They can, but they usually do not. Typically those with dissociative identity disorder experience symptoms for six years or more before being correctly diagnosed and treated. Dissociation is a common coping mechanism, especially in the face of trauma.
Many rape victims experience the crime as though they were floating above their bodies, feeling sorry for the person beneath them. Many of us find ways to detach ourselves from painful or unpleasant experiences. However, people typically restore their usual perspective over time. Those with dissociative disorders experience persistent amnesia, depersonalization, derealization or fragmentation of identity that actually interferes with the normal process of working through and putting into perspective traumatic or stressful experiences.
Dissociative disorders involve problems with memory, identity, emotion, perception, behavior and sense of self. Dissociative symptoms can potentially disrupt every area of mental functioning. Learn More. View More. I agree. About the Expert Dr. Moreover, some practitioners claim that alters can be identified by objective characteristics, including distinct handwriting, voice patterns, eyeglass prescriptions and allergies.
Proponents of the idea of multiple personalities have also performed controlled studies of biological differences among alters, revealing that they may differ in respiration rate, brain-wave patterns and skin conductance, the last being an accepted measure of arousal. The question of whether people can harbor more than one character has important legal and therapeutic implications. Other scholars have argued that each alter is entitled to separate legal representation.
As professor of law Ralph Slovenko of Wayne State University noted in in an article, some judges have even required each alter to be sworn in separately prior to testifying. In treating these patients, many therapists try to get them to integrate their discrete personalities into a coherent whole. Putting the Pieces Together Despite such practices, persuasive evidence for discrete coexisting personalities in individuals is lacking.
The reported distinctions among alters are mostly anecdotal, unconfirmed and difficult to interpret. For instance, the handwriting and voices of people without DID may also vary over brief periods, especially after a mood change.
And disparities in physiological reactions, such as brain waves or skin conductance, could be similarly attributable to differences in mood or thoughts over time, according to University of Arizona psychologists John J. Allen and Hallam L. Individuals with DID almost surely experience dramatic psychological changes across situations, so it would be surprising if their physiology did not change as well. If alters are truly distinct personalities, they should have memories that are inaccessible to other alters.
Yet Allen and psychologist William G. Iacono of the University of Minnesota reported in a review that although most direct memory tests—such as asking patients to recall a list of words in one alter state that they had previously encountered in a different alter state—reveal a lack of transfer of memories across alters, subtler tests usually reveal that memories formed by one alter are in fact accessible to others.
If alters are not discrete personalities, what are they? Ever since I was very young, I would hear, in my head, other people talking, but I knew it was me, in a way. When and how were you ultimately diagnosed with DID? When I was 22, I really knew there was something wrong.
But with bipolar, the switches take more time. I knew something about it sounded off, but I thought, Maybe I just have really fast switching. When I look back, we had one personality who would always go to the therapy visits.
She would always tell the doctors things were going well, because [for her], everything was good. But we knew we were still having issues and problems, and we felt like we were deliberately lying to the doctor. The rest of us were like, Why would I say that? I was starting to become very unhinged. Am I awake right now? Is any of this real? Am I here? Is anyone here? What does dissociation feel like to you? Everyone experiences dissociation to a degree.
It was like that, but all the time. I had very little sense of time. It all felt like the same time. I started getting scared. I thought that would be the end of it. Who is this person? We started Skyping. The other day you were thankful for the progress we were making. But after Rudy said that, I started doing more of my own research into multiple personalities —. We switched, in the middle of the conversation, so I have to try to remember what we were talking about.
What does it feel like when you switch? Who am I talking to now? I am, I guess, the more responsible one. You were just speaking to Michaela previously. How does it feel to switch? It feels very natural to me. Even if we switched it was, This is how I always am. Do you have any idea why you might have made that switch just now? Michaela is not good at speaking technically about things. She most likely felt as if the conversation was overwhelming, so then the dissociation came in to protect our senses, and then I came in to basically secure the continuation of the conversation.
So it sounded smooth, but we did have a difficult time picking up exactly where we left off. When I came in, the moment I came in, I felt clarity, like I understood the content of this conversation in more depth than Michaela does. Does each personality have those sorts of strengths and weaknesses? Do they come out in certain situations? Every personality does have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Michaela is much friendlier and great at socializing and very likable, but she has ADHD, so she loses focus easily.
I have the highest anxiety of our personalities. For us, the majority of the time, our switches are involuntary.
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