why do people confuse Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities) and schizophrenia?

Answer 1

I am very curious why you are asking this question. I have D.I.D. and therefor find all of these answers quite interesting. I wasn't aware that people DID confuse the two.
Maybe it's because when you have D.I.D. you can hear voices of your alters inside of your head. That could be misconstrued as hallucinating voices outside of your head. Also, there is usually a place "inside" where the alters go that is well defined. That could be misconstrued as being delusional. And, of course, each alter has their own mannerisms and facial expressions and sometimes there may just be a lack of expression if the dissociation is complete. This may mimic the behavior of some people with schizophrenia, but not all.

Answer 2

People don't read up on either disorder and it's been a very old misconception that the two are one and the same. I wish this would be dispelled. I just read a silly Q earlier about if a person who had schizophrenia attempted suicide would they be charged with two counts of attempted murder or suicide or something like that. The confusion started because "schizophrenia" means "split mind" but what the term was originally meant to convey was that some people with schizophrenia have a "split" or discord between their emotions and thoughts. People erroneously associated this with "multiple personalities" and this just seems to have stuck.

Answer 3

I have lived with someone who had Schizophrenia and so many times the 'people' that she was reacting to would have such a complete affect on her personality that it was as if she became a different person. Also, from some research I have done, it would seem that in D.I.D that there is some bleed over of personalities such that, even though only one personality may be in control at a time, that there is sometimes interaction between the personalities and that comes to resemble a form of schizoid behaviour. Even though they may be diagnosed and treated differently there are very real reasons that the uninformed could confuse the two disorders.

Answer 4

Because before they came up with the term Dissociative Identity disorder they called it schizophrenia. Look in old text books and you'll see it there.

Each new generation has to change the wording around and invent new names so that they can feel important. Example; Pluto is a planet, then it isn't because they changed the definition. Who cares what they call it it's still the same rock, but it makes the intellectuals feel important.

In another 10 - 20 years they'll have a new word for DID. Watch and see.

Answer 5

Schizophrenia has hallucinations and delusions.. Someone can think the government is spying on them or that they were abducted by aliens from perceptional experiences (hallucinations) or think they are Jesus Christ or Elvis (delusions). Dissociative Identity Disorder is when people have two or more distinctly different personalities in one body.. Usually one normal one and one weird freaky one. One personality might be like martha steward, another like a teenageboy that's a drugged up junkie. Both personalities are usually aware of eachother, and they commonly have different separate memories and concepts of things that motivate the person. (very very weird)

Answer 6

I think it's because both types of disorders can make people appear to have such different personalities at different times depending on so many variables. True D.I.D. is SO rare that I think a lot of people mistake it for some other psychotic disorder.

Answer 7

Because People Lump all Mental Health Issues into one clump. Many people don't realize how many thier are and many people don't realize people who disociate are not crazy. I think people hear the word Schizophrenia and they associate Crazy. I think its sad that people don't embrace mental health disorders and label those as Crazy. I think lack of education is the main thing.

Answer 8

i'm guessing because of the similarities of some of the symptoms. The disassociation and detachment from reality.
Most people really do not know the interworkings of such mental disorders, nor do they understand them, so they just assume out of ignorance that every person who is dealing with emotional issues and/or depression is automatically schizophrenic.
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Answer 9

They aren't educated on the disorders, and before the discovery of DID laypeople didn't have anything else to call it so they used schizophrenia as a catch all for psychoses.

Answer 10

Because schizophrenia literally means "split mind." People confuse it with "split personality."

Pop culture has reinforced the confusion. Newspapers even confuse them sometimes.