| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| DID is a rare disorder. | DID is diagnosed in 1.5% of the global population which is about 120,000,000 people. This number does not account for the people who are currently undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. While it's definitely not that common, to say it is rare is an understatement. |
| DID can't be diagnosed in children | The presentation of DID in children and teenagers is significantly different than it's presentation in adults because the brain is still developing. It is possible for someone that young to be diagnosed with the disorder since it forms during childhood, but it is more frequently diagnosed in adults and late teens. |
| DID is not real. | DID is a professionally recognized disorder listed in the DSM-5 and ICD-11. While there are a lot of debates about the validity of the disorder, it is still professionally recognized. |
| Everyone who claims to have DID online is faking | You cannot be 100% sure unless someone comes out and tells you that they are faking. |
| Alters are separate people. | Alters are fragmented parts of someone's identity. They are not physically or legally separate beings, and if tried in a court of law, every alter will be punished. |
| Systems can exist without trauma. | The presence of a system means that something has caused a person's identity to not integrate properly. The brain will not fail to integrate someone's identity for no reason. |
| Alters can split from happiness. | Alters split because of severe stress and trauma. If a system experiences a positive emotion, such as happiness, an alter cannot split. |
| People with DID have fictional characters in their head. | Alters who take on aspects of fictional characters are called introjects. Everyone experiences introjection to some degree, and it isn't exclusive to people with DID.. These alters are not the media they are introjected off of, and treating them as such is unhealthy. |
| If you have DID, you can’t know you have it. | Becoming aware of the fact you have DID is part of the treatment for the disorder. |
| DID can develop at any age. | DID develops in childhood. It cannot develop in adulthood, but people can become aware they have the disorder in adulthood. |
| Everyone with DID is polyamorous. | Not everyone with DID is polyamorous and if someone with DID dates outside of their current partner without them knowing, that is cheating whether another alter did it or not. Having a fragmented identity doesn't excuse someone's actions. |
| Non-human alters don't exist. | Non-human alters have been seen in clinical settings in the past. They are not literally non-human, but they may be internally represented as non-human. |
| Introjects and fictionkins are the same thing. | As stated before, equating an introjected alter to their source is unhealthy. Treated introjects as if they were the same as fictionkins (such as saying "fictives/factives/fictionkins DNI") is an uneducated take as well as ableism. |
| Introjects don't exist. | Introjects have been documented in medical settings in the past. People with DID do not introject just fictional characters, they may also introject figures of their life such as a parent, sibling, or other relative. |
| Everyone with introjects is faking. | As said before, you can't tell if someone is faking unless they come out and say so themselves. |
| DID is a personality Disorder / People with DID have multiple personalities | DID is classified as a dissociative disorder. DID's former name, Multiple personality disorder, is outdated and the usage of the word "personalities" to describe alters is also outdated. Some alternative terms to use would be alter, part, and dissociated identity state. |
| DID is fun to have / I wish I had DID | DID is a disorder for a reason. It affects multiple aspects of a person's day-to-day life, and is not fun to live with. The conditions that had to have been met for the disorder to form are also not fun to deal with. |
| *** |
Sources
I'm too lazy to list all the individual sources so look at my sources compiled: rentry.co/DID-research