All dissociative disorders (quite possibly all disorders, we haven’t read the whole DSM) require the presence of clinically significant distress or impairment in order to be considered a disorder.
There is no specific entry for nondisordered plurality for the same reason that there is no entry for individuals who do not experience mental disorder: The DSM catalogues mental disorders, not the entirety of the human experience. It’s beyond the scope of the document.
I don’t know about that specifically, but autism goes from a cute quirk to a disorder around when it starts affecting your life or the life of others negatively. Not sure how you could have multiple personalities without it affecting anything negatively, though…
It’s like any neurodivergent situation where certain things just take work. There’s specialized apps that allow alters (personalities) to communicate and co-ordinate things like scheduling. From folks I have talked to there’s a lot of masking involved where folks with DID will collaborate across different alters to try to appear to be contiguous. A lot of the time from the outside they just seem kind of forgetful in a similar way that non-DID people can be. The source of DID is often severe trauma where the different personalities are created via partitions of memory so that no singular expression of self remembers everything all at once. This allows the whole to function as each peice has functionally a job to do. It’s at it’s core a coping mechanism taken to an extreme but it still functions as a coping mechanism.
Often times you really don’t know someone you’ve been around for years has it because they are scared to tell you. DID has a fair bit of stigma behind the condition.
I’ve known a few plural folks that seem to get on just fine. In all their cases it arose from trauma and was pretty disharmonious and confusing to begin with, but with time and awareness their alters work better together and by the time I met em I wouldn’t have known if they didn’t tell me. I don’t know if they’d say it never affects them negatively but they certainly didn’t need to be freed of it. If anything, plural identity seemed to be more of a solution than an active problem for them.
Personally, I can say I’ve been functioning better by discarding the idea that I should be one consistent self, because that idea caused the stress of choosing who my one self is.
Makes complete sense! Just like any other matter of identity, having to mask the true self(ves) in order to fit what the outside world expects is… draining and pointless. Not having to put up the front means so much more mental energy for everything else.
Appreciate your perspective in this thread, cheers!
When all the alters communicate with each other and work together. Most people have ‘aspects’ of their personality that they only show sometimes, and we call it ‘code switching’. It also happens when speaking different languages, people’s personalities change, but we think that’s normal. In therapy, for most people it’s called ‘parts work’ where you recognize that a part of you feels a certain way, but not all of you, and it’s OK to hold both of those feelings at the same time.
DID is usually caused by trauma that causes rifts between those aspects/personalities/alters and doesn’t let them communicate with each other. That’s when you start dealing with lost time, and waking up in strange places, so the real problem comes with the lack of intercommunication, aka dissociating.
It’s like a road trip with friends. If you’re all communicating and you say ‘Hey, I’m getting tired, can someone else drive?’ that’s fine. You might wake up somewhere new, but you can immediately ask ‘Where are we’ and get caught up. But if you don’t know that there are other people in the car, and think you’re doing the road trip by yourself, lose days of time and suddenly wake up somewhere that may or may not be the destination you were expecting, that’s a problem.
We all have parts. People with DID had their parts forcibly separated.
That’s true. I was hoping to convey that the disorder comes from the dissociation aspect of it. We aren’t born with our personalities already intact, they develop and unify around the age of 5-6, and DID is a response to trauma from before that age. So, we all have ‘multiple personalities’, but don’t consider them to be ‘separate’ because we can still communicate with them. Instead, we just consider them ‘aspects’ of a single personality, but it’s a gray area.
We aren’t born with our personalities already intact, they develop and unify around the age of 5-6, and DID is a response to trauma from before that age.
That’s the current prominent theory, but testing it empirically would be disastrously unethical.
Just because someone’s brain is weird in this certain way doesn’t mean they’re disordered. Disorder implies there’s something wrong that should be fixed, but many people with conditions will disagree that there is anything in need of “fixing”.
That seems quite harsh. You’re basically telling systems that they’re either faking it or it’s a problem, but why are you the arbiter of that? It feels similar to transphobes or homophobes saying being trans/gay is either fake or something you should “fix”. You’re getting very close to using the medical system to enforce social standards on people who don’t conform to them under the guise of “disorder” where the patient is actually fine.
Sorry, there is an unspoken ‘in my option’ in what I said. I am not a medical professional, so no one should think that is the case. In fact probably no one in this discussion is qualified to express an opinion by that measure.
What do you mean by ‘telling systems’?
I have a friend with DID, but I’m not an expert. The media also portrays DID inaccurately most of the time, so it’s hard to explain when there’s disinformation from multiple angles. I’d recommend doing some independent research or talking to your therapist about parts works as a way to understand more.
I think you are right. I seem to have too restricted a definition in my mind and ended up talking at cross angles to others. This is a topic I need to do some reading about.
Genuinely curious, when is being multiple people not a disorder (I am thinking Jason Bourne spy stuff)?
Here’s the relevant section of the DSM:
https://archive.org/details/diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders-dsm-5-pdfdrive.com/page/291/mode/2up
All dissociative disorders (quite possibly all disorders, we haven’t read the whole DSM) require the presence of clinically significant distress or impairment in order to be considered a disorder.
There is no specific entry for nondisordered plurality for the same reason that there is no entry for individuals who do not experience mental disorder: The DSM catalogues mental disorders, not the entirety of the human experience. It’s beyond the scope of the document.
Here’s a good introductory primer to plurality:
https://morethanone.info/
Thank you for the links. I will read that information and have a better understanding.
Simple answer: when it’s not an issue. If you function fine and don’t think it’s a big deal, then why try to change anything?
I don’t know about that specifically, but autism goes from a cute quirk to a disorder around when it starts affecting your life or the life of others negatively. Not sure how you could have multiple personalities without it affecting anything negatively, though…
It’s like any neurodivergent situation where certain things just take work. There’s specialized apps that allow alters (personalities) to communicate and co-ordinate things like scheduling. From folks I have talked to there’s a lot of masking involved where folks with DID will collaborate across different alters to try to appear to be contiguous. A lot of the time from the outside they just seem kind of forgetful in a similar way that non-DID people can be. The source of DID is often severe trauma where the different personalities are created via partitions of memory so that no singular expression of self remembers everything all at once. This allows the whole to function as each peice has functionally a job to do. It’s at it’s core a coping mechanism taken to an extreme but it still functions as a coping mechanism.
Often times you really don’t know someone you’ve been around for years has it because they are scared to tell you. DID has a fair bit of stigma behind the condition.
I’ve known a few plural folks that seem to get on just fine. In all their cases it arose from trauma and was pretty disharmonious and confusing to begin with, but with time and awareness their alters work better together and by the time I met em I wouldn’t have known if they didn’t tell me. I don’t know if they’d say it never affects them negatively but they certainly didn’t need to be freed of it. If anything, plural identity seemed to be more of a solution than an active problem for them.
Personally, I can say I’ve been functioning better by discarding the idea that I should be one consistent self, because that idea caused the stress of choosing who my one self is.
Makes complete sense! Just like any other matter of identity, having to mask the true self(ves) in order to fit what the outside world expects is… draining and pointless. Not having to put up the front means so much more mental energy for everything else.
Appreciate your perspective in this thread, cheers!
When all the alters communicate with each other and work together. Most people have ‘aspects’ of their personality that they only show sometimes, and we call it ‘code switching’. It also happens when speaking different languages, people’s personalities change, but we think that’s normal. In therapy, for most people it’s called ‘parts work’ where you recognize that a part of you feels a certain way, but not all of you, and it’s OK to hold both of those feelings at the same time.
DID is usually caused by trauma that causes rifts between those aspects/personalities/alters and doesn’t let them communicate with each other. That’s when you start dealing with lost time, and waking up in strange places, so the real problem comes with the lack of intercommunication, aka dissociating.
It’s like a road trip with friends. If you’re all communicating and you say ‘Hey, I’m getting tired, can someone else drive?’ that’s fine. You might wake up somewhere new, but you can immediately ask ‘Where are we’ and get caught up. But if you don’t know that there are other people in the car, and think you’re doing the road trip by yourself, lose days of time and suddenly wake up somewhere that may or may not be the destination you were expecting, that’s a problem.
We all have parts. People with DID had their parts forcibly separated.
This tracks with what I have read about it as well, especially the languages part for someone bilingual.
For most people you don’t realize you have different aspects because they work together and transition so smoothly.
I mean, when someone is able to manage a condition, it doesn’t mean that don’t have the condition.
That’s true. I was hoping to convey that the disorder comes from the dissociation aspect of it. We aren’t born with our personalities already intact, they develop and unify around the age of 5-6, and DID is a response to trauma from before that age. So, we all have ‘multiple personalities’, but don’t consider them to be ‘separate’ because we can still communicate with them. Instead, we just consider them ‘aspects’ of a single personality, but it’s a gray area.
That’s the current prominent theory, but testing it empirically would be disastrously unethical.
condition ≠ disorder
Just because someone’s brain is weird in this certain way doesn’t mean they’re disordered. Disorder implies there’s something wrong that should be fixed, but many people with conditions will disagree that there is anything in need of “fixing”.
I have to disagree with all this. What you describe either IS a disorder or not multiple personalities.
We’re plural. Our lived experience runs contrary to your opinion.
That seems quite harsh. You’re basically telling systems that they’re either faking it or it’s a problem, but why are you the arbiter of that? It feels similar to transphobes or homophobes saying being trans/gay is either fake or something you should “fix”. You’re getting very close to using the medical system to enforce social standards on people who don’t conform to them under the guise of “disorder” where the patient is actually fine.
Sorry, there is an unspoken ‘in my option’ in what I said. I am not a medical professional, so no one should think that is the case. In fact probably no one in this discussion is qualified to express an opinion by that measure.
What do you mean by ‘telling systems’?
“systems” is just the term for a group on one body.
And by “in my opinion” I think you mean “if I had it”? An opinion can still be harmful as outspoken bigots prove.
I have a friend with DID, but I’m not an expert. The media also portrays DID inaccurately most of the time, so it’s hard to explain when there’s disinformation from multiple angles. I’d recommend doing some independent research or talking to your therapist about parts works as a way to understand more.
I think a big problem with this thread is the framing, “being multiple people.” There is a lot of nuance here.
I think you are right. I seem to have too restricted a definition in my mind and ended up talking at cross angles to others. This is a topic I need to do some reading about.
Maybe if they were a legit collective consciousness hivemind
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That is not multiple personalities, though, just something most people go through.