How much is realistic in the movies? Is it true that someone might have a full conversation with their alters while everyone else sees them talking to themselves? Do they actually see their alters standing in front of them?
As someone with my own mental health struggles I’d like to try and understand it.
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I’ve watched patients of mine lash out at their hallucinations, have conversations and react to things that are not in the room. Schizophrenia unfortunately is not embellished much in movies. Some people really do suffer through hallucinations that appear to attack them. Loud voices that tell them to do terrible things a d sometimes the hallucinations are so real to them they can’t work out what is real and what isn’t. Sometimea these people have been going through life unmedicated so long that they have completely lost touch with reality. It’s really sad
Hollywood exaggerates mental illness symptoms, or rather, embellishes them, to make it more menacing or interesting.
But, the symptoms of DID & schizophrenia are very real & can be very severe. DID patients indeed can have full conversations with their ‘alters’, some of which they may not remember later. Some personalities can be up front for weeks to months, at which point they may switch, & have difficulty recalling that period of time later.
As far as seeing hallucinations, this is very real as well, however it’s much more common in schizophrenia patients. Hallucinations vary from patient to patient, & they can anything from lights, tracers, or shadows, all the way to actual beings such as supernatural or humanoid entities. Every case is different, these illnesses are very much real & the symptoms depicted in movies are somewhat accurate for the most part.
On another note, I think what Hollywood gets wrong is depicting people with severe personality disorders as “crazy”. There are millions of people living with these disorders who have normal jobs, & many of them are incredibly successful. While they can be debilitating for some, many people live a normal & functional life with personality disorders, & there are many treatments available to help manage the symptoms.
If you’re referring to Split (2016) it’s painfully fictional and probably has brought a lot of harm to the public’s understanding of mental illness.
Oh man. Okay. Lemme try to clear up some of the misconceptions in the comments.
1. Schizophrenia has no connection to DID. They can come together but they aren’t a package deal.
2. Dissociation is a heavy spectrum. Ever zone out while driving or working on something? That’s dissociation too.
3. Memory gaps can and do happen
4. Childhood trauma is the normal source of DID. There *are* odd exceptions, but for the most part, trauma during formative years.
5. Some people do talk to their alters. From my knowledge, it’s mostly mental, but even if it’s out loud, they can and will acknowledge that it’s odd behavior, they aren’t unaware of their actions.
6. “Personalities” is an outdated term for it. Alters are really more like a split consciousness. Like, if your consciousness is your being, then did would be like cutting it into multiple pieces and letting them grow into different people with different aspects of the original ‘you’.
7. DID has two main treatment paths. Fusion, which is a therapy method of reintegrating alters into a whole, and functional plurality, which is treating the more problematic symptoms and making it just a unique way to live.
Source: multiple friends with DID (some diagnosed, some not.), And I’m going to be going into the field of mental health eventually.
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