn’t a treatment that can just make dissociative identity disorder just “go away”, but they are more managed, there are a few different ways treatment is used. Through medication that may try to calm the underlying mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Or to try psychotherapy, to try and manage the multiple personalities into one, identify and work through past traumas, and manage behavioral changes.
How to Help
NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, is there to help and support you and your family and provide information about community resources, contact the helpline at 1-800-905-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org. Helping a loved one or friend with DID can just be by learning more about dissociative identity disorder, staying calm when dissociation or personality changes occur, or offering to go to group or family counseling sessions with them.
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