and is ethics relevant for how they ought to be treated for them aswell.
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Dissociative Identity Disorder typically forms in early childhood, when an intense traumatic event (abuse, for example) prevents the child’s developing mind from integrating into a ‘complete’ psyche.
As a result of that traumatic experience, the mind forms one or more mental ‘barriers’ to protect against further trauma, and creates one or more alternate identities (alters) to manage them.
These alters are distinct individuals; they each have their own tastes in clothing and hairstyles, preferred foods and colors, and gender identities/sexual preferences. Alters have their own life experiences, and can be of any age.
Ethics are *very* relevant: for example, it’s extremely unethical to deliberately *trigger* a switch, and quite rude to do so simply because you want to speak to a particular alter. That’s kind of like inviting your friend over and spending the entire time talking to someone else.
Anyhow — there’s a lot more information than ELI5 can impart; this is only a very basic overview based on my own self-education on the topic.
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