Multiple Personality Disorder
Cameron Perry Health-5 October 14, 2016
Slogan: Don't Let the Voices in Your Head Define Your Actions!
Multiple Personality Disorder, also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.), is a mental disease in which multiple personalities are "attached" to one brain, causing lack of memory among other symptoms.
Most pictures of Multiple Personality Disorder depict the same image: one body with multiple faces or personalities.
Causes
A few causes of Multiple Personality Disorder are:
childhood sexual or physical abuse
famine
natural disasters
war
religious persecution
Symptoms
A few symptoms of Multiple Personality Disorder include:
frequent changes of handwriting
lack of memory
supernatural experiences/ demonic possession
depersonalization
changes of an objects location without remembering that you moved it
Age/ Gender Tendencies
There is no specific age, gender, or race tendency more likely to get Multiple Personality Disorder.
Background Information
Demon possession has been around since BCE and has since been renamed Multiple Personality Disorder, or Dissociative Identity Disorder. Studies show that multiple personality behaviors have been around and recorded for over 100 years, but were not medically diagnosed until about 35 years ago. It is common for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder to not remember anything they did when in an alter personality. This, called one-way amnesia, occurs when the present personality is amnesic for periods when alter personalities are in control of the body. In most cases, alter personalities are fully aware of present personalities.
Treatments and Medication
There is no medication proven to help Dissociative Identity Disorder, but many patients take benzodiazepine (helps calm anxiety), antidepressants, antipsycotics, lithium (used for bipolar disorder), and/ or electroconvulsive therapy. Some patients may take only one of these medications while others may take all and more because many people with Dissociative Identity Disorder are not diagnosed or have been diagnosed for another illness.
Where to Get More Information About D.I.D.
Cleveland Clinic:
clevelandclinic.org
(866) 588-2264
National Institute of Mental Health:
nimh.nih.gov
(866) 615-6464
Paradigm Malibu:
paradigmmalibu.com
(855) 780-8336
Famous Celebrity with Multiple Personality Disorder
In 2008, famous football player Herschal Walker wrote a book and told the world he had Multiple Personality Disorder. His book, Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder, he claimed that after his football career ended, his life went off the rails and he told CNN, "my life was out of control. I was not happy, i was very sad, i was angry and i didn't understand why."
Less than 1% of the worlds population has reported that they have Multiple Personality Disorder. Most of these people claim that it is from childhood abuse.
23-Year-Old Describes What It’s Like To Live With Multiple Personalities