The DID ribbon is designed as a quilt with each piece being a different shape and color. The stitching of a quilt is what holds them together. The first DID case that was documented was in 1584, but was commonly mistaken as possession or hysterics. The first official DID diagnosis was in 1882. Once DID became an official diagnosis option, many were mistaken as having schizophrenia. DID was officially added into the DSM as multiple personality disorder in 1980. DID is still a controversial diagnosis for many psychiatrists.
There are some very common misunderstandings on how exactly DID alters work. For instance, many people cannot grasp the idea that there is no one original alter. When we say the host, we are talking about the alter who is predominantly in charge. Someone once explained this phenomenon as broken glass: If you shatter a glass cup and ask someone to pick up the original piece, they won’t be able to. This is because each piece is a part of the glass and together, they make up the entire cup. Every piece is valuable and the cup is incomplete without each and every single piece. In the same way, our brain has shattered into a bunch of alters, making none more or less a part of us than the other.
DID is not necessarily something that develops, but something that did not develop correctly. DID occurs when the fragments of our identity do not fuse together into one individual, therefore creating multiple identities. When I came to this realization, I began to analyze my past and found many instances where my alters where with me and I never noticed it. Sally protected me when I was five years old and kept me hidden in corners. Sam kept me hidden in the worlds of books throughout high school and even part of college. I realized that there was even an obvious moment where I was not directly in control of my body. I remember a specific instance in my teenage years where I was dissociating- the type where you can see yourself from above. I even found an image where I had drawn Sally, yet I had no idea it was her. We may not realize our alters are with us, but subconsciously we know we are not alone.
A common misunderstanding is on the DID disorder itself and how it is formed. A common misconception is that we are split into pieces due to trauma; however, the truth is that we never fused. Imagine that as children we have multiple pieces to our identity. By a certain age, these pieces begin to fuse together to become one individual. However, when there is a trauma, barriers are formed between these pieces of our identity, causing them to stay separate from each other. In truth, we never split; we were never given the ability to fuse into one individual. That is why one of the healing routes for DID is fusion of alters. This may not be the correct path for everyone, but it is a decision each person has to make.
Last year, I was faced with a cruel fact: DID is not something that is prioritized in the psychosis realm. I had been trying to get officially diagnosed for over a year, and started searching for a doctor again. After calling eight different doctor’s offices, it came to my attention that DID is not prioritized. Each place I called led me to another after giving me the news that they did not treat or diagnose psychosis of “that level.” Psychosis is defined as a disorder that causes a disconnection from reality.
At one point, I found a doctor who did treat DID; however, after talking to me for two minutes, deemed me as unfit due to my various other diagnosis (Tourette's, Autism, PTSD, etc.). In his words, “you cannot be both things, either you have DID, or everything else.” How can that be possible? It’s like saying a cat can’t have wobble syndrome because “all cats land on their feet.” Thankfully, I ended up finding a doctor willing to diagnose me. However, it did leave me wondering how many people with DID are left undiagnosed due to uneducated doctors?
Throughout my search for a doctor to diagnose me, I also realized the lack of resources there are for the DID community. There are hardly any support groups, therapists, and doctors available for people with DID. DID is so rare in the psychology department, that it is being newly developed in the training of therapists and doctors. As for support groups, the few that I did find had fees to enter or applications that took a long period of time in order to get admitted into the group. I never did get admitted into any of the groups...
“Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but you are not the rain.”— Matt Haig
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