Anmol Sidhu
Dissociative identity disorder
As someone who was interested in psychology, I was very excited to see the movie split when it first came out. To my utter dismay, I came out of the theatre confused and appalled. I heard people around talking to me about “ Split personality”, about how scary these people are and how dangerous they might be.
Over the years i have come across multiple situations in which DID systems were portrayed as absolute monsters with no sense of control and empathy whatsoever. That’s when I decided that I at-least need to educate myself about this very misjudged disorder.
While typing a quick google search would answer the basic diagnostic guidelines including the causes for the dissociative identity disorder, it still wouldn’t be enough to understand what exactly living with the disorder is like.
The most common question is why, why does the brain in some people decide to split into different alters. Each of us has an essentially muddled personality as a child, in normal development between the ages of 7-9 the personalities start integrating into one personality.
If however between these very sensitive ages, a child experiences repeated trauma, their brain perceives the heightened sense of unsafety as highly turbulent for the development. Due to this it creates a barrier of memory, that enables the main personality to continue living life without the knowledge of the past trauma. So alters are just coping mechanisms.
Many people do not even realize that they have DID till much later in their lives. Alas, our films and literature have not made it any easy to understand what the disorder exactly is. Surfing the web will portray dissociative identity disorder in such negative light, that I can’t even imagine what a person who has been freshly diagnosed with it goes through.
Film-makers put it under the banner of “psychological thriller” and “horror” then use this disorder to create illustrations of horrific monsters, which cannot be more accurate. “It’s just a film” is not an excuse, these films are the only resource for many people to learn about these disorders.
In an age where we as a society are trying to push forth the mental health perspective, and starting to develop a conversation around the topic of mental health, the modern world representation of dissociative identity disorder is pulling us back at-least 20 years.
To better understand the world of DID systems i looked up a couple of interviews, detailing personal experiences and everyday life. They are just regular people. You wouldn’t even realise somebody has DID until they themselves tell you about it. An analogy that i liked is, “ its like driving a car (car being the human body) , say there are five people in this car( the alters), each one drives the car for different amounts of time( fronting).”
A quick google search will lead you to documentaries and movies that paint DID in a bad light. There is so much jargon surrounding the disorder that we often fail to notice that people suffering are just human beings. Movies and documentaries that portray dissociative identity disorder further perpetuate the stigma against people with DID. Often we fail to understand the damaging effect of this portrayal on people who are suffering from the disorder.
Busting some myths
Something that astonished me was the number of myths surrounding the disorder. In the following segment i will list these myths out and attempt to put out the truth.
1) DID is not real, it is people acting out.
Truth: DID is a very real disorder, it has been identified by both Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and International Classification of diseases (ICD).
2) People who have DID are dangerous.
Truth: Unlike the media representation of dissociative identity disorder, people suffering from this disorder are not dangerous. In fact as mentioned earlier in the article you wouldn’t even know that they are suffering from the disorder.
3) The alters are extreme.
Truth: In movies and shows the switch and different alters are extremely exaggerated. This is completely untrue. The portrayal in the media is extremely sensationalized.
4) This disorder is the same as schizophrenia
Truth: They are two separate disorders. While schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder characterized by hallucinations and delusions, Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by separate fully formed personalities.
5) The persecutor alters are always going to harm you.
Truth: The persecutor alters are more likely to harm their own body rather than their environment. These alters often hold the majority of the memories of trauma.
Yes, the movies do get some details correct, but largely they are creating a stigma. The characters are extremely exaggerated and unreal. The overall result isn’t accurate at all.
Its time that we educate ourselves and make a safe environment for everyone suffering from the disorder. Its our moral responsibility, and we must always keep in mind that whatever is in the media isn’t always true.
