Okay so, this wonderful infographic gave me what I need to explain how it can be extremely easy to make someone think they have DID when they don't, and talk about my own experiences as someone who doesn't have DID, but has had my brain do things that could look like programmed DID to the people who were convinced that this is a real thing.
So as this infographic shows us, everybody is multifaceted. We all have different parts within our selves, so to speak. Different parts of ourselves can hold completely contrary opinions and beliefs.
So here's an example: There's a part of me that believes that there is no supernatural activity in the universe whatsoever, and that we live in a deterministic universe.
But there's another part of me that's like, "Hmm, actually, there are a few reasons to think there might be some supernatural things, and there's no strong evidence to support a deterministic universe. And besides that, determinism is kinda demoralizing, and there's the fact that people behave better when they believe in free will, so..."
There's a lot of contradictions like this in my brain. And my anxiety/depression often gives me some gnarly mood dips that often prompt my brain to prioritize its more pessimistic parts. But ultimately, I'm still experiencing these states as a single person.
For most people, these different parts are essentially integrated with each other, blending smoothly into each other so that it forms a fairly cohesive self. Most of us don't effectively become a different person when something happens to prompt us into prioritizing a different part.
But in a multiple system, these parts aren't integrated, because childhood trauma disrupted a key stage of brain development. This means that for multiple systems, each part is essentially its own entire person.
Now, here's one way somebody can be tricked or trick themself into thinking they have DID: Denial and repression.
Here's a hypothetical example: Someone grows up in a church where they're always told that the church's teachings are perfect. But they see where the church's teachings don't really prevent abuse; in fact, talking about abuse within the church is discouraged.
However, they've also been taught that eternal damnation awaits anyone who defies the church and its teachings. So they always push away the part of them that acknowledges that the church's negative aspects and force themselves to focus on whatever positives they can find.
However, this repressed part is still there, stewing under the surface, building resentment toward the church and toward its god.
Then one day something finally snaps, and this person can't hold this part of themselves back any longer. It bursts to the surface and they make a raging rant against the church and against God.
Once this person gets it all off their chest and the pressure is relieved, they find themselves absolutely horrified because what they've just said is in such drastic conflict with the part of themselves they've forced themselves to prioritize, the part that they've convinced themselves is their only set of beliefs and feelings.
This is where the SRA/RAMCOA/TBMC/ITBC/whatever they're calling it now "expert" can come in and explain that actually, they just experienced a programmed alter fronting. Then they explain how there's all of these secret Satanic cults that program people to have good Christian front alters but also program them to have other alters that hate Christianity.
Literally anything somebody might be repressing this way could be interpreted as a programmed alter. A woman who represses the part of herself that wants to explore taboo sexual desires or even just present herself as a sexual being can be convinced she has beta kitten programming, for example.
Another way people can come to wrongly believe they have DID is failing to understand that different parts in a person's can become associated with certain characters or figures, and that these parts can be "channeled."
For example, someone with abusive parents watches a TV show with a character who feels outraged over the way their parents abused them. This resonates with the part of their brain that feels outraged about the way their parents treat them, and they form an association between this character and their own feelings.
Once this happens, they can experience this character expressing opinions and stating intentions fueled by these feelings, and when their brain prioritizes this part of themself, they might find themself acting more like this character in some way. Furthermore, they might also be able to "talk" to this character and have this character respond, or feel an emotional reaction from this part of their brain.
This is something my own brain does. Sometimes when I watch media, I occasionally have a character get associated with some part of my brain, and sometimes they just seem to pop out and insert their opinions. Or I can just go "Hey character, what's your opinion?" and they throw out an opinion from that part of my brain.
This link can also be reinforced by writing fanfic about the character, because the writer is using that set of feelings to guide how they write the character.
The more somebody watches or writes the character, the more their brain implicitly understands what the character "should" do, and so it becomes easier for their subconscious to just throw stuff out. Again, I have personal experience here, and numerous writers out there can confirm that they experience characters like this. Many writers report experiencing this kind of thing so intensely that it completely throws their story off the rails - the characters effectively "take over," and the writers just have to go along with it. It's a well-known thing among fanfic writers.
Of course, you don't even have to be into fiction for your brain to associate some kind of figure with a certain part. Anyone can easily associate the general idea of a strong, powerful man with the part of themself that wants to do violence. Anyone can associate a dog with the part of themself that wants to play and frolic. Anyone can associate flowing robes and glowing auras with the part of their brain that believes in transcendent divinity. If you access these different parts of yourself and try to imagine what they would look like as a person, you will probably find your brain creating what feels like an appropriate embodiment for them. And then you can channel them, and you will experience them speaking to you or through you. And if you get into it deeply enough, you might even experience them taking over your body for a time.
Ultimately, a person can have such a character or figure take up residence in their brain with such vividity and apparent autonomy that they do in some sense function as a kind of separate entity, without DID or TBMC/ITBC being involved whatsoever. (In fact, torture would be more likely to hinder, rather than help this process.)
Dr. Alison Miller really gave the game away when she described how she has her patients communicate with their alleged alters. In a case of genuine DID, alters really aren't at a person's beck and call like this. (Edit to clarify: This isn't to say voluntary switching can't happen, or that alters can't be called forward in certain cases, but Miller was basically trying to get freshly-diagnosed people in contact with long-buried alters using a technique that was basically just channeling. A long-buried alter isn't likely to respond to this.) But this is how it works when you don't have DID and you're poking around at your own very integrated (if very repressed) parts.
