Dissociative identity disorder, commonly known as multiple personality disorder, impacts one’s life significantly.
What is dissociative identity disorder? Who is at risk for it? How to recognize it? Read this article to find out!
Dissociative identity disorder is likely caused by many factors, including severe trauma during early childhood that is usually extreme. It is a mental process that produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.
Researchers found that the cause of dissociative identity disorder is likely a psychological response to interpersonal and environmental stresses, particularly during early childhood years when emotional neglect or abuse may interfere with personality development. Individuals with dissociative identity disorder report that they had had personal histories of recurring, overpowering, and often life-threatening disturbances or traumas at a sensitive developmental stage of childhood (which is usually before the age of six).
Although dissociative identity disorder is very rare, the conditions cannot be cured, which disturbs one’s life greatly. Characterized by the presence of two or more distinct or split identities or personality states, dissociative identity disorder causes one to lack the ability to recall key personal information. Additionally, highly distinct memory variations fluctuate. The different identities of an individual have their own age, sex, or race, postures, gestures, and distinct way of talking. Sometimes the alters are imaginary people, while sometimes they are animals. The switching between the different identities takes seconds or up to days.
Dissociative identity disorder changes the way a person experiences living, some aspects are listed below:
Depersonalization: a sense of being detached from one’s body, or an “out of body” experience. In this case, individuals report that they feel like they are another person that is observing their own bodies and thoughts.
Derealization: A feeling that the world is not real or looking foggy or far away.
Amnesia: The inability to recall significant personal information that cannot be blamed on ordinary forgetfulness.
Identity confusion or identity alteration: The confusion about who a person is. Individuals may have difficulties defining important information about themselves, and may also experience distortions in time, place, and situation.
Despite the numerous identities present in one’s body, there is often a “host” personality that is identified with the person’s real name. Unfortunately, the host personality is usually unaware of the presence of other personalities.
Hope this article helped you learn more about Dissociative Identity Disorder. Thanks for reading!
Written by: Benetta Wang
Sources:
What Are Dissociative Disorders?, www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/dissociative-disorders/what-are-dissociative-disorders.
“Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder): Signs, Symptoms, Treatment.” WebMD, WebMD, 22 Jan. 2020, www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder.
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