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Dissociative Identity Disorder Papers

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A Battle Against Oneself Imagine living with a mental disorder that even your doctor refused to believe was real. For those living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, this is an unfortunate reality for far too many. Within the population, 1%-3% meet the criteria for DID, making the disease as common as other more familiar disorders like Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder (Gray). If the latter are easily identifiable, then why are both the public and certain mental health professionals reluctant to accept DID? Dissociative Identity Disorder is an authentic disease that can usually be prevented within the person’s childhood, can make the person’s life extremely difficult, and is frequently mistaken for other diseases with similar symptoms. …show more content…

The most recognizable aspect of Dissociative Identity Disorder is a person's experiencing of many different personalities, or “alters”. An alter is the shortened wording for an alternate personality. One of the most common misconceptions about Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID for short, is that the person is made up of many people, when in reality these alters are simply fragmentations of a single person. However, these alters can have distinct characteristics and preferences that are much different than the host personality’s. The “host personality” is most commonly understood to be the person’s original personality, although certain instances prove that the most dominant personality can become the host personality over time. The switching between alters is something that is uncontrollable, and commonly leaves the person with very little memory of what has happened or a blank period of time altogether when another alter has been …show more content…

In a second study concerning 28 death row inmates convicted of murder, 14 met the criteria for DID and 12 of those 14 had long histories of child abuse (Lewis et al). Most cases, such as that of Blankity Blank, are brought on by abusive households. Blank was abused. However, the development of Dissociative Identity Disorder can be instigated by nonabusive, yet still traumatic, events alone. In the case of Chris Sizemore, her development of the disease was brought upon after viewing several horrifying accidents as a young child, such as fatal factory accident, a dead man’s body being dragged from a hole in the ground, and her mother being seriously injured in a kitchen mishap

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