DID: The Disease that Doesn't Exist

CW: Dissociation, sexual assault, suicide, self-harm

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a disease that most people are most familiar with as the basis for an insanity plea in approximately every crime TV show that has ever been aired in the history of time.  In these depictions, the mild-mannered defendant commits a crime, which they don't remember because it happened while they were waltzing around as their own evil twin...or, in one particularly bizarre episode of Psych, where a man's mtf trans alter was murdering his therapists and "haunting" his own home, because he didn't know she existed.  God, I miss that show.

Sadly, however, everything you have ever learned from pop culture is completely and totally inaccurate.

The truth about DID is that it's actually so misunderstood that mental health professionals are divided on whether it exists at all.  It is currently included in the DSM-5 (if you're not familiar with that, it's basically the Bible of psychiatrists), but you can find many arguments that it should be taken out of the next edition.  This argument mainly stems from the fact that people who have DID tend to be easily suggestible, the idea that repressed memories aren't real (they are), and that hypnosis, which used to be utilized in treatment for many mental disorders, can cause people to remember things that didn't actually happen (it can).  It doesn't help that the book Sybil, which was the first introduction the general public was given to DID, is now widely considered to be a moneymaking scheme, wherein the psychiatrist and journalist worked together to plant false memories in their patient in order to then "cure" her and sell her story.

In my opinion, DID is horribly poorly depicted and over-represented in pop culture.  I've also interacted with an alarming number of people online who claim to have DID, but it mostly seems like an excuse to fill out surveys in six different colors and styles of font representing each of their "alters" and playact as different people.  So between media misrepresentation, controversy in the medical community, and people on the internet who just really need attention, it's no surprise that no one seems to know what DID actually is.

(You know it's bad when even the memes are outdated.)

I have not been officially diagnosed with DID, but I fit all of the diagnostic criteria, and my psychologist agrees that I pretty obviously have it.  It caused me a lot of problems a few years ago, but has been mostly contained until recently.  Before I continue, I want to point out a couple of things real quick: 1. DID is not related in any way to schizophrenia, and 2. I actually asked a lawyer and he said using DID to get out of a crime won't work in court, because the body that committed the crime is the body that will go to prison, no matter who was driving it.  (Also, most of us are not murderers.)

DID is also not a bunch of different personalities fighting over one body.  Dissociation tends to begin as a way for someone's mind to escape in a moment of extreme trauma.  While experiencing a dissociative fugue, someone may do things and go places they don't remember, often while displaying unusual characteristics or taking on a new identity entirely.  Dissociation is often caused by a change in emotional state.  In basic terms, if someone who tends to dissociate becomes anxious or upset, they may dissociate for a few minutes or several hours, and later have no memory of what they did.

Displaying a separate identity is known as having an "alter."  However, an alter is not a distinct person from the "host personality."  Alters are more accurately described as a fracturing of someone's identity.  It's also very rare that someone will have multiple fully independent alters, like Sybil claims to have had.  It's much more common for someone to have one or two strong alter identities that have their own names or identifying characteristics, and many more alter-states that are less personalities and more just a general inability to cope with strong emotion.

Sooo after that long introduction, I'll explain a little bit about my experience with DID.  I started dissociating occasionally after I was put in the psych ward at age 13, almost always following a flashback.  It happened rarely until around 2008, when I began experiencing dissociative fugues.  My general pattern was to start feeling anxious and fuzzy in the afternoon after getting home from my college classes.  Then I would wake up in my bed the next morning with no recollection of the previous evening.  The first time I really realized I had a problem was when I woke up to find my fridge was full of dozens of packages of Oreos, which I had to return so I could pay rent.

I continued having these longer episodes once or twice a month for the next couple of years.  One time I "woke up" to realize I was in the next town over, driving around at 2am with no shoes, and there were several times I found myself in various parts of town at odd hours, usually in clothes I didn't recognize.  One of my alters did eventually name herself Sarah, and really enjoyed getting drunk and causing mischief.  She called my shrink and yelled at her.  She sometimes called my friends and said cruel things.  Once she posted my phone number and a nude picture on Craigslist, and I woke up to over 400 text messages.  (That was a rough day.)  I started keeping track of the mileage on my car so I'd know if she traveled during the night.  Sarah also claimed to have access to memories that I did not, and would leave me messages in my journal.  Another alter came out after a while, who was a young child and would draw pictures for me and my shrink.

Although annoying, Sarah didn't become dangerous until 2010.  If you've read previous entries, you probably have an idea of where this is going.  In August, Sarah went to a party, got super drunk, and was sexually assaulted.  She then tried to hang herself in the garage, where she was found by her attacker and cut down.  She then conveniently disappeared and left me to deal with the aftermath.  After this, Sarah got really invested in trying to kill herself.  While I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with this, my shrink sure did, and Sarah's goal always seemed to be to cause as much drama as possible.

My shrink pretty quickly figured out that Sarah was the part of me that dealt with anger.  I felt I wasn't allowed to be angry as a child, because I felt I was punished any time I expressed anger.  I also was terrified of the anger of other people, especially my father.  It may seem odd, but until the assault, and even after, Sarah was my protector.  She believed that she was protecting me from memories that would hurt me.  She took the anger that I wasn't allowed to feel and expressed it the only way she knew how.  In really dark days of depression, she would tell things to my shrink that I was too scared to tell her.  And when people got angry at me, Sarah would stand up and yell right back at them.  But she was also lonely and self-destructive, and in general I really would have preferred to deal with all that myself.

After the assault in 2010, I started taking steps to make sure that Sarah wasn't able to leave the house.  I would often tie myself to the bed, figuring if I gave Sarah snacks, Netflix, and a couple of people to talk to, she would give up on trying to escape and settle down.  This seemed to work, for the most part.  I also realized that I could take some of my leftover Seroquel and just drug myself to sleep before I dissociated, so while sometimes I had to cancel evening plans, Sarah lost a lot of her ability to mess with my life.  I have also spent a lot of time working on my fear of anger with my shrink, so I haven't needed her as much.

Cue Monday night.

I don't keep rope anymore and I'm out of meds that knock me out, so I made do with some yarn and a loooot of liquor.  Luckily, I woke up in bed the next morning, and according to my shrink, the only thing Sarah really said on the phone was "Leave her alone" (she can tell our voices apart).  I can think of like 18 reasons that I'm dissociating again, but it's super disconcerting.  Although I feel more equipped to deal with her, I'm hoping I won't have to.

I don't really have a poetic ending, other than DID sucks and hopefully you know a bit more about it now.  If you make stupid jokes about having multiple personalities, maybe pause for a moment and remember that having alters is terrible.  And though I generally say that everyone's pain is valid and should be taken seriously, the people who enjoy telling you about all their different personalities and what their favorite food is are probably giant liars.  It's not a cute, fun, personality quirk.  It's a disease that can destroy your life in 30 seconds.

Good times.