Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personalities)

Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is a mental fragmentation of the personality, causing different alters to form within one consciousness. This disorder originates in childhood after a significant trauma forces the child’s mind to try to overcompensate for the amount of trauma it has taken on. Each alter serves a purpose within a DID system. DID is a rare disorder and affects roughly 1% of the population. It can be characterized by a few key symptoms such as having one or more distinct alters that either can front or stay dormant depending on how each host’s mind works. People who are diagnosed often report inability to recall personal history or memories from childhood because their minds have put up either a mental block or have fragmented in a way to conceal the traumatic memories or at least conceal the complete details of the trauma. In order to be diagnosed with DID, the DSM-5 dictates that the person has to have at least two or more alters, amnesia, and difficulty performing day to day functions.

The first person to discover DID, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, was Jean Martin Charcot. Charcot was a physician in the late 1880’s that coined the phrase “Hystero-Epilepsy” as the first official title of the disorder as it was being discovered. There were four different effects of DID that have since been called depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, and identity confusion/ alteration. Derealization and depersonalization both have to do with the dissociation the host body has when there is no inhabitant within the system who wants to front. Alters have been recorded in different studies as being all different ages, ethnicities, even different species or ethereal beings. Each alter is different within each DID system, and there are names for the roles that each alter takes on. Protectors are those that protect the system from triggers and can likely be trauma holders and so they protect other alters from those memories. Care takers take on the more parental role and are normally the ones that help the body do what the system needs to get done in daily living. Littles are often the alters that stopped aging at the age the trauma occurred and thus either are trauma holders as well. Research has indicated that the disorder is comorbid with other mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, compulsions, rituals, etc. Each alter within a DID system has their own personalities and even sometimes their own pasts that are different than the host body’s original memories. For example, when a person with DID has an alter that says they had done groceries or if they remember a past that is real for them that is a complete history, it is an indication that each alter would have a different account of the daily events and even suggest that their memories would not be the same as other alters or the host body.

One of the most prominent symptoms of DID aside from fragmented psyche would be memory fragmentation. Memory fragmentation occurs to protect the brain from the trauma it endures and is the brain’s way of trying to heal. The fragments of memory are then “assigned” to the different alters that are within the system as they develop and either start to front or remain within the system. With the memory fragmentation there is also loss of time when any of the alters take full control and front, leaving the other alters, including the host, to lose time in those spaces when they aren’t at the front. When one alter is wanting to front, whoever is fronting at that given time would experience extreme headaches and dissociation as the alters switch out and reacquaint themselves with the new alter fronting and the previous alter going back into subconscious. DID is surrounded in such a negative light that those who are aware often have misconceptions of the disorder such as someone with DID being a danger or that the alters within the system are personalities instead of their being actual people within a fragmented psyche. Treatment of DID would include regular psychotherapy and while there is no known cure for DID, those who live with the disorder find ways of coping through destress activities and monitoring of their alters and daily living.

-Written by Kylie Hamacher, Undergraduate Intern