Dissociative Identity Disorder Thread

[Golden Applesauce]

News in head...
Apparently the lady running the show is named Katharine...
Katharine has decided we are going to integrate.

I'm apparently not being allowed to be alarmed about it, so other people in my head are feeling alarmed for me.

In short, I expect to be batshit for a while, and not in a really cool Hirley0 way...In a very messy, moodswingy sort of way, and thus off the board.
Y'all be cool, ok?

*salutes, heads off to support forums.*

It's your life, but maybe you should talk to someone about that?

Yeah, another victim of MPP.  The strange sort of MPP that never seems to hit the medical journals.  The ones where the personalities talk about shit with each other.

I've seen it in person. A friend's doctor is circulating some of friend's autobiographical writing among her colleagues try to get other doctors to stop telling clients that their dissociative identity disorder is just whining. I had lean on him really hard to get him to tell his doctor (who he was already seeing for PTSD & depression) about the other personalities. He was able to tell her about the awful incident(s) relating to his PTSD, but DID was too much. He eventually had to call me into the room to tell his doctor for him, because he couldn't work up to telling her himself.

It's by the single most stigmatized mental disorder. Some people treat you like shit if they find out you're schizophrenic, but at least they admit schizophrenia exists. And some of those skeptics are practicing doctors, so they give elaborate diagnoses like bipolar + poor memory + ADHD + schizophrenia + compulsive lying + whatever instead of admitting that there really is one diagnosis that explains both the full set of symptoms and why the cocktail of 8 different neuroactive drugs isn't helping.

The personalities that consider themselves alternate are afraid treatment will entail a literal existential crisis for them, so they steer the person away from psychologists. When they do make it to a doctor, and the doctor tells them they're full of shit and prescribes them brain-melting bipolar drugs, they tend not to go back. It's vastly underreported.

DID is real and serious business, and science has some catching up to do in the area. Psychologists have a long history of misunderstanding mental disorders for quite a long time before starting to figure them out. Just about every mental disorder has had to struggle for recognition. It is not supported by past results to claim that because many psychologists are skeptical of it it doesn't exist.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Not arguing that DID doesn't exist.  Never said any such thing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What I am arguing is that in cases of DID, the personalities do not "speak with each other".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder

The time in which an alter or alters are in control, so to speak, is characterized by memory loss.

[Golden Applesauce]

Yes. There's greater and lesser degrees of control, though. Sometimes one or more of the other alters have some awareness of what's going on - anything from complete blackout, to a vague recollection of emotional state, to full/partial awareness, to partial control. In the inbetween states where two or more alters are partially out, they can both subvocalize (both exert partial control over a shared stream-of-consciousness?) and can both be aware of and remember thoughts. Alters can and do threaten each other, even without using friends or smartphones to relay messages.

You're going to want a big on that, and you're right to do so. I got permission from my friend to tell her story in more detail; I'll start writing that up. It's pretty crazy and even has some surprise twists.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ohhh there is a lot of contention over this. One bone is whether, if people are aware of their other personalities, it can even properly be classified "Dissociative" identity disorder at all, or if it then falls under the umbrella of delusion and is more properly classified as a schizotypal disorder.

[Golden Applesauce]

Ohhh there is a lot of contention over this. One bone is whether, if people are aware of their other personalities, it can even properly be classified "Dissociative" identity disorder at all, or if it then falls under the umbrella of delusion and is more properly classified as a schizotypal disorder.

I don't know enough about the scientific debate to comment on clinical classification.

In her case, the alters have very distinct personalities, habits, and speaking styles, enough that someone who knows them can tell which is out from even a text conversation. #1 is the public face, dresses conservatively but appreciates gothic fashions, studies lots of foreign languages, is non-confrontational to a fault, has some kind of psycho-somatic colorblindness and can't do most visual memory tasks. #2 is a self-indulgent girly-girl who considers herself eight years younger and speaks in a squeaky falsetto, likes sex, ballet, pretty things, getting her way, sex, Japanese (but hates German, Chinese, and Korean), winning, and putting the other alters into embarrassing situations. #3 is male with an affected gravelly voice, prefers German to the other languages and science and engineering over linguistics and art/fashion, and tries to maintain a dispassionate perspective on the System. #4 I know very little about, except that she speaks nothing but Japanese - only she doesn't actually know much Japanese, so mostly she's either silent or repeats "Doushite?" ("Why?") over and over. I've only met #4 once; apparently she usually manifests under duress and comes out panicked and swinging, but is the gentlest of the four if she can calm down.

There's definitely segregation of memories - #1 does not know about things that happen to #2 or #3 and has extremely fragmented memories of childhood. #2 doesn't know about things that happen while other alters are in full control, but seems to be able to "leave" at will and force another alter to surface. #3 claims to know pretty much everything, although he is almost never "out" and in control; apparently he runs as a background process, silently observing and managing the other alters.

There are specific topics that specific alters will respond to. #2 can be confused and bewildered by speaking German to her loudly and quickly, which brings out #1 who knows that she's annoyed at your terrible pronunciation but not what's going on. The engineer in #3 is annoyed by inefficient sprinkler systems that spray water onto sidewalks, driveways or roads; #1 will make comments like "Wow, your neighbor's sprinklers are reaaaallly pissing #3 off right now."

Transitions between alters can be more an less abrupt -- sometimes, the new alter has no idea what's going on (seems to happen the most with #1 -- she seems to have the least access to memory of all the alters) and needs you to explain to her why she's in a comic shop wearing a skirt. Other times the transition occurs while she's doing task, and new alter knows enough about what's going on to continue the task without it being obvious when the switch took place.

Her story is looking to be massive, a lot longer than anything else I've written on PD, so I'll post it in its own thread.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sounds more like personality compartmentalization than DID. It probably seems really exotic to you, but I've heard it all a hundred times if I've heard it once. Trauma and PTSD can certainly feed into it, and so can youth, and personality disorders. Ultimately, though, it's just another anecdote by a layperson observer.

[Golden Applesauce]

Sounds more like personality compartmentalization than DID. It probably seems really exotic to you, but I've heard it all a hundred times if I've heard it once. Trauma and PTSD can certainly feed into it, and so can youth, and personality disorders. Ultimately, though, it's just another anecdote by a layperson observer.

It certainly might be. Wikipedia is failing me on personality compartmentalization as anything distinct from the general term for compartmentalizing beliefs.  I was using the term DID because that's what she uses to describe herself. I don't think there are any other conditions that feature persistent compartmentalized buckets of memory though? There's dissociative amnesia, which hits autobiographical memory, but I think that's different.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sounds more like personality compartmentalization than DID. It probably seems really exotic to you, but I've heard it all a hundred times if I've heard it once. Trauma and PTSD can certainly feed into it, and so can youth, and personality disorders. Ultimately, though, it's just another anecdote by a layperson observer.

It certainly might be. Wikipedia is failing me on personality compartmentalization as anything distinct from the general term for compartmentalizing beliefs.  I was using the term DID because that's what she uses to describe herself. I don't think there are any other conditions that feature persistent compartmentalized buckets of memory though? There's dissociative amnesia, which hits autobiographical memory, but I think that's different.

Has she been formally diagnosed or is it self-diagnosed?