Dissociative Personality Disorder

In today's society there are so many skeptics that don’t take mental illness seriously. They tend to brush it off due to lack of knowledge, with beliefs that people who suffer from mental illness aren't truly ill. They make the assumption that it's to gain sympathy, or to excuse bad behavior. Let's take a look at this personality disorder only affecting 1% of our population that is extremely rare, but quite real and often misunderstood.

Picture waking up feeling disconnected from your body. You have no idea where you are and how you got there. A different home, city and surroundings. Feeling as if you are a stranger in your own body. This is how someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder feels like each time another personality reveals itself.
Leading the person into a series of symptoms that often cause chaos for themselves and others around them. Once the other personality is present the person will go through symptoms such as: Amnesia- Causing memory loss. Derealization- not feeling connected to the world. Depersonalization- feeling as if you are having an out-of-body experience. Identity confusion- no sense of who you are, and where you belong in the world. Identity alteration- experiencing a lack of control of yourself, as if someone else had possessed your body. There may be more symptoms that are less severe like inner voices, panic attacks, body memories, headaches, flashbacks, and relational difficulties.

It can be extremely difficult to diagnose a patient with dissociative identity disorder. Elizabeth Howell has stated that DID is a " disorder of hiddenness". More often than not you will find that people with this disorder will make every attempt to hide their symptoms, giving the impression that everything is fine. You will find that many of these people are quite successful, and hardworking members of our community. Often a person will be misdiagnosed by their psychiatrist making it to where they are stuck in the system without making any real
Typically , therapy will be on a permanent basis until the psychiatrist decides otherwise. It is recommended that the patient meet for therapy at least once a week depending on certain factors playing into the patients situation. There are many different forms of therapy, using the following techniques "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and sensorimotor psychotherapy".

For the psychiatrist helping someone with DID can present a challenge. The patient can "switch" at any given moment into their alter. This can create chaos during therapy and potentially set the patient back from any progress made. The therapist needs to be patient, providing stability each therapy session, and being attentive to their patient's