What is dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multi-personality disorder)
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it is a mental disorder that is usually developed in childhood due to trauma. alters or other personalities help protect the host or the person who owns the body. alters can be beings other than humans like fairies, animals, or even a character off of a show or book. the alters can be older or younger than the host. young alters are called littles. there’s also alters that can be harmful for the host, these alters can be modeled after the abuser of the host.
if you have any questions, leave them in this comment thread and i’ll try to answer them 🙂
It’s a mental disorder that has a genetic component and is triggered as a result of ongoing trauma
Basically, the disorder happens so you can compartmentalize abuse and is a method of self preservation. Imagine if you’re going through something horrifically awful, and your brain has the ability to swap someone else into your body to deal with it for you
That way, you—the central you—arent destroyed by the trauma
What we used to call “personalities” we now call “alters,” in part because the switch is so much more complete than just a personality change. It’s characterized by having gaps in your memory where you literally don’t know what happened, essentially because an alter was at the wheel
To get DID, we think the trauma has to happen at a very specific time in your life—I think it’s about 9 years old, give or take a couple years
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