It’s not about identity

… it’s about childhood trauma.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) can be thought of as a coping mechanism one may develop when they experience repeated trauma in early childhood. It is arguably one of the most misunderstood and controversial mental health conditions, perhaps because it’s been repeatedly sensationalized in the media. Or, maybe because the name and clinical description of the disorder implies that it’s about having multiple identities or personality states. But the identity alteration that’s most often highlighted in DID is only a minor aspect of the disorder——these discrete personality states are often incredibly subtle and are merely a side effect of a post-traumatic reaction involving severe internal compartmentalization.

DID is a highly individualized disorder which forms based off of one’s reaction to their early life experiences. As such, I can only speak from my own experience. While DID can be difficult to understand¹, it fundamentally involves two psychological processes—detachment and compartmentalization. For example, when I was small, there were times where I experienced severe repeated abuse, but at other times had a happy childhood². While I was being abused, I mentally detached myself from the situation—I disconnected from my body and the external world, choosing instead to escape into my mind to distract myself from a situation I knew no other way to get out of. I learned to dissociate from actions, emotions, and sensations that were too painful to confront. Perhaps more importantly, I also compartmentalized these traumatic experiences, effectively disavowing that they happened to me and pushing them out of my awareness. This allowed me to forget the abuse once it ended, and return to a happier version of myself when life felt safe again. Over time, this repeated pattern of switching between internal compartments—one holding the abuse, the other maintaining the illusion of a happy childhood—intensified the separation of my internal experiences. It affected not only memory but also emotion, perception, and identity, preventing me from ever seeing a complete view of my life. However, this compartmentalization was also protective, allowing some parts of me to grow and thrive while others held painful memories and feelings at bay. All of this occurred on a subconscious level.

This strategy of compartmentalization can only develop when trauma occurs in early childhood, while the brain still is rapidly developing and has the capacity to use such defenses. And because I learned to use these defenses when I was very young and my brain wired based on my experiences in the world around me, I learned that this was a very effective strategy for minimizing psychological discomfort. While my ability to compartmentalize to a severe degree originated due to my brain’s way of coping with repeated early childhood trauma, as I aged, I learned to extend this strategy of compartmentalization to other, less acutely traumatic areas of my life. Because I was able to compartmentalize aspects of my internal experience, I subconsciously learned to separate the good aspects of my life—like emotions of happiness, contentment, and good memories—from the bad aspects of my life—like anger, grief, and memories of trauma. Because I accepted the positive aspects of my experience as my own while simultaneously disowning the negative aspects, my internal experience is very positive despite having a objectively difficult childhood. Additionally, I learned to use compartmentalization in areas of my life that weren’t inherently traumatic. While this started as a very effective coping mechanism in response to childhood trauma, it has rapidly turned maladaptive as I have continually created compartments to respond to adult stressors. As I’ve aged, my internal compartmentalization has become so severe that the awareness of my life has become increasingly fragmented, leading to confusion and misunderstandings about the world around me.

Severe internal compartmentalization also affects how I interact with the world. Rather than fluidly being able to access all aspects of my personality and internal experience like a more integrated individual, I have to switch between discrete personality states as I move throughout life. While many of these compartments of me share memory (i.e., when I am in one compartment of memory, I will likely remember at least most of what happened when I was in a different compartment of memory), when I switch between compartments it can feel like a RAM drop—my working memory, or what I was actively thinking about, often gets wiped. I also have compartments of memory with varying degrees of amnesia between them, so I genuinely may not remember what happened when I was in one compartment when I’m in a different compartment, even for events that occurred seconds to minutes earlier. This lack of memory sharing typically happens between compartments who hold traumatic memories and emotions and ones who do not. Additionally, depending on which compartment I’m in, I will have different motivations and awareness of my current life. So while I may be an enthusiastic PhD student in several compartments, I also have compartments where I have no idea what my research is, or even that I am a student working towards my degree. Sometimes, instead of fully taking over, these compartments intrude on my awareness, so I may have unexplained feelings of, say, fear that I have no idea where is coming from or what is triggering it.

These parts act as compartments of varying aspects of internal experience, such as emotion, perception, memory, thinking style, and identity. So while identity alteration can be a component of this disorder, it is just one aspect—there’s so much more to DID than changes in identity. Personally, I experience some identity alteration, but it’s an incredibly minor effect compared to other aspects of this disorder. For the most part, my compartments identify as “me”, but some compartments are so far removed from present time and context that, when I am in them, I do not perceive myself as being the adult me I actually am. The identity alteration I do experience is incredibly subtle, and is much more an internal phenomena than an external one—an external observer will most likely not be able to tell apart my parts³. These parts are just different versions of me, so even with the identity alteration I do have, I see these parts as all being me. Rather than perceiving myself as being a person with multiple separate identities, which is how this disorder is often presented, I perceive myself as being a singular person with a very compartmentalized internal experience.

So DID is really not about identity, even if that remains the most sensationalized aspect of the disorder. Personally, I view identity alteration—resulting from the switching or influence of multiple compartmentalized internal states—as a sophisticated psychological defense against early childhood trauma. The essence of DID lies in the compartmentalization of traumatic experiences, with identity shifts as just one possible manifestation of this process. While identity fragmentation may be central for some, for others like me, the disorder is more about navigating the complex interplay of compartmentalized internal states formed in response to early childhood trauma.