Hey everybody, today we're gonna talk about Dissociative Identity Disorder, otherwise known as multiple personality disorder.
And, if any of your have been a long time viewer, you know that I had a video come out a long time ago that was titled this
But what I actually talked about in that video was maladaptive daydreaming.
And I'll link that video here, because it's my bad that I mislabelled it and then made a thumbnail that didn't quite appropriately identify the video.
And the truth of it is, that when I was watching that video, I started out talking about DID and then I went into maladaptive daydream and never came back.
So I apologize, but let's get into the real nitty-gritty about what DID is.
*Music*
Since this is a diagnoses, I am looking into my DSM, my DSM.
Um, and I'm gonna read to you the diagnostic criteria
and then I'm gonna come back and go through the first two criteria because there's so much to be said about these
And then I'll finish with what treatment options are available. OK?
So let's get going.
The diagnostic criteria reads that Dissociative Identity Disorder can be diagnosed if there is a disruption of identity
Characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession.
So what that really means is that we're experiencing a whole other personality.
OK?
These signs and symptoms may be observed by others or reported by the individual.
That is A.
B: Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events.
there's a lot of amnesia that's associated with this or you won't remember whole chunks
of time whole period of their life and hold chunks of their day and what they
did they may wake up and notice like wake up from that state and see they
purchase something that no one else could have purchased for them or drew
something that they know they had to create yet they have no memory of doing
either of those things now C says the symptoms cause, this like all diagnoses as
the symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in
social occupational or other areas of functioning so
it's impairing our functioning now the fourth or the letter D is the disturbance is
not a normal part of broadly accepted cultural or religious practice and they
also note that this isn't like kids having imaginary friends or play dates
that's kind of something that children go through and that's not DID ok and
the last is that it cannot be attributable to the psychological
effects of the substance
this can't be because someone is high or on drugs and that's something that
should be assessed if your clinician thinking someone they have this you may
make sure they do you know blood or urine sample to make sure that there are
no drugs in their system like they're going to go into more detail in the
first two criterion now the first one if you remember that they're just a
disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states
and they talk even more about how people may, with dissociative identity disorder
may report feeling that they suddenly become depersonalized almost like to
talk about in dissociation because this is a dissociative disorder we talk about in
dissociation where you can feel like you're kind of
out-of-body like watching yourself do something, many who have DID report
feeling that very same way
many also report still have these really strong impulses that they normally would
never have, or things that feel like they're not even their own but they have
to do it they're compelled to do it and they're not sure why and it feels very
ego-dystonic meaning it's not comfortable to have this isn't something that feels
good to us it feels against who we are
some even report feeling like a whole different person may feel extremely
large muscular others report feeling really small and childlike some
even feel they're the opposite gender or some will smoke when they would never
smoke there are a lot of characteristics that feel
unlike ourselves and not related to us or associated with us all we have no
control over them kind of taken over our bodies now we're moving on to the second
criteria or criterium B and if you remember it's when we have those gaps in
memory or the amnesia that's associated with DID and they talk about this
because DID is a trauma caused disorder people who have
DID have had a severe trauma in their past and many of them don't even
remember it if you want more information on this you can click over here to my
repressed memories video but I just wanted to start off with that because
that's why there's amnesia associated with DID. Ok, now I'm reading from
the DSM again but they say that the dissociative amnesia of individuals with
DID manifest in three ways the first being gaps in remote memory of personal
life events like they won't remember portions of their childhood
the second is lapses in dependable memory like what happened today or maybe
I have a well learned skill like at my work I work on computers and now I can't even
remember how to do that and I have no idea how I ever did it and the third is
that discovery of evidence of their everyday actions and tasks they don't
recollect like before when I was telling you that maybe they'll wake up and
they'll have a new pair of jeans and a painting that there's no one else in the
house no one else would have bought that were created that they know it's them
but they have no memory of it happening even talk about people with DID having
what we call dissociative fugues. Now, dissociative fugue is when you will not
remember you will dissociate and not remember travel getting somewhere
there was an article when I was researching about this where someone
woke up from a dissociative state in Japan they had no idea why they
were going there they didn't know why they got on the plane was work-related
was a for fun travel they have no idea and it can be really frightening and
just for clarification know that the amnesia that i'm talking about isn't
relegated to only the trauma that I've experienced it would be something that
maybe just happened in my regular everyday life
there's amnesia throughout people with DIDs life and it has nothing to do with
the trauma necessarily it can just be me going about my day and I
no recollection of it but the good news is that recovery is possible there are
treatment options things that we can do because when I was researching this I
found out that seventy percent of people with DID have attempted suicide and
multiple attempts are common so if you're out there and you're struggling
or someone you know is struggling and you're feeling hopeless know that you're not
alone, know that there are things that we can do so that this dissociation and the
amnesia that comes along that can go away. Now I'm sure there are a lot of
ways to treat trauma because if you remembered DID is something that is
caused by trauma so EMDR, any of the treatments that I talked about my PTSD
video you can click here to go there will help with this but just with regard
to DID know that the whole goal of treatment is what they call
final fusion meaning that we're trying to integrate all of the different
multiple personalities or other personality states that's what they call
them right are we can all come back together and we can be one whole self
again so that is the ultimate goal of treatment and they recommend talk
therapy as with all trauma work it's really really important that the client
is ready and motivated to change because this can be really difficult trauma work
is hard any of you out there are working on trauma
I know how hard it know how exhausting it can be I know that a lot of you who
have done EMDR in the comments below that video told me that you just sleep
the rest of the day it is really hard work but it can get better and the thing
about DID that is interesting is that it's important when we're working with
you and if you're working with a therapist make sure that they're
treating all of your personalities equal because they're all part of you and they
were created as a way for you to survive a trauma and for you to get through it
and so if we have to create an alternate person and alternate universe that we
kind of live through maybe our alternate personality someone who's really feisty
and fights back because we needed that in the moment when we were maybe being
abused and so know that
they all have a right to be there and they're there for a reason but it's
causing us trouble right our function is impaired and so through therapy
the whole goal is slowly fusing them through working through the trauma so
know that it can take time talk therapy is the number one recommended way an
individual therapy not family therapy because it's really healing you and
working on you so that you can feel like yourself again and be that one united
self 24/7 I hope that gives you a better idea of what dissociative identity
disorder is, how it can feel, how can manifest itself and I know that
everyone's experience is different so please let us know in the comments how
your experience has been and what treatments worked for you but the
research that I did so that any trauma treatment is great talk therapy being the
most recommended it shows the best outcomes and know that you're not alone
it's very commo,n it's very common for our brain to find ways to help us get
through trauma and survive. We're survivors and know that there are people out there
specialist available to help you so please share this video, let other people
know you never know who may be struggling a lot of this goes
undiagnosed for a long period of time and some people are great at hiding it
so click here to subscribe if you're new I put out videos twice a week and you
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videos like this click over here and I will see you next time !