DID is when a person has multiple personalities. This is not something you are born with, but instead a defense mechanism you brain creates to protect yourself from the memories from terrible experiences. It is unknown why one person will get this over another, but it is most common in people who have suffered from sexual abuse as children. When memories from the abuse come up, the person will unconsciously slip into a different personality. When they return to being "themselves" they will not remember what they talked about or did. A good way to think of it is like a mirror. Our personality is a mirror, but with DID the mirror is shattered into a bunch of smaller pieces to prevent it from being whole again.
Some cases have 20 - 50 different distinct personalities. Each one is completely different in age, gender, habits, and even handwriting! I have attached a video from a documentary done on DID that we watched in my classes before. This section is about a woman named Barb who had ongoing abuse from her father, and has created many personalities. She becomes exhausted from competing with her personalities for control of her body everyday. Each personality has different memories. At 6:58, when she is in the personality of "Carrie", she explains how and when Carrie takes over the body by saying, "I'm only allowed out when it is something nobody else wants to handle. It's not fair." This shows that not only is Barb competing with the personalities, but the personalities are competing with themselves. Carrie is angry that she "lost" and had to take control of a situation.
Here is the video if you are interested in watching it. Although this is certainly not a game, it definitely shows how some people have to deal with extreme competition within their body for control of who they are everyday.
Dominique,
ReplyDeleteIn a psychology course I took we discussed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in great detail and an interesting detail about this disorder was brought up that represents a game, but different from which you described in class and in this post. The game I am talking about is how many criminals, murderers, and rapists have used DID as a way to cheat the criminal justice system, to claim that it was "different personality" that did the crime and thus they were not responsible. Ever since the publication of "Sybil" and media stories on this disorder, some people have become more and more skilled at being able to fake this disorder; they treat it as a game. Thus, while DID is definitely a disorder in which people are fighting and competing against their own personalities within them, it is also a disorder that people have used to game the justice system and get away with crimes they were guilty of. The discussion of Dissociative Identity Disorder comes with vey serious implications.
Taylor Rothman
I haven't really learned much about this disorder or knew anyone that has been effected by it. The only time I heard about this was in some detective tv shows where the criminal is a person who has this disorder. I think you're right and this is definately not a game because of its consequences, but during these shows they play if off as a game. Just in the sense that it's kind of a game to figure out which personality is responsible for committing a certain crime, and how and if they will be punished for it. Writters of the show seem to play off that competition within a person to make the game of solving a crime more interesting to watch.
ReplyDeleteI have definitely heard of multiple personality disorders, but never realized the intensity as described above (20-50 personalities!). it definitely interesting that each personality has a mind and set of experiences of his/her own. The connection to internal competition is definitely interesting and I think can even be related to all of our everyday decision processes. The video you posted seems a little out of date, so I looked up an article to see if any recent breakthroughs have come about concerning Dissociative identity Disorder (DID).
ReplyDeleteHere is the URL: http://www.jaapl.org/content/39/3/402.full?sid=2e4e0e22-ab56-4e0e-a96a-8f3be07fe2eb.
As Taylor discussed and according to this article, DID has many legal implications and issues. The article brings up many questions, the main being whether or not the disorder actually exists, or whether it is all good acting. Other questions to consider are: If a crime is committed by one of the personalities of a person, is it unjust for all of the other personalities to be punished? Which personality is the “true” personality? If the personality, who let’s say, committed murder, were released as innocent, who would take responsibility for the death of the victim? I believe that these questions really encompass the legal game that Taylor talks about.
A point from the article that I think brings a new outlook on what Dominique said is that “predisposition for development of a dissociative disorder includes personality traits, such as being easily hypnotized, mental absorption, suggestibility, and a tendency to fantasize. Co-morbidities with dissociation include posttraumatic stress, borderline personality, somatoform, and eating and substance-abuse disorders.” According to this article, it does appear that certain people are actually more biologically prone to DID than others, although is in agreed upon that a traumatic event is the catalyst.
Cool topic.