Alternate Selves

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Alternate Selves or Multiple Personality Disorder was renamed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in 1994 because of developments in the research of understanding it.  

This is not to be confused with “schizophrenia”, although schizophrenia means “split mind” in German, which is a completely different thought disorder.  

Dissociation is a mental process in which there is a lack of connection in your thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or identity. The result is that there are two or more separate personalities or identities residing within the mind. These different personalities alternately take control of mind and body. 

DID patients will also experience extensive memory loss, especially when these other personalities have taken over.  These different personalities are known as “alters”.  DID usually starts in childhood and most of the sufferers are female. 

This disorder is not as rare as everyone thinks. Long ago, everyone used to think that this disorder involved multiple personalities and identities growing and proliferating within one person.  

Then, when it was better understood, it was realised that the condition came about from the fragmenting or splintering of ONE identity, rather than new identities growing on their own. 

Why people develop DID is not completely understood to this day. But there are certain common traits. 
The patients have frequently experienced severe physical and sexual abuse, especially in childhood. They develop disassociation as a defensive mechanism to help them cope with the horrors they are experiencing. This is because it is easier to “imagine” the abuse is happening to someone else, not the primary identity. 
The patients may have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or post-traumatic symptoms as a result of the abuse, such as nightmares, flashbacks and startle responses.  

There is a hereditary component, meaning you are more likely to have DID if someone in your family has DID.  Some evidence suggests that people with brain injury and epilepsy have a higher risk. 

When a person has DID, she is not likely to be able to diagnose or notice it in herself. What happens is that she has a failure to integrate the various aspects of her mind – identity, memory and consciousness – into one single multidimensional self, unlike normal people. It is usually noticed by other people, usually a loved one or a friend.
 
Usually, primary identity, the one she came into the world with and grew up with, carries her own name.  
For example, Miss X, the primary identity, is usually passive as a person, dependent. She feels guilty all the time and is frequently depressed.  

Now Miss X, as a result of her usually traumatic childhood, develops DID as a result. She has now many “alters”. Each “alter” has different characteristics, a different and distinct history, mannerisms, self-image and identity. Each “alter” has a different name, a different age, a different gender.  

Each “alter” speaks differently, acts differently, understands things differently, remembers differently and has different moods. The “alters” are usually quite in contrast with the meek primary identity. They may dress differently and walk differently. 

There can be certain situations or circumstances that can cause a particular “alter’ to emerge. Each “alter” sometimes denies knowledge of one another. Or if they “know” one another, may usually criticise one another or appear to be antagonistic to one another.  

A DID patient also has periods of amnesia or “missing time” that he cannot account for. (This is the period when his “alters” take over his mind.)  The average age for development of these “alters” is 5.9 years. 

On the average, DID sufferers have 10 “alters”. But there can be as few as two and as many as 100!  Before you think this is a “fun” disorder to have, do remember that many DID patients are usually depressed and suicidal, and they have a high tendency to mutilate themselves, and one third of them actually experience hallucinations as well.  

As children, DID sufferers often have an inability to focus in school and has conduct problems. In children, this disorder is frequently misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.