Hello! I've made this rentry to explain DID, why/how it forms, symptoms, and more!
What is DID?
DID is an acronym for Dissociative Identity Disorder, formally known as Multiple Personality Disorder. DID is a dissociative trauma-based disorder characterized by 2 or more alters present along with other symptoms such as dissociative amnesia/memory loss.
How and why does DID form?
As a kid, everyone has unintegrated personalities. Usually, at the age of 7 - 9 those unintegrated parts will integrate into a whole personality. Well, for people with DID, this isn't the case. If severe or repeated trauma occurs before those unintegrated parts integrate, your brain will put up amnesia barriers between those parts. Your brain puts up these barries to protect and help the child cope with this trauma. Essentially, your brain says "I cannot handle this, this cannot be my life," so it puts up these amnesia barriers to forget the trauma.
Symptoms of DID
According to the DSM-5, the diagnostic criteria or most common symptoms are;
1. Multiple distinct personality states
2. Poor sense of self and agency
3. Recurrent amnesia
4. Passive influences of alters and voices
Now mind you, these are the most common symptoms of DID, you might experience other ones such as dissociative seizures (non-epileptic seizures), psychosis symptoms, etc.
DID terminology (not all of it)
Alter; shorted version of alternate state of identity
Host; the alter who fronts the most and deals with daily life
Fronting; (an) alter(s) who are controlling the body
Switching; the process of two or more alters switching front
Innerworld/Headspace; the place alters go when they are not fronting
System; the group of alters in one body
Polyfrag(mented); a system who experienced daily trauma before 5
C-DID; complex DID, similar to polyfragmented
HC-DID; highly complex DID, a system who experienced RAMCOA
System types
Traumagenic; a system formed from trauma
Endogenic; a system formed from something other than trauma
Additional information/Notes
We of course didn't include everything on this rentry, just the most important/common things. If you think we should add something, our Tumblr is silliestdreamland.
We mentioned RAMCOA in this Rentry, we strongly advice to not research that. It can be very triggering, and is dangerous.
This Rentry was made by Love Letters!
HAVE A GREAT DAY!