Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Myths vs Truth - SunsetShone
Hello everyone,
today, I'm able to share an often requested post about the myths and truths regarding dissociative identity disorder (DID), written by @SunsetShone. Do you know more myths and truths regarding DID? Please share them down in the comments! Also, thank you to SunsetShone for writing this post!
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Myths vs Truth - SunsetShone
Some common myths of DID is that they are often portrayed as serial killers. Especially movies. This is not true! Movie wise you will never find an accurate portrayal of DID as movies are commonly based on stereotypes, casting, costume, plot etc. DID is exaggerated in media and many symptoms shown are entirely fictional, creating a negative stigma around the disorder.
Many people believe that DID is a form of schizophrenia, this is not true.
DID is a condition in which multiple fully formed personality alters co-exist and shift within one person, while Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder where the person experiences extreme delusions and hallucinations.
Did is seen as a fake condition created by those lacking attention, however DID lives within 1.5% of the population (source 1), making it as common as OCD (source 2).
The media portrays this condition as violent and psychopathic, but it is nowhere near! People with this condition are no more likely to be violent than anyone else in this world.
The disorder is not obvious like many would believe, as the person is under a constant state of fight or flight it could be unrecognizable to those around along with themselves, a person’s alter would often be trying to blend in to go unnoticed, because of this DID can go undetected for years.
@audienta
The violent one gets me. Even here there have been people ask if I'm violent it spent time in prison. Or they refer to a part as scary. This is unacceptable.
There's the myth that DID isn't real. It's just something we've fabricated to get away with things. Even some professionals feel that DID isn't real. That it's actually BPD or we're just attention seeking.
There's the myth that you can't know you have it. This may be true in the beginning. While we're often very good at hiding ourselves but there are times when we do try to communicate with the host.
There's the myth that we can switch on demand. Sometimes it is possible. But there's many things to be taken into consideration, whether it's safe. It's at our discretion not anyone else's. Don't ever try to trigger someone to have another part come out.
We often but not always have a part or parts that are not human. They're not something to made fun of it mocked.
Our littles are precious to us. Some are happy, some are sad. Some have no trauma and are happy, healthy kids.
Persecutors are not bad. It's taken some time to work through this one here but it's understood now that they're there for a reason too. Trying to ignore them won't make them go away. If anything they just make their presence known in louder ways.
Parts can have their own mental health troubles. Some may require medications that the others don't. There can be parts that are mute or deaf or even blind. Some may have allergies that the other's don't have.
I could go on. Each system is different and depends on what was needed to survive at the time. Some people have gatekeepers, others do not. Some have older, more mature parts, others do not. Some people can access the inner world but others may have limited access or no access at all.
DID isn't something we chose. It is caused by severe prolonged trauma. We're not possessed. We're not crazy.
@mytwistedsoul
Thank you for expanding the list! And I'm sorry that you've had to experience listeners having harmful prejudices regarding DID. I really hope, that this project helps to reduce the amount of experience like that.
@audienta @SunsetShone I wanted to apologize to you both. Someone had quite a bit to add. I'm sorry about that.
@mytwistedsoul
You don't need to apologize, I appreciate the additional information!