I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. It used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder but the new name makes it sound less crazy.
Dissociation is a coping mechanism which allows a person to function normally in difficult situations, by switching off part of their consciousness so that they can function without having to deal with emotions. There are different types of dissociation and different types of dissociative disorders. Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is one of several 'dissociative' disorders and used to be called 'multiple personality disorder'. Its name was changed because it's not technically a personality disorder.
How does Dissociative Identity Disorder happen?
If bad things happen to a child they may split off the memory of the event into their subconscious as their ability to process and deal with what happened has not developed. The memories and feelings about it are then held in some other part of the brain and may express as another personality, which the original person is not aware of. This can happen more than one time, so that new personalities form over time. Each part may then contain different memories and emotions and relate to the world in different ways; each part usually has its own function as well.
Basically, the way I understand dissociative identity disorder is that we all have 'parts' of our personalities. You might act one way with your partner and another way with work colleagues for instance. But in dissociative identity disorder, those aspects of personality have become more separate and so much so that when you are acting in one way, you may not have any memory of the other part of your personality. It is almost like it's a different person. These parts can serve various functions and can be various ages and a person with dissociative identity disorder may have any number of parts (also known as 'alters').
A lot of people with dissociative identity disorder appear relatively normal; there are more outwardly obvious cases in the media (such as Sybil/United State of Tara) which tend to be a small minority of those who have it. I like to think I appear relatively normal to most people but if you followed me around for long enough you would definitely see that I am not always the way I appear to you. A lot of people may not even be aware themselves that they have dissociative identity disorder because it can be so subtle. Dissociative identity disorder development is useful for a while but once the difficulties that caused dissociative identity disorder are no longer an issue, the dissociative identity disorder can become more unhelpful than helpful.
About Candycan
A lot of the time I don't seem like a crazy person (I hope); sometimes I do but I try to keep those times out of the public eye.
Bad things happened to me when I was a little squid. They were too hard for me to be able to think about so without realising I made another 'part' of myself be the person to look after those bad things. Over time I guess other 'parts' came to be and now we reach the present day where I have multiple 'people' sharing my head with me.
I know these people are all aspects of me, but I experience them as separate people. Some parts can take over my body and be the main driver so to speak, but usually 'I' am still there in the background somewhere keeping an eye out and I can do a good job at stopping that from happening if I don't want it to... usually.
Often, it's me that is the main driver and I do a good job at keeping an ear on what everyone else in my head is saying but it can get a bit muddly and confusing and if it all gets too much, I can disappear and the person I call 'Function' takes over.
There's a lot I still don't know and my blog is helping me explore things. Sometimes I know more than at other times too.
I live in Northern Ireland
I hope you enjoy reading the blog.
