All people experience some degree of dissociation. This is a disconnection between various aspects of yourself (feeling unplugged). Common examples of dissociation include daydreaming, being fully absorbed in the internet, a movie, or book, or driving somewhere familiar without remembering much of the drive later (highway hypnosis).
When dissociation becomes a more serious problem, people may be diagnosed with
dissociative amnesia, which causes people to have difficulty remembering
important information about their self, or depersonalization disorder, which
involves feelings of detachment and unreality.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) was formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder (until
1994). DID is a mental disorder condition in which a
person's identity is fragmented into two or more distinct personality states.
People with this rare condition are often victims of severe abuse. DID is diagnosed six times more often in
females than males. Some common misunderstandings and
truths about DID include the following:
Fact:
Therapists stress that despite how it looks that all the identities are parts
of one single person, with each identity expressing a part of the whole. The
American Psychiatric Association notes that people with this disorder do not
have more than one personality, but rather less than one personality.
Fact:
DID is much more common than once thought. It affects 1.5 percent of American
adults. Prevalence rates for DID are similar to those for major depressive
disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and more common than Autism Spectrum
Disorder (ASD) and Schizophrenia.
Fact: Although it may not be possible to say with certainty why
any one person develops DID, it’s thought to generally develop as a response to
trauma (particularly in childhood). Dissociating is a way to escape feeling the
full extent of a traumatic event and to run away mentally when it isn’t
possible to run away physically. It appears that the younger a person is when
the trauma occurs. The more likely it is for periods of dissociation to turn
into completely dissociated identities.
Fact: The presence of DID isn’t always obvious either to
onlookers or even to people who suffer from the condition themselves. In the
beginning, people with DID may simply be aware of lapses in memory. Whether or
not they’re aware of their tendency to dissociate, people can often function
quite well with their disorder. When a person’s “alters” are fairly similar in
the way they present themselves, the condition is harder to detect than when
they’re more distinct.
Fact:
Because the presence of DID isn’t always obvious, it can mimic other conditions
and can co-occur with other disorders, it often takes time for people to
receive the correct diagnosis. People with DID are in the mental health system
for an average of seven years before their condition is diagnosed correctly.
Fact:
DID won’t resolve on its own. When people receive and complete proper
treatment, DID may carry a favorable prognosis, when compared to other severe
psychiatric disorders. Patients may receive benefit from a variety of treatment
modalities including traditional psychotherapy, art or music therapy, and Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Sometimes, people with mental health
conditions don’t seek help because they fear being stigmatized.
[i] Sources used:
·
“Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder)” by
Psychology Today
·
“Dissociative
identity disorder” from Wikipedia
·
“The
Myths and Facts about Dissociative Identity Disorder” by Martha McLaughlin
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