ESPIRITU SANTO BILINGUAL

EDUCATIONAL UNIT

FES

LANGUAGE ARTS FINAL EXAM

‘DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER’

STUDENT’S NAME

ADRIANA PÁLIZ

COURSE

III BACCALAUREATE SCIENCE C

ENGLISH LEVEL

ADVANCED

TEACHER’S NAME

LORENA LÓPEZ

SCHOOL YEAR

2018-2019
Do you remember the main character of fight club? What about the Villain

Harvey Dent from Batman, who developed the criminal personality known as

two faces after having acid thrown in his face during a trial or Alex Mason from

Call of Duty: Black Ops who seemed to become two different people, after

being brainwashed in a Russian prison camp. Maybe your favorite childhood

character was Launch from Dragon Ball, who changed from a server and earing

person to an angry criminal every time she sneezed.

All these media characters you maybe know and others that I haven’t

mentioned before had the same disorder called multiple personalities disorder

(MPD), that is other name for the Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and this is

the most common name for this disorder.

So, what is this?

It has been difficult to diagnose the disorder, due to there not being a universal

agreement of the definition of dissociation. But according to what I have found

dissociation is the word that describes the dissociative disorders such as DID.

The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism; the person

dissociates himself from a situation or experience that is too violent, traumatic

or painful to assimilate with his conscious self. The criteria require that an adult

be recurrently controlled by two or more discrete identities states, accompanied

by memory lapses for important information that is not caused by alcohol, drugs

or medication and other medical conditions. Most of us have experienced

memory lapses, sometimes while we were doing something, we get lost in our

thoughts and then we react, but in DID the person experiences memory loss
that is too spread to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness, there is trouble

remembering certain events, people or places. Also the person presents the

inability to recall personal information.

DID is depression with headaches being a common neurological symptom, is a

mental process that causes a lack of connection between the person and all he

or she feels. This disorder causes that the identity of the person be fragmented

into several personalities; typically, each identity has a specific name, unique

characteristics, voices and intentions. This disorder can begin at any age

however, it is prevalent among young children experiencing continuous trauma.

This affects women and mens, but it affects more the womens than the mens

because they present their experiences and symptoms more openly than men.

History

I am going to start with the history, when it begins, how it was discovered and

things like that. There is an amazing history of how it begins, there are many

theories from different people, some people said that it start back in the

Paleolithic age with the cave paintings of the images of shamans, while others

suggest that the history takes place back to report demonic possessions that

now is thought to be a symptom of the Dissociative Identity Disorder. Although

all of these theories it is clear that DID has an extensive history and it is not

something new, maybe the terminology that people use could be new, but

nothing more.

Dissociative Identity Disorder was one of the first psychological disorders

studied. The first case of DID was thought to be describes by Paracelsus in

1646. In the 19th century DID was thought to be ‘dedoublement’ or double

consciousness, that was describe as a state of being sleepwalking, the ones

that study the case were hypothesizing that the patients exchange from normal

conscious to a somnambulistic state. Into the professionals that were studying

the case was Charcot that proposed that in hysteria the stream of

consciousness broke up into elements, he thought he had discovered a new

disease and by his researches he called it ‘Hystero Epilepsy’ as you can see

from the name there was a combination of two traits already discovered. Other

theory was from Binet that thought that the split of the identity was normal in a

number of psychiatric disorders. And also Freud and Breuer that thought that a

splitting of personality occurs to a rudimentary degree in every hysteria. Since

then many psychologists have studied DID trying to understand how it

functions. One of the major experiments in those times was by Pierre Janet who

was investigating a woman with three quite separate personalities; the first

personality of Leonie was timid, sad and serious while the second personality

was a lively good natural joker, in fact completely different personalities. At first

she did not accept that she was both. She was one of the first person with

dissociative identity disorder to be studied in detail, for her was difficult because

of the three personalities but she was open minded and very collaborator with

the doctors that were treating this

Since 1980s, the concept of dissociative disorders has been taken into

consideration, now it receives a lot of clinical attention by professionals in the

field of psychiatry and psychology. Dissociative disorders are a group of

psychiatric syndromes characterized by disruptions of consciousness identity,

memory, motor behavior or environment awareness.

Symptoms

The symptoms of DID are believed to be similar to the symptoms of other

mental disorders. Like I mention before one of the symptoms is the memory

loss, this happens when a separate identity or personality is in control of the

body, he or she may forget what happened in that amount of time, where he or

she went, who he or she talked to, etc.

There are two types of identities for the memory loss, the passive ones tend to

have more limited memories, so they have more difficulty remembering things

while the hostile and controlling or protecting ones that have more complete

memories, can remember almost everything but they cannot remember what

the others identities do.

Between the symptoms there may also be anxiety, passivity, dependence, guilt,

amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, depression, psychosis, phobias,

eating disorders, suicidal ideations and identity disturbances. But the symptoms

also depend on each individual, as opposed to women who show signs of

amnesia, men present symptoms like violence; the clinical presentation varies

and the level of functioning can change from severely impaired to adequate.

It must be terrible for the person that live with it, that is why they show self-

destructive or aggressive behavior towards others.

Sometimes the symptoms of DID are confused with symptoms of other disorder

because they are similar, so they are diagnosed with some comorbid disorders

much higher than other mental illnesses. The different diagnoses include

schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, substance abuse, and borderline

personality disorder and Asperger syndrome between others.

Causes

The cause of DID is unknown but many people think those disorders are

consequences of complex psychological conditions that can be caused by many

factors. Most of the factors are caused by traumatic experiences like after

childhood trauma as it does in PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In most

of the cases there is a painful history of repetitive and usually extreme abuse in

childhood like sexual, psychological, physical, and emotional or any type. While

other cases are linked to experiences of war or health problems in the past.

Some people believe that genetic factors also play an important role; others

believe is that is product of some techniques employed by therapists, those that

use hypnosis. Before the therapists made a diagnosis, they should verify that

the person’s condition is not affected by substance abuse, seizures, imaginary

friends, or religious practices. Disturbed or altered sleep and alterations in the

environment has also been suggested as having a role in dissociative disorders

in general or specifically in this one.

Treatment

At one time personality disorders were thought to be untreatable, but now there

are some ways to treat this disorder and help the people with this control it. The

most common treatment option is the therapy, psychotherapy, family therapy,

group therapy, medication and clinical hypnosis. For adults this could take from

five to seven years anywhere. The objective of this is the integration of the

separates personalities and turn into a unified personality; it could work unless

the person is not really motivated to work with the superation of the trauma.
Patients also take antidepressants and anxiolytics to help control mood

changes. Thought finding an effective treatment plan can be difficult, many

people are able to live healthy and have productive lives.

There have been lots of examples of dissociative identity disorder in the media

like the ones I mention in the beginning. One of the more well-known is the

book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the television series as

Breaking Bad the main character Walt has Dissociative Identity Disorder.

One case of a real person with this disease is the case of Marilyn Monroe:

Marilyn Monroe was an American model, actress, and singer. She also became

a major sex symbol in her early years in the showbiz industry. This legendary

actress grew up with dissociative identity disorder. Her maternal grandparents

and mother also suffered from the same condition. Monroe grew up in a foster

home, which had extremely negative effects on her. It is speculated that this

disorder was the root of her prescription drug overdose that caused her

premature death.

Other is Truddi Chase

A prominent author, she wrote the book entitled “When Rabbit Howls” in 1987.

Chase also suffers with dissociative identity disorder. For years, Chase was

able to suppress her memories by holding them in alternate personalities that

rarely came to the surface. Each of her 92 personalities served different roles

and held different memories. One personality named Black Catherine held most

of her rage. Another personality, Rabbit, held the pain. Her disorder stemmed

from violent and sexual abuse that was endured throughout childhood. These
types of personality disorders often root from abuse by his stepfather when she

was a child.

Even I have researched the history, causes, symptoms, treatments, real life

examples and all information I could find about DID. I chose this topic even of

how complex it seems to be; the idea that someone can be more than one

person fascinates me since I saw the movie called ‘split’, it turns in my favorite

movie, I found fascinating that there are a lot of different personalities in just

one person, and there are a lot of differences between the personalities,

sometimes the person turn into a woman or sometimes into a child, or into a

man, and every personality has different characteristics, one personality could

be smart as he or she can be, other can be very strong and things like that

This disorder, with the idea that you could be more than 'one person' sounds

fascinating to me, but must be extremely horrifying for anyone who has to live

with it. The horror of having this disease is one of the many reasons those

suffering from DID may show self-destructive or aggressive behavior towards

others because they think someone can hurt them like some cases of the

persons that has this disorder, they have been through a lot of pain in their early

life.

Dissociative identity disorder can be a very problematic and complex disorder

and there may never be a cure-all for this disorder. With the proper treatments

such as psychotherapy or psychosocial therapy, help from health care

providers, positive support from family members, and friends, and also the
willingness to be open and honest (in a controlled environment) with the

traumas that haunt the individual, the disorder can be controlled.