Desorcy 1

Amanda Desorcy

Penny Sobocinski

ENG 1101

23 November 2018

The Truth Behind Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Imagine you, by yourself, sitting in a coffee shop drinking your favorite drink and

just thinking to yourself, almost like you are having a conversation in your head. For

people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), this is a very real conversation,

possibly between many different people/personalities inside their own brain. According

to Psychology Today, “Some people describe this as an experience of possession”. It is

hard to even imagine what it is like to never really be alone in inside of your own body.

People living with DID go through this multiple times every day and are told to act

normal. Which brings me to a few questions: What is DID? What causes DID? What are

alters? Is it genetic? What are the symptoms of DID? Can it be treated or cured? And

lastly, Why is there so much stigma around DID? If more Americans educated

themselves on mental disorders, there wouldn’t the stigma around DID.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder is when an individual has two or more distinct

personalities or identities. It was previously known as multiple personality disorder.”

According to Timothy J. Legg, PhD, CRNP. DID can be caused by many things, one of

the most common things that does cause it is sexual trauma at a young age. The kind of

damage the brain of that child or young person goes through when there is a sexual

trauma is immense. The brain hasn’t developed enough to fully understand the events
 Desorcy 2

that occurred. The brain then starts creating new personalities inside the person’s own

body. These personalities, also known as “alters”, can take many roles. For example, it

is very common that there is a child alter if there was a childhood sexual trauma. This is

because the brain associated the trauma with the age and creates an alter that maybe

never had to go through that, or that would protect the person from that trauma. The

same process can occur in adults as well. If a traumatic trauma occurs it can become

possible for the brain to create alters.

Alters are unique to everyone who suffers with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

There is no set amount of alters and not set demographic. There can be an average

range of one alter to twenty. Some of the most interesting thing about alters is all the

differences they have in one single body. According to TraumaDissociation.com, “Alters

may have different ages, for instance much younger or older; a different gender to the

physical body; different names, or no name; different roles or functions, either related to

daily life or to trauma; different attitudes, and preferences, e.g, in food, or dress a

different perception of their appearance, for e.g., different hair or skin color, body shape;

different memories, e.g., some may remember trauma or events in daily life that others

have amnesia for; psychobiological difference to others, e.g., different vision,

medication responses, allergies, plasma glucose levels in diabetic patients, heart rate,

blood pressure readings, galvanic skin response, muscle tension, laterality, immune

function, and EEG (electroencephalography) readings.” Alters can also actually

disagree with each other and control one another. Just like how it is true that different

people disagree and try to hold power over one another. It is also common that an alter
 Desorcy 3

is able to disown the “host” body and instead of calling it “my body” the phrase becomes

“the body” or “our body”. The main purpose of an alter is to protect/hide the memory of

the trauma that occurred from the host’s own memory. It is common for the host to

never know what happened to them. The brain does such a good job covering and

protecting itself from feeling that pain that it takes intensive therapy to ever reach that

memory.

While many believe that DID is genetic and can be passed on and that people

with DID should not have children, it is not genetic. Some people living with DID should

not have children due to mental instability, but others may be just fine and able to cope

with it. DID is not caused by faulty genes or chemical imbalances in the brain so it does

not affect the host in a negative way in a heredity aspect. General symptoms that will

affect someone with DID can include, but are not limited to: “a sense of "losing time”,

confusion, exhibition of two or more personalities (alters), feelings of detachment

(dissociation), memory gaps, out of character behavior (Out-of-character behavior is the

result of alternate identities being in control), having distressing dreams and memories,

being unresponsive or "zoning out", mental distress to trauma reminders, physical

reactions to trauma or memories, such as seizures, showing unexpected changes in

food and activity preferences” according to Timothy J. Legg, PhD, CRNP.

DID is one of the many mental disorders that can be treated with the possibility of

the altars coming back into one main personality for the body. Treatments can include

psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, Dialectic-behavior therapy, Family therapy,

 Desorcy 4

Meditation and relaxation techniques, Clinical hypnosis, and Medication. Each of these

have their own specific way of treating and are decided upon by a medical doctor. It is not

100% guaranteed that a person will be cured from treatment, but generally learn more

about themselves, their alters, and the event that caused the disorder.

DID carries a lot of stigma. People are believed to be scary or unpredictable, which

can be completely untrue. Many people live completely normal lives with families and jobs

with DID. The media holds a lot of the responsibility with creating this stigma. The news

has always had tendencies to exaggerate stories and have done so hundreds of times in

stories about people with DID. They portray these people, who just want to be like

everyone else, in a negative scary manor. An example of this would be the movie Split. The

movie was about a man with DID who kidnapped three girls for one of the altars, known as

“The Beast” to feed on. The movie is categorized as a rated R horror film. It causes people

to look at people with DID as they looked at the man in the movie. If more people would

do their own research, even watching YouTube videos made by people with DID, you can

easily see that they are desperately trying to show people that they are normal people.

They deserve to be treated the same as anyone else and just want to fit into society just

like you and I do.

Overall, DID is a mental disorder that is caused, not passed down in your family

genes, It can have some noticeable symptoms to severe symptoms. In most cases, people

diagnosed with DID seek therapy of some sort to help them. DID can be treated and cured

in some cases. It is not a scary disorder, unlike how some media have portrayed it to be,

and they are just people who want to fit in.

 Desorcy 5

Works Cited

Crichton-Stuart, Cathleen. “Dissociative Identity Disorder: Definition, Symptoms,

and Tests.” Medical News Today, MediLexicon International,

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321462.php.

DIDisreal, www.facebook.com/TraumaAndDissociation. “Alter Identities in

 Desorcy 6

Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD) and DDNOS.” Trauma Dissociation,

Http://Plus.google.com/ TraumaDissociationCom, 16 Apr. 2016,

traumadissociation.com/alters.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder).” Psychology Today,

Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/dissociative-identity-

disorder-multiple-personality-disorder.

“Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder).” PsyCom.net -

Mental Health Treatment Resource Since 1986, www.psycom.net/mchugh.html.