DID: A Psyche's Guide to Survival!

Hello, Beautiful World!

I hope everyone is doing well. Nothing very eventful happened this week (in fact, it's been quite stressful), so we'll get straight to the disorder of the week: DID (dissociative identity disorder)!

Here are some facts and statistics:*

• It is estimated to effect ~1% of the national population.
• DID is more common in those who have suffered from childhood trauma than the general population. 
• DID is most often caused by experiencing trauma before nine years of age (the earlier the trauma, the greater predicted degree of dissociation)
• Alternate personalities range from anywhere between eight and 13, with the most being 100!

What I found most interesting about these statistics was the amount of alternate personalities possible to exist in a given person with DID!

Before meeting with Dr. Anné, I conducted a survey and looked through everyday media relevant to DID. Starting off the meeting by asking her what misconceptions clients ​may have regarding DID, I learned that clients generally do not know what DID even means. It's a relatively new term, as DID used to go under the term of Multiple Personality Disorder. Hence, clients don't know what such a diagnosis implies, and if they do have somewhat of an understanding, they ask Does that mean there is more than one person inside of me? Basically, there is a misunderstanding of what that diagnosis is.

From here, Dr. Anné and I discussed more about DID using the survey questions as a basis:

Misconceptions:

• Myth: People with DID live highly abnormal lives. 
• Truth: Most of the time, they are functioning, capable people, although they do have struggles due to an abusive history that has not been resolved.  While "capable," they may use things like alcohol and/or substances to cope and/or have other issues that are a symptomatic of their underlying abuse.
• Myth: Treatment only makes DID worse because therapists further develop the existence of the different states. One with DID can never fully recover.
• Truth: Therapy does not make DID worse, but rather makes it better. Some of the goals for treatment in the past have been complete integration; but that doesn't have to be the case. It's about the awareness of the alters, and supporting the needs and functions of each personality. Oftentimes, it's a combination of some integration, but also awareness and support of the alters' needs. 
• Myth: Only people with DID dissociate.
• Truth: Other people can also dissociate, including those with PTSD. DID is simply the severest form of dissociation, but it can certainly take place in response to other things (such as a traumatic experience, trigger, or an association with a former traumatic experience)
• Myth: DID is the same thing as schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.
• Truth: Nope, they're all completely different! Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder; bipolar is a mood disorder; and DID is a trauma-based disorder.
• Myth: Individuals with DID can choose to get rid off, kill off, or immediately integrate their alters.
• Truth: The goal needs to be to understand the purpose and function of the different alters. You never want to (and can't really) eliminate any of the alters until you respond to the purpose and function of the alter. Everything is survival and compensatory based. It's a very complicated process that takes time. You need to heal, respond to, and understand the different pieces that have been created due to the trauma experienced. 

Some things that can be misconceptions or truths, depending on the case:

• Switching between personality states is obvious! Well, it may not be... it really depends on who is observing. The more familiar you are with the nuances of the different personality states, the better you can see it (although it can be very easy to miss if you aren't). The media exaggerates the personality states through wardrobe changes, conflicting mannerisms, etc., but in real life, it's not as easy to identify. 
• People with multiple personalities do not know about the other personalities. This comes from dissociative amnesia, one of the five primary symptoms of DID. It's true that many people live for years without any awareness of their alters; but, with diagnosis and treatment, they learn about the other states and cultivate internal communication. It's a gradual process, not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Within any diagnosis, there is going to be a strict criteria of symptoms; but the reality is that you are on the continuum within any category when it comes to DID. Sometimes people know, other times they don't (to sum up)!

Some things that are deemed to be myths, but are actually true:

• It's true that DID is lots of separate people with distinct personalities within one body.
• DID is rare, affecting only about 1% of the population. 

Since the media plays a huge role in how we perceive things, I also asked Dr. Anné how she felt regarding the portrayal of DID in Sybil, Fight Club, and The Lord of the Rings. 

• Sybil:
• They did a beautiful job! The book has since then been debunked, but the movie did a good job of showing what creates trauma and how it gets healed. 

• Fight Club:
• This was really intense! It was a very interesting, detailed portrayal (one of the extreme, super-classic examples of DID)!

• The Lord of the Rings (Gollum/Smeagol):
• Kinda and kinda not... In the movie, the alters talk to each other, which isn't typical, and they switch back and forth in the conversation. You typically won't be aware of the other person, or have a conversation like that. 

Where do these myths come from them? It doesn't have to do with it being a new term (as only the term is new to show a larger spectrum; the disorder has been around for a long time). When something is rare, scary, and appears to be extreme in a way that is hard to understand, there simply tends to be lots of misconceptions and judgment around it. 

I hope you guys like my Week 9 post! Thank you all for following me on this journey, and showing me so much support!

Lots of love 💗,

--Saleena 

Sources: 

*Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (September, 2016). Retrieved April 03, 2017, from http://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/dissociative-identity-disorder/dissociative-identity-disorder-did-statistics-and-facts/.