The sensationalized conceptualization of DID

When a DID diagnosis was first put on the table for me, I thought there was no way that I could have this disorder. It sounds, quite frankly, fantastical. There is a common narrative of one having “multiple people living in the same body” which dominates the representation of this disorder online, in the media, and even in most therapeutic spaces. In reality, that is only one conceptualization of this disorder, and is not what I personally subscribe to.

This post reflects my individual perspective as someone living with DID and does not encompass the diverse array of viewpoints and experiences held by others living with DID. How one chooses to conceptualize their experiences is deeply personal, and people are encouraged to present how they view themselves and their experiences as they wish. However, it seems as though the most sensationalized sounding conceptualizations of this disorder are what captures the public’s attention—the more boring reality of DID insofar as how I experience it, which I believe is closer to how it organically presents, doesn’t make headlines as much as someone who portrays themselves as having a more dramatic view of their disorder. As a result, this disorder is misrepresented on a mass scale, leading many, including my past self, to believe that DID is a fake disorder feigned by attention-seeking individuals.

It is imperative to make the distinction between the phenomenological experience of “dissociative identity disorder” and the cultural framework often used to describe it. While the former is a real, well-documented phenomenon¹, the latter is a popular framework that many with dissociative disorders use to conceptualize and convey their experiences. This cultural framework, which involves viewing oneself as a “system of multiple people living in the same body”, is a singular way of viewing and portraying the disorder, and, in my opinion, is often embellished and sensationalized. This specific conceptualization is often conflated with the underlying disorder it represents, contributing to widespread misconceptions about how DID works and the authentic experiences of those living with it.

Where the conceptualization comes from#

I believe this specific conceptualization of DID has been popularized due to the adoption of current therapeutic techniques, particularly derivatives of Internal Family Systems (IFS), which is a therapeutic approach that involves seeing oneself as a system of “parts”, which are similar to subpersonalities. IFS therapy, and other approaches that incorporate IFS techniques², encourages one to individually personify the various parts of themselves, such as the “sad little boy”, “the angry monster”, or the “self-harming teenager”. Many seem to take this a step further and project individual characteristics, such as names, ages, likes/dislikes, and personality characteristics, onto these therapeutically-created parts³. While I believe the parts analogy may be a useful therapeutic technique in certain situations, it is just that—a therapeutic technique, or a mental construct. It is not reality, it is not literal, it is not truth⁴. But it is often presented as such, particularly by mental health thought leaders, along with people with dissociative disorders who often have very separated senses of self and thus adhere to this framework. Often guided by mental health professionals, many individuals with DID, and even some without DID who strongly believe in the conceptualization of having parts, may view and portray themselves as a system of multiple, distinct people living in the same body.

Why the conceptualization is used#

Although I don’t use it myself, I think it’s helpful to see why this view of “multiple people living in the same body” can be so appealing to those with DID. Rather than having a fully integrated personality where one can smoothly access various aspects of their internal experience, a person with DID can have discrete, compartmentalized internal states which they have to mode-switch between. This is a disorder caused by early childhood trauma, and I describe the mechanism for why this is the case more in the post It’s not about identity. Fundamentally, a person with DID lives a very compartmentalized internal experience, where, depending on which compartment they are in/which part of them is active, they may have different ways of seeing of the world, different memories of their life, different interests and preferences, different mannerisms and body language, and a different felt sense of identity. They may experience amnesia for the actions of some parts of themselves when different parts are active, and their experience between parts may be so compartmentalized that they may feel like an entirely different person than when a different part of them is active. However, it is worth noting that these experiences are often incredibly subtle, both to the person experiencing it and to any external observers.

Because at any given time a person with DID may have a very different internal experience of their life depending on which part of them is active, one way they may choose to conceptualize and present their experiences is that each part of them is a separate person, so they feel as though they have multiple different people, each with their own identity, living in the same body. Additionally, since the therapist may encourage this individualization and differentiation of parts during treatment, they may truly believe that they are a “system of multiple people living in the same body”.

My personal views and experiences#

I can relate to this experience, in a sense. To me, it feels more like an extreme metaphor than what I experience in reality. Perhaps because I am autistic, it took me a long time to realize that I shouldn’t necessarily take this conceptualization literally when other people present themselves and their experiences in this way. Because I initially took this metaphor literally, early in my self-discovery journey I was extremely confused about how DID worked and genuinely thought that my experiences didn’t line up with this disorder. Now that I understand how my dissociative symptoms present, I am able to relate my experiences to the metaphor of parts, but I cannot easily do the converse—mapping the analogy of having an internal social system of people onto my internal experience does not make sense to me. Also, because of my presentation of autism, I lean heavily into systematic thinking⁵. Because of this, I like to think about the way my system of parts operates using the metaphor of a giant algorithm or machine, which is very logic-based and structured, rather than a family of people socially interacting. The former aligns more with my thinking style, while the latter feels like a foreign concept to me⁶. However, it is worth noting that I do not subscribe to a single conceptualization of how DID presents—dissociation is extremely subtle yet very complex, and I believe presenting my dissociative experiences as “multiple people living in the same body” would be simultaneously reductive and dramatic. I think much more nuance than this current conceptualization allows for is needed to accurately portray dissociative experiences⁷.

In my case, between parts I experience things such as different handwritings, access to different skills and memories, notable perceptual changes in vision and hearing, gait and posture changes, and voice and mannerism differences. I also often experience amnesia between parts, and my parts presented as externally overt at times in my childhood leading to a pediatric dissociative disorder diagnosis, so it’s fair to say that my parts are well differentiated in many aspects. However, instead of seeing these parts as differentiated identities, I choose to see my parts as different compartments of various aspects of my internal experience that I can either be connected to or dissociated away from at any given moment. These aspects are separated from one another in a discernible way. That is, I am usually only aware of one aspect at any given time, and many of these are contradictory to one another. As a simple example, when I’m in one compartment, I may be connected to the fact that I am a graduate student and be able to understand and make progress in my research. In a different compartment that holds traumatic experiences, I may look at my academic CV and not only do I not remember writing papers that I am first author of, but I don’t even understand what the papers' titles mean, which leads to major imposter syndrome when that compartment of me is active. These two compartments/mindsets/awarenesses of the world are conflicting and not accessible to me simultaneously—the trauma-holding compartment doesn’t have awareness of the present, whereas the compartment where my present-day work knowledge is accessible doesn’t have awareness of my past traumatic experiences. I do not conceptualize these states as being “different people”; rather, I conceptualize this experience with the narrative that “I have different compartmentalized internal states, each containing different facets of my whole life”, as opposed to the more popular narrative of “I share a body with different people that are not me”. I view myself as being all of my parts together, and I generally speak from the whole-self perspective. In the more popular narrative, individuals often articulate their experiences by speaking from the perspective of a single part at a time, treating the inactive compartments of them as if they are different people separate from them.

It is also important to note that for me, between parts, my felt sense of “I” does not change—I always feel like me. But who that me is changes depending on which part of me is active. With the representation of “multiple people living in the same body”, this isn’t obvious, since it makes it sound like there are multiple, separate senses of “I”. Even with my amnesia and between parts that are well-differentiated, I always have the same sense of “I”⁸. Additionally, perhaps because I am polyfragmented, I do not have much identity alteration which likely influences my chosen narrative of how I experience life with DID. Fundamentally, identity is just one aspect of experience that can be compartmentalized between parts, but the most dominant narrative of this disorder emphasizes identity alteration over all other aspects of living with DID. Because I have low identity alteration, I believe this makes me less likely to relate to the dominant cultural narrative.

Given my experiences, I could present my disorder as having “multiple people living in the same body”, but it would be disingenuous. I’d really have to “lean in” to this presentation; I could map my symptoms, which are real, to this framework, which is an entirely cultural representation of this disorder. I don’t want to make my experiences fit the narrative—I want my narrative to fit my experiences. Because of this, I choose to reject the dominant framework of this disorder and instead have been forging my own conceptualization that is authentic to my personal experiences.

I am personally of mind that this conceptualization of “multiple people living in the same body” should be viewed of as a metaphor rather than taken literally. It is a way of thinking about one’s experiences, or a framework for describing one’s internal reality. Not all people with dissociative disorders agree with this, however. Within the DID community, it seems that there are degrees of acceptance of this conceptualization for one’s self-concept, ranging from “this is a metaphor I use sometimes to describe my experiences” to “my body literally contains multiple separate people living in it”. While I relate with the former, in online dissociative disorder spaces, the majority of people claim the later. Because it is often the cultural expectation to take this specific conceptualization literally, people may be inclined to use this conceptualization as their personal identity.

Conceptualization vs identity#

It is common for people to conflate the output of common therapeutic techniques used for DID with their personal identity. Perhaps due to the prevailing cultural emphasis of individualism and self-identity, those with DID, and others without DID who adopt this conceptualization for their self-concept, may present themselves as literally being a “system of multiple individual people sharing a body”, with each part of them having their own name, age, gender, appearance, and other identity characteristics. Adopting this identity, which is often referred to as being “plural”, “multiple”, or a “system”, is not a requirement for living with a dissociative disorder, although individuals diagnosed with DID may feel obligated to present this way in order to justify their diagnosis⁹. Just because someone chooses not to adopt this identity doesn’t mean they do not have DID—one’s personal identity can be separate from their dissociative experiences, and many dissociative experiences, particularly in cases of polyfragmentation, do not make sense with this conceptualization. The fact that individuals adopt this conceptualization for their personal identity and justify it with a DID diagnosis can make for a confusing and fantastical representation of DID which, in my experience, often misrepresents what it is like to truly live with the disorder. In order to present this way, one would have to, at least to some degree, lean into this narrative and role-play their parts¹⁰. This separation of identity vs disorder is almost never made clear, and thus, unless one more deeply understands how DID works, the two are often conflated with one another. This is a disorder that is very logical in etiology and development, but the cultural framework most often used to describe this disorder, particularly since it’s often presented as fact, presents it in a rigid, theatric, and fantastical way.

Finally, because this dominant cultural framework of DID may seem “cool” and “unique” to some, individuals grappling with identity confusion, often in their adolescent or young adult years, may adopt this particular framework of DID to express their nonpathological internal experiences. This adoption can result in a conflation of their developing and unstable sense of self with the characteristics of this specific DID framework, leading to the mistaken belief that they actually have DID. The acceptance and propagation of this misinformed belief, which is being perpetuated on a mass scale due to social contagion, further amplifies the dissemination of misinformation about DID¹¹.

Conclusion#

Right now, there is one dominant cultural narrative of how DID works which often misrepresents how I, and I suspect most others, truly experience this disorder. This narrative is so pervasive that it has even influenced the disorder’s name—dissociative identity disorder is, actually, not about identity¹². In reality, dissociation is often incredibly subtle and a is a natural part of the human experience, with DID being on the pathological side of this spectrum of dissociative experiences. I think there should be more nuance in the discussion of dissociative experiences as this current framework is only a single cultural representation of the disorder. In summary, dissociative identity disorder is a real disorder, but how it’s most often presented is a single cultural representation of the disorder, which is not accurate to how I, and likely most others, truly experience living with DID.