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=__Dissociative Identity Disorder__=

Dissociative Identity Disorder, (Also known as DID, and previously referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder), is diagnosed, according to the DSM, when two or more distinct identities or separate personality states occupy a single body and recurrently take control of that body's behavior. While the diagnosis only requires two separate identities to be present, (one of them being the Host, or "the identity that keeps the other identities together"), in most reported cases, the number of other personalities, (known as alters), is usually closer to about 15. Additionally, there have been reports of up to 100 alters in one body.

Alters can range immensely, and are usually created by the person with the disorder to deal with a specific situation. Each alter can display unique behaviors, voices, or postures, and it is not uncommon for personalities of the opposite sex of the host to arise. Whereas people without the disorder are able to react to a variety of situations with their own personality, those with DID instead dissociate their personality into a wide range of alters. In most cases, individuals diagnosed with DID report extreme physical, mental, and sexual abuse as children, and this leads to new identities forming to distance the host from unpleasant or undesirable situations. In many instances, this escape mechanism results in alters being specifically aligned with a certain emotion or age. For example, it is not uncommon for an alter who is a 7 year old child to emerge in an adult with DID, or for a rebellious teenager. Additionally, it is not uncommon for alters who are always depressed or who seek to harm the body of the person to emerge and take control. As individuals with DID want to escape their own feelings of guilt and inadequacy, these self harm alters often prove to be a dangerous threat which can lead to anxiety for the host. (As a reference for the variety of alters which can occur, and how self-harm can emerge, please view: [|here]).

Symptoms:
====Memory Loss/losses of time - Often times when alters more aggressive than the host switch in, the host can experience a loss of events which occurred when the alter was in control. The host may "wake up" in an area in which they have no prior knowledge, and without knowing how they got there, (which is quite similar to [|Dissociative Fugue], except some sort of personality is intact at the time).====

====Anxiety/Paranoia - Anxiety is often related to aggressive alters as well, usually resulting in an anxious host in terms of when the alter will next surface suddenly. This anxiety can result in paranoia, but paranoia can also arise separately in various personalities, depending on each one's experiences.====

====Self-Injury and Attempted Suicide - When the unified self fragments, the parts of self loathing and hatred often take on aggressive forms which seek to hurt the body of the individual with DID. As some alters form, the host is seeking to separate from some thoughts/experiences, and thus, self hatred is one that can often manifest. As the personalities are a sort of "fury incarnate," they can seize control of the body, sometimes by their own will, and try to harm the body as much as possible while out, which often leads to other symptoms in addition.====

====Traumatic Flashbacks - Individuals with DID often encountered heavy abuse as children, and as situations can spark switches to alters, other situations can spark horrific memories, very similar to [|Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder].====

Treatment:
As DID is a very specific disorder, there is not a particular drug which can completely cure the separation of selves in the mind. Therefore, heavy therapy is needed for those with the disorder, and is usually centered around reintegrating the various selves in the mind back into a unified whole. As therapist and patient attempt to explore the past, various alters usually stand in the way of discovering the whole of the abuse from which the disorder arose. Getting the host, and therefore the alters, to understand the abuse usually begins the reintegration process. Additionally, focusing on specific triggers which prompt both flashback and switches and drawing attention of them to the host seems to have the most positive results.

Controversy:
Dissociative Identity Disorder has become quite popular in the last few decades in everyday pop culture, which has led to a movement of those who are skeptical of the disorder. Despite being such a rare disorder, some well known characters have arisen from the idea of the disorder, (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Three Faces of Eve, Norman Bates in Psycho, or even humorous ones such as Beavis/Cornholio in the TV series Beavis and Butt-head). This very prevalence in pop culture is often a source of controversy though, as it has led to those pretending to have the disorder, (which has made it even more difficult to define what exactly the disorder even is in terms of symptoms etc.).

As is discussed in [|Dr. Paulette Marie Gillig's article], one such means for controversy is "dispute over the meaning of observes symptoms: Is DID a disorder with a unique and subtle set of core symptoms and behaviors that some clinicians do not see when it is before their eyes?" In other words, there isn't really a set of occurrences that will happen in DID, as each case is very exclusive, however, with the rarity of the disorder, it is hard to tell which symptoms are related to the disorder itself, and which are sort of manifested from other causes, or as Dr. Gillig puts it "malingering and/or iatrogenically cause symptoms created by the other clinicians who think something is there that is not." It is also pointed out that the majority of individuals with DID are susceptible to hypnosis.