How do I know if someone is a multiple? Has multiple personalities?

Question

are you one, or do you know any?

what is the treatment?

Answer 1

I have had a lot of experience with people who have DID....and count them among my friends. So yes, I know a lot about it.

For one thing.....some people seem to really want to hang onto the idea that it's really rare. I see this opinion all the time on this board and it's just not true. Curent estiments are that about 3-5 % of psychiatric admissions are folks that have DID. So it's simply not as rare as some people seem to have a need to think that it is.

However, the fact that, at least in the beginning, people with DID generally have **no clue** that they have it .......well I think you can see where that in itself could make it hard to diagnose. Because one of the criterion for DID is ( again, at least in the beginning) .....amnesia on the part of the "host", about the other personalities. So......there can be a really long period of years where they have no clue at all about any of it. To them, having big chunks of time that they can't remember anything about is.....just how life has always been.

" Golly, it seems like I was just having breakfast, and here it is, dinner time. How time flies !! "

Plus, the theme of "protection" is much of what DID is ultimately about, so in general, most of the personalities are going to do their best to pass themselves off as the host, in order to not rock the boat.

When it comes to how you tell if someone has DID......from a practical standpoint, it seems like most therapists finally start believing that something of this nature might be up when one of the "little" personalites shows up in therapy. I mean...all of a sudden the person is talking and acting like they are 6 years old. That might catch your attention, if you were a therapist.

Also, sometimes therapists will recieve letters in the mail....or in this day and age, e-mails from some of the persons' personalities. Often, in essance, telling the therapist to stop being so stupid and get with the program. Something like that might catch a therapists' attention too. If the client is lucky, I mean.

So often something fairly dramatic happens before someone else catches on. The going estimate is that people with DID spend an average of 6-7 years in the mental health system before somebody finally figures out what the deal is.

The other thing is.......people with DID are ( in the beginning) often HUGELY resistant to the idea that they have it. I mean...since people are amniesic about all of it...well.....think of how you would feel if your therapist told you that you had DID ??

You would be going : NO FU*KING WAY !!!

Believe me, very few people are going to be going : Woopie, I have DID !!

Most people with DID will tell you that accepting the idea that they have it is just about the hardest step of the whole thing.

I have a couple of web friends who pretty much know for certain that they have it, but at the same time are like...." I don't have it, I don't want to know about it, I don't want to read about it, I don't want to make any effort to get in contact with my alters, I don't have any awarness of what they say or do, I wish they would go away, and to be truthfull, I just don't want to think about it ever at all."

While at the same time, I'm spending more than half the time talking to their alters, a good percentage of who are talking about how angry and frustrated they are at getting the host, and what a useless woss the person is for not wanting to know them.

The result of which is often......lots and lots of bad headaches for the host....hearing "chatter" all the time......stuff like that. Once the personalities know that the host is beginning to suspect that they are there.....but that they deny them or don't want to get in contact with them.....usually they start making it bad for the person.

Having made all these generalizations....you have to remember that what causes DID is almost always severe child abuse, and the personalities form in response to the abuse. Like...often when the person is only 2 or 3 years old. And there's no handbook on how to be DID.....so different peoples "systems" are often structured quite differently. And since the personalites initially form in response to the abusive events.......in my experience, usually 50% or more of the personalites are little kids....because that's how old the person was when the precipitating events happened.

So.....if a person found a lot of drawings around that looked like a little kid drew them...but there was not child in the house....that might be a clue as well.

Or if you had a friend who seemed not to remember some of the things that you had just talked to them about....real recently ??

In any case, it's not real easy to tell.....considering that at least in the beginning.....even the person themselves can't tell.

Another thing to remember is that people with DID are NOT "crazy". They generally do not have delusions, nor do they normally behave in ways that are wild and attention getting.

But yeah, they are the victims of some truely horrrible stuff. Stuff which their systems evolved as they did in order to protect them from the emotional damage that a waking awareness of such events would have caused them when they were innocent children.

A habit that was protective then......but maybe not so much now...now that the person is older.

Bob

Answer 2

hey my mom and bestie have DID.... let me tell you... you are going to have a hard time. you will have good days and bad ones, but remember this....... FORGET THE STERIOTYPES. the stereotypes will make you're life a living hell. one way to tell is observe. some things to look for are HEAVY mood swings..... like they are gentle as a lamb one minute and then wild as a tiger the next. another thing is watch for "switches" between alters... these will look like they are zoning out for a min.... there eyes will glaze and the will be unresponsive for a minute. and no... it is not a rare disorder like people claim... three in 100 people have it whether they know they have it or not. IF THIS PERON HAS DID don't listen to people who say "don't talk to the alters" this is the MOST detrimental thing you can do. treat them like people, they are... after all.... the same person you knew before

Answer 3

it can be hard to tell sometimes. one big thing is that they may have a conversation with you and not remember even seeing you the next day and not know why, at this point they are acting different than normal. If you think you do.....ask some friends if you act very differently under certain circumstances. try and monitor each day and if you remember the day before or even a few days before. keep a dairy.
blessed be

Answer 4

We all got different sides to our personalities, but not a lot of people believe in dual or multiple personalities with different names and stuff.

Answer 5

You would know when they start acting weird like assuming another person's identity or creating another identity of her own... I suggest that you get that person to a psychiatrist for possible treatment and/or intervention immediately.

Answer 6

You cant tell.. if theyre good at hiding it.. it may look like parinoid scitsophrenia(sp) or like a bipolar disorder.. or it could be drugs. Anyway the treatment is usually the same for paranoid..

Answer 7

Strange behavior could be caused by many things, such as drug use, mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, biopolar manic phases, etc. They would need an accurate diagnosis by a psychiatrist.

Answer 8

Its not just one sight decision. May be u will not know it 4 years. It all depand on person how he or she changes the personality and when.

Treatment: Psyclogist

Answer 9

deeply observe the habbits and schedule of ur frnd and check his behaviour with different people near him, like with the people whom he need and the people who need him. Then observe his reaction on ur success and about ur difficulties....and final point is if he remains a friend in need..then he is a good friend indeed.

Answer 10

"michinoku" is right, except that multiple personality disorder is EXTREMELY, PROFOUNDLY, rare. Maybe, one in a billion. Everyone else who claims to have it is lying.