Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis and Treatment

Dissociative identity disorder is a mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct personality identities and relatively enduring personality conditions. Each may have a unique name, date and personal characteristics. 
Most of us have experienced moments of separation from reality through moments of daydreaming, taking a moment during a day of stressful work. 
In this article, we will see what this stage is called in psychology and why this happens and we will discuss how can we diagnose it and what are the possible remedies for it?

Dissociative identity disorder is a mental disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis and Treatment

What is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) or formerly known as a (multiple personality disorder) is the most severe type of disintegration, a mental disorder that results in a loss of contact with a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of identity.

Dissociative identity disorder is believed to be the result of complex psychological factors caused by various factors, such as injuries. This leads to an adverse reaction or competitor to the bad event. 

In DID, the person becomes literally separate from the situation or that experience whatever painful, whether injury, violence or painful events such as violent injuries during early childhood (often extreme, repeated physical, sexual, or emotional violations).

Read more: What is Schizophrenia? -Types, Symptoms, Causes, and Complications of Schizophrenia

How common is Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Statistics show that the rate of dissociative identity disorder is 0.01% to 1% of humans. Given the wider disparity, more than a third of people say they feel like they see themselves in a film sometimes (perhaps suffering from the phenomenon of dissociation), and 7% of humans may have an image of undiagnosed dissociative disorders.

What are the Symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct or separate identities or different personal situations, one of which controls a person's behavior. 

There is an inability to remember key personal information.

With the dissociative identity disorder, there are distinct differences in memory, which change with the occurrence of a "transition" to one of those separate identities of the person.

These different identities have their age, gender, and distinctive race. Each has its own positions, special gestures, and a distinct way of speaking. 

Sometimes these identities are imaginary people; sometimes they are animals. 

Each character reveals itself and controls the behavior of the individual and ideas, called the switches. 

Switching can take from seconds to minutes to days.

Along with the state of identity and multiple personalities, people with dissociative identity disorders may experience a number of other psychological problems, including the following symptoms:

- Sleep disorders (insomnia and walking during sleep)

-Anxiety, panic attacks and phobias (occur as flashbacks, reactions to certain triggers)

- Alcohol and drug abuse

- Compulsive behaviors

- Depression

- Mood Swings

- Suicidal tendencies

- Psychosis-like symptoms (including biting and visual hallucinations)

- Eating disorders

- Headaches, memory loss, loss of time, panic, and “going through experiments as if outside his body”.

Some people with dissociative identity disorders have a tendency towards self-persecution, self-harm, and even violence (both self-directed and outward-oriented). 

For example, anyone with a dissociative identity disorder may find themselves doing things that are not usually done, such as insane speed, reckless driving, or stealing money from an employer or friend. 

Some describe this feeling like a passenger rather than a driver (or a spectator instead of a controller). In other words, they really think they have no choice.

What is the difference between Dissociative Identity Disorder and Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is often confused with dissociative identity disorder, but they are completely different!

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disease involving chronic or recurrent psychosis, characterized primarily by visual or auditory hallucinations (things that do not actually exist, only seen or heard alone), thinking or believing in things that are unfounded or do not exist in reality ( Contrary to what people think, schizophrenia has several characters within a person, this is completely wrong. 

The schizophrenia patient is not characterized by the presence of multiple characters, but the hallmark in it, which is found in about half to three-quarters of the cases are hallucinations, especially acoustic.

Suicide is a risk in both schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, but dissociative identity disorder has a higher history of suicide than suicide attempts.

Read more: Schizophrenia-Diagnosis and Treatment: Types of Therapy and Antipsychotic Medication

How Dissociative Identity Disorder Affects Daily Life?

There are several main ways in which psychiatric process of dissociative identity disorder changes the way a person lives, including:

The most important of these changes involves feeling confused about who the person is. An example of an anomaly is when a person has difficulty identifying things that matter to him in life, his political, religious or social views, sexual orientation, or career aspirations. 

In addition to these apparent modifications, a person may experience distortions in time, place, state and different situations.

It is now recognized that these split identities are not entirely mature characters (they are not as the film depicted), but rather represent a separate sense of identity.

Amnesia is usually associated with differential identity disorder, and those different identities remember different aspects of biographical information. 

The “host” character is usually within the individual, known as the real person. Ironically, the character of the host does not usually realize the presence of other characters!

What Role Do the Different Characters Play?

These distinct personalities may contribute to the person to keep up with the dilemma or crisis of his life. 

For example, an average of two to four characters resides when the person is under initial diagnosis. It then increases to 13 to 15 characters identified during the treatment journey. 

Unusually, a person with ADD may have more than 100 different characters within the same person!

Environmental triggers or life events that may cause a sudden transition from one to the other.

Who is most likely to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder?

While the causes of dissociative identity disorder remain vague, research suggests that it is likely to be a psychological response to personal and environmental stresses, especially during early childhood years when emotional neglect or repeated assaults interfere with the growth and development of an individual's personality.

Up to 99% of individuals with dissociative identity disorder have acknowledged tragic or life-threatening fluctuations that are often life-threatening during the sensitive developmental stage of childhood (usually before age 9).

This disorder may also occur when there is an ongoing series of repeated neglect or emotional abuse, even when there is no reported physical or sexual abuse. 

The results show that in families where parents are frightening and unpredictable, children may become atypical.

How Dissociative Identity Disorder is Diagnosed?

The diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder may take a long time. It is estimated that individuals with schizophrenic disorders spent seven years under the supervision of mental health institutions before an accurate diagnosis. 

This is common because the list of symptoms that cause a person to develop dissociative identity disorder in order to get treatment is very similar to that which causes many other psychiatric diagnoses. 

In fact, many people who have dissociation disorders also have some common diagnoses with personality disorders, depression, and anxiety.

DSM-5 provides the following criteria for the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder:

1. The existence of two or more separate identities or different personal situations, each of which has a relatively permanent pattern of perception, thinking in the environment and self.

2. Amnesia, defined as gaps in the recall of daily life events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events should occur.

3. The person should feel upset by the disorder or have difficulty working in one or more key areas of life.

4. The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices.

5. The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of the substance abuse (such as random behavior during excessive alcohol) or a general medical condition (such as epilepsy or partial seizures).

What is the Recommended Treatment Plan for Dissociative Identity Disorder Patients?

There is no clear “cure” for dissociative identity disorder; long-term treatment can be beneficial if the patient is committed to the treatment plan. 

Effective treatment includes speech therapy or psychotherapy, and adjunctive therapies such as art or motion therapy. 

There are no pharmacological treatments created specifically for the dissociative identity disorder, making the psychotherapy-based approach the mainstay of treatment. 

In addition to the treatment of disorders that may occur alongside this disorder, such as depression or anxiety and panic attacks.