Hello! In my high school, we have a class called Disease. In this class, we have been learning and looking into a bunch of different mental disorders. We learned about the brain first and also about how different people's brains work, then we started looking into things like how mental disorders affect the brain. We have been reading about lots of different things on the DSM-5. We looked specifically into schizophrenia and autism as a class, but we also researched on our own into different disorders of our choices that are on the DSM-5. For this term in Disease, we were given an action project to choose a disorder and research all about the disorder. We were supposed to research how it affects the brain, how people react to it, etc., and then we were supposed to create an activity. The activity is for creating empathy on the disease, we want people to understand a little more what certain people are going through. The disorder that I chose for my action project was Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is an identity disorder where somebody has two or more identities in their own body. Each identity or “alter” has different memories, likes, dislikes, and so on. This disorder isn’t in their control; it is literally just the fact of them having more than one identity in just one body. It happens when as a child their personality is developing and it is disrupted with trauma and/or some sort of abuse. Their mind subconsciously puts up barriers like amnesia, that then disrupt the normal process of developing one single personality in the body.
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| Kazmo brain center, 2021 |
Here is an excerpt from the Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnostic page in the DSM-5. “Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession. The disruption in identity involves marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in effect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning.” This is a scientific definition that explains what DID is, but empathy doesn't build with just words. This is the little activity I set up for you to use multiple senses in understanding DID.
To start the activity, think of 3 different people, characters, or personalities that you know well, and that you would like to roleplay/imitate for this activity. It would be helpful to write them down in a doc or a notebook. What you will be doing is reading different parts of a story while reacting with different personalities through roleplaying. There is a memory loss factor in this activity, so another thing I did was I spread out the activity throughout the blog so it is not done all at once. There is a (*) to symbolize whenever you are meant to continue the activity, and a (-) for when it is back to the information on DID.
Llama Llama Red Pajama | Read Aloud
Play the video above, but then pause after the first 2 pages of the book are read.
Write down a 1-2 sentence summary of your reaction to what happened in the story so far.
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In an interview by Anthony Padilla with Nin from DissociaDID, Nin explained in her words what DID is.
“So having DID means that, as a child, your personality was unable to fully develop into one singular personality. Everybody as a child starts off with an unintegrated personality, and around the ages of between seven to nine in normal development. But if there is repeated or severe trauma before that age, then the brain can say, ‘Woah, I can’t deal with this, this cannot be my life and we would not be able to survive if I was aware of this.’ So this trauma, along with the ability to dissociate to a high level and having disorganized attachments to your primary caregivers, prevents one personality from fully integrating because (of) the amnesia that goes up to keep that trauma away. And that’s why if you have DID you have multiple personalities, rather than one singular one.”*
Llama Llama Red Pajama | Read Aloud
Play the video again from where you left off, and stop after 2 more pages.
Write down a 1-2 sentence summary of what a different person’s reaction would be to what happened in the story. (One of the people you chose earlier). Write it down in their voice, as if you were imitating them, and try not to remember what happened previously in the story.
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There is a myth that there will be a serial killer/very aggressive identity in each DID system. This misconception can be very harmful to the people that are part of a DID system or a system of alters. When people with DID are switching, they lose focus on what they were doing and it is usually unsettling for them. Usually, it is a feeling of “Uh-oh, I am losing my control of the body”. Lots of people assume that the worry is more like “Uh-oh, serial killer Jerry is coming out”. But really if you think about it, you don’t want to not have control of your body, and that’s how people with DID feel. Each person in that body is just as likely to be a serial killer as every other person in the world. They aren’t monsters, they are human.
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Llama Llama Red Pajama | Read Aloud
Play the video again from where you left off, and stop after 2 more pages.
Write down a 1-2 sentence summary of what a different person’s reaction would be to what happened in the story. (Another one of the people you chose earlier). Write it down in their voice, as if you were imitating them, and try not to remember what happened previously in the story. (Yes again).
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Studies in the brain of someone with Dissociative Identity disorder show that there are actual changes in their brain that seem to be because of DID. It is scientifically proven that different parts of the brain "light up" depending on which alter is actually fronting in the body. More studies on people with Dissociative Identity disorder have shown that they seem to get decreased blood flow in parts of the prefrontal cortex. There have also been some studies that have found smaller brain volume in the hippocampus (where there is memory and learning), and also in the amygdala (where there are emotion and fear responses). This makes sense because people with DID have trouble dissociating to a high level, at least some of their alters have PTSD or trauma, and they have something called dissociative amnesia which is usually caused by stress or trauma.
Make sure they don’t feel alone
Make sure they feel seen
Make sure they feel heard
People who are part of a DID system often struggle with feeling heard, seen, and accepted. They don’t know what is going on in their body every second because of different alters fronting. Most people wouldn’t understand why it is that they keep “forgetting simple things” or “suddenly changing attitudes”. It is really because they are not just one person, and they can’t change that. It makes it difficult for them to not feel lonely when people don’t understand them as a person who is separate from all the other alters.
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Llama Llama Red Pajama | Read Aloud
Play the video again from where you left off, and stop after 2 more pages.
Write down a 1-2 sentence summary of what a different person’s reaction would be to what happened in the story. (The last person that you chose for the activity). Write it down in their voice, as if you were imitating them, and try not to remember what happened previously in the story. Now write a reflection of how this experience was for you. How did it feel to have to forget what happened in the story over and over, and have to react to the story with different personalities and memories? You could write this part in the comments if you would like!
I hope this got you to reflect and form empathy around people apart of a DID system. I honestly had a lot of fun working on this action project. I learned a lot about DID and I hope you did too. It was a bit difficult figuring out how I was going to layout the activity, but I think it worked out pretty well. Thank you so much for visiting my blog and reading my blog post!
Citations:
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. American Psychiatric Association, 2017.
I spent a day with multiple personalities (dissociative identity disorder). YouTube. (2020, March 4). Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://youtu.be/ek7JK6pattE
Multiple personality disorder. Multiple Personality Disorder Treatment | Amen Clinics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.amenclinics.com/conditions/multiple-personality-disorder-dissociative-identity-disorder/#:~:text=Other%20brain%20imaging%20studies%20involving,in%20emotional%20and%20fear%20response
Reza. (2021, April 1). Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder). Kazmo Brain Center. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://kazmobrain.com/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder/
YouTube. (n.d.). Dissociadid. YouTube. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/c/DissociaDID/featured
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