What is Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative)?
Multiple personality disorder, medically known as dissociative identity disorder , is a mental health condition characterized by a person developing two or more different identities or personalities. “What is multiple personality disorder?” Each identity can have a different impact on a person’s memory, behaviors, thoughts, and identity.
These identities can often have their own age, gender, personality traits, and even memories.
For this reason, the disease is called multiple personality disorder.
When a person switches between these identities, they may not remember the events that other identities have done or experienced.
What is a Dissociative Seizure?
From the outside, the dissociative crisis is quite similar to epileptic seizures.
However, these seizures are not caused by electrical problems in brain activity, but by psychological factors.
It usually occurs as a result of severe stress, emotional traumas, or unmanageable emotional situations.
During a seizure, a person may experience convulsions or involuntary tremors.
He may not be able to react to the events around him or may appear unconscious.
However, in some cases, consciousness may be completely intact.
During a seizure, the person may stare at a fixed point and appear to be immersed in emptiness, or they may be unable to communicate with their surroundings.
The person is often unable to speak or move.
This can make the seizure appear more serious from the outside.
After a seizure, the person may not remember what happened or may experience a blurred memory.
These symptoms can differ in each individual, and seizures can last from a few seconds to a few minutes.
What are the Symptoms of Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative)?
Multiple personality disorder is a mental health condition that occurs when a person feels they have more than one identity or personality.
The symptoms of this disorder are complex and varied.
But the symptoms of multiple personality disorder are:
- Presence of Multiple Identities: The person feels that he or she has two or more different identities.
Each of these identities can have different names, ages, genders, and personality traits.
Each identity has its own thoughts, behaviors, and memories. - Transitions Between Identities: A person may switch between different identities and may not be aware of them during these transitions.
When the identity changes, significant changes can be seen in their tone of voice, body language and behavior. - Memory Gaps (Amnesia): The person may have difficulty remembering everyday events, important personal information, or childhood traumas.
These memory gaps arise from the fact that the experiences of different identities are disconnected from each other. - Behavioral and Emotion Changes: Since different identities have different personality structures, a person’s mood and behavior may change frequently.
For example, one identity may be very extroverted and courageous, while the other identity may be more withdrawn and fearful. - Depression and Anxiety: Individuals with multiple personality disorder can often also face additional mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.
- Visual and Auditory Hallucinations: In some cases, the person may hear voices related to different identities or experience visual hallucinations.
This condition can be confused with schizophrenia, but hallucinations occur in the form of feeling the presence of another identity or talking to that identity.
What is Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative)?
Multiple personality disorder is not usually divided into different subtypes.
However, dissociative disorders can manifest themselves in a wide range of various forms.
Multiple personality disorder is just one of these disorders and is often considered the most complex and intense dissociative disorder.
Dissociative disorders can be broadly divided into three main categories:
- Dissociative Identity Disorder: It is one of the most severe and complex dissociative disorders.
A person has more than one identity and transitions between these identities.
Each identity carries different parts of a person’s memories and experiences. - Dissociative Amnesia: The person is unable to remember important personal information or traumatic events.
This state of forgetfulness differs from ordinary memory loss because specific events or credentials are forgotten.
It is often associated with traumatic experiences. - Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder: In this case, the person perceives himself or his environment in an unrealistic way.
The person may feel alienated from their own body (depersonalization) or perceive the world around them in an unrealistic, foggy, or disconnected way (derealization).
Each dissociative disorder can present with different symptoms.
The main characteristic that they all have in common is the feeling of detachment or separation from one’s thoughts, memories, or identity.
What Causes Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative)?
Multiple personality disorder usually occurs due to severe childhood traumas.
For the question “What causes multiple personality disorder?”, it would not be wrong to say that these traumas include intense and persistent stressful experiences such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse.
People who encounter such experiences, especially in childhood, may experience mental interruptions in order to consciously escape from the trauma and disconnect from these painful memories in order to cope.
Since mental and emotional development is not yet complete during childhood, such traumas can interrupt a person’s identity development.
These divisions can cause a person to form different identities.
Multiple personality disorder is considered a defense mechanism against this trauma.
The person develops different personalities to cope with the pain, and each personality carries or remembers certain aspects of the trauma.
The main reason is that the person experiences identity splitting in order to protect themselves from excessive stress or trauma. 
Is Dissociative Identity Disorder Genetic?
Although dissociative identity disorder is primarily associated with traumatic experiences in childhood, it is still not fully understood whether genetic factors play a role.
However, it is thought that genetic factors may play an indirect role in the development of psychiatric conditions such as dissociative disorders.
Genetics can affect how sensitive an individual will be to stress and trauma.
This, in turn, can increase a person’s risk of developing a dissociative disorder.
However, the main triggering factor for its emergence is usually severe childhood trauma and abuse.
Therefore, even if there are genetic factors, environmental and psychosocial factors are at the forefront as the main cause of this disorder.
How Does Character Change Occur in Multiple Personality Disorder?
In people with multiple personality disorder, transitions between identities often occur suddenly and uncontrollably.
During this transition, a person’s behaviors, emotions, and even physical reactions change drastically.
For example, one identity may be very social and extroverted, while another identity may be more introverted and reserved.
These different identities can even change a person’s tone of voice, facial expression, and body language.
When switching between identities, the person may not remember what happened while in the other identity.
These memory gaps can put a great strain on the person.
Because when a person moves from one identity to another, he does not remember what he has experienced before.
In addition, transitions are often triggered by stressful or traumatic situations.
Therefore, when an individual encounters a certain trigger, he may unwittingly change his identity.
This process can negatively affect a person’s daily life.
During the transitions between identities, the person does not have self-control, which can lead to complex relationships and functioning problems.
Treatment usually aims to integrate these identities and help the person cope better with the condition.
How is Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative) Treated?
Treatment for multiple personality disorder is usually a long-term process, and the main goal is to make the person’s daily life more functional by combining different identities.
Treatment usually consists of the following steps:
- Psychotherapy (Talk Therapy): The most effective treatment method is long-term psychotherapy.
This type of therapy aims to confront one’s past traumas and control the transitions between identities.
The therapist tries to integrate the person’s different identities by processing traumatic memories.
This process can take years and the process can be managed with an online doctor when deemed appropriate.
Because it can take time for a person to face their traumatic past and learn to manage it. - Trauma-Focused Therapy: Since multiple personality disorder is usually caused by severe traumas in childhood, treatment is supported by trauma-focused therapies.
These therapies help the person to reconstruct past events and improve their coping skills.
Therapies such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can be used to reduce the impact of traumatic memories. - Medication: Although there is no specific drug treatment, antidepressants or anxiolytic drugs may be prescribed for symptoms such as depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder that often accompany this disorder.
These medications can make a person’s psychotherapy process more effective. - Supportive Therapies: Methods such as group therapy and family therapy are also used to better understand the individual’s identities and the effects of these identities.
Group therapy can help an individual interact with other people who are experiencing similar problems and feel that they are not alone.
It is important to be patient and consistent during the treatment process.
Because multiple personality disorder is a complex and long-lasting disorder.
Expert-guided therapy provides harmony between one’s different identities, allowing one to lead a more balanced life.
Symptoms may differ from person to person and may vary in intensity.
If you or someone you know is experiencing these symptoms, it’s important to consult a professional mental health professional.
In cases where it is difficult to access a professional, the necessary examination can be provided within the scope of online health services with an online doctor interview.
