Important things to know about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
- It is not schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.
- It is the result of severe childhood trauma.
- The identities of someone with DID are called different things. Alters, parts and others to name a few.
- There can be as few as 2 alters or into the hundreds with the average number being in the teens.
- Alters are not hallucinations or characters and ignoring them or telling the person to “snap out of it” will not make them go away.
- Although for some with DID the goal of treatment is to integrate alters into one whole identity many with DID feel this is not the right path for them and rather work on cooperation between alters to live as a team. Both of these are acceptable forms of recovery and it is up to the person with DID what path they want to take.
- DID is found in 1-3% of the population (possibly even more) making it more common than schizophrenia and not as extremely rare as many people believe.
- People with DID (or any mental illness) are statistically no more likely to commit any type of crime, violent or not. They are however more likely to be the victim of a crime.
- The “evil alter” trope seen in fiction is not accurate and alters that hold trauma or anger are much more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else.
- Most people with DID don’t have to live their lives in inpatient facilities and can still live good lives despite experiencing different types of struggles than people without DID.
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