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  • Writer's pictureJustin Nepa

Debunking the Myths about Dissociative Identity Disorder

Updated: Apr 4, 2023

DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder was formerly called Multiple or Split Personality Disorder. It’s the ruination of identity defined by two or multiple different personality conditions or an experience of ownership. DID is a complicated mental ailment. Sometimes, people misinterpret its background, origin, and treatment. Henceforth, this blog demystifies the truth about Dissociative Identity Disorder.


Myth-1: The Reason for DID is Unrecognized.


Truth: Although it’s tough to say why individuals experience DID, it generally grows as a traumatic response, especially in childhood. Dissociating helps escape the feeling of a traumatic condition and mentally avoid it when you cannot do it physically. When a young person experiences a traumatic event, he is more likely to encounter dissociated identities.


Myth-2: DID is Similar to Schizophrenia


Truth: Some people consider DID and schizophrenia the same; however, they are different. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder. Its symptoms include social withdrawal, disorganized thoughts, hallucinations, speech and movement, paranoia, and delusions. It doesn’t have dissociation or split personalities.


People experiencing DID don’t hallucinate their changes or are not delusional. They may encounter some symptoms of psychosis, like hearing voices; however, schizophrenia and DID are not the same ailments.


Myth-3: the Possibility of Recovery is Low


Truth: DID cannot cure on its own, but according to La Noce Psychiatry, if people get complete treatment for DID, they may experience a relevant result, compared to other chronic mental illnesses.


Patients may reap benefits from different treatment methods, such as art or music treatment, conventional psychotherapy, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing).


Myth-4: DID is a Personality Disorder


Truth: Due to the relation with split or several personalities, sometimes people consider DID a personality disorder, but this doesn’t seem right. DID and personality disorders are different things. Personality disorders are persistent feelings and behavior, generally growing in adulthood. It acts like borderline personality disorder that includes emotional patterns and responses of behavior that make it challenging for an individual with the disorder to have constant function and connections in society.


DID is a dissociative illness. Instead of excessive emotional responses to the world, people with DID become detached from themselves: their sense of identity, memories, behavior, and emotions. Unlike personality disorders, they may grow at any age.


Myth-5: DID is Always Apparent


Truth: The existence of Dissociative Identity Disorder is not always apparent, either to people with this illness or to witnesses. In the starting, patients of DID may know about memory loss. If or not they don’t know about their habit of dissociating, people can sometimes act appropriately with their disorder. When an individual’s changes are the same as they present, the condition becomes more difficult to identify than when they are more different.


Final Notes


So, these are five myths and the truth about Dissociative Identity Disorder. DID is a typical mental health condition considered the result of childhood traumatic events. The disorder can highly affect somebody’s daily life, but assistance is available at La Noce Psychiatry. With the proper diagnosis and treatment, you can get relief from this mental ailment.


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