HELP! my friend has Multiple Personality Disorder?
I have a very good friend with a case of MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). She has had over 15 distinctive personalities. And she just recently turned 16. They all started from being raped by her cousin when she was younger. When I originally met her she had 2 others apart from herself. Then 2 more surfaced which she thought were long gone. Just recently I was told 2 of the old ones have left. However, she is still left with a threatening teen, a suicidal preteen, and a conniving child. How is that possible? She has numerous panic attacks that can go on for 10 minutes at a time. She used to be anorexic, a drug addict, and still is suicidal. According to her she has a horrible home life. Her older sister whom she doesn't see for months at a time is a drug addict. She claims she is not allowed to show affection in her house and apparently her mother witnessed her being raped on numerous occasions and did nothing about it. I have tried to get her to see a doctor or someone to help her. I even offered to drive her to speak to someone. Or tell her to call child services. She wont budge at all. She complains to everyone else. Especially to me about her problems. And I hate listening to her problems and not being able to do anything about them. How do I help her deal with her issues? HELP!
Is Dissociative Identity Disorder real, why is the name more descriptive than Multiple Personality Disorder, and what are the actual applicable facts to this title distinction?
Yes, it is real. I've lived with someone with DID, my wife, for the last 15 years. In general I'm quite sceptical - my Quora motto is "Will doubt for food". I'm also a card carrying scientist. So I think I'm quite a good witness. Her condition has changed over the years but in the early days she would switch alters quite easily. Now she switches noticeably only during stressful situations. The alters vary from small children to adults, both sexes but most female. Some have specific functions such as being responsible for the child alters, or regulating anger, or even driving! She does "lose time" occasionally but it's not a major part of her experience. Mostly she (the front alter) is co-conscious with other alters.In all the time that I've been with her, I have never seen the slightest hint of playacting. I would have liked to since the cause of the playacting would be likely to be more tractable than the DID. Instead her behaviour has been consistent with DID even when she has been as distressed as anyone I've ever seen.How did this come about? She has a history of strong and abhorrent sexual abuse during childhood. Trauma at a young age is one of the triggers for DID. It seems that trauma after the age of 8 - 10 will not cause DID. Remembering the abuse and processing those memories does seem to have helped her. Although she was hospitalised in late 2010 it was for for a much less intense episode than the previous hospitalisation in 1998. However, since 1998 she has not been able to work and probably will not be able to do so in the future.She knows a few other people with DID from hospitals and groups. Life for a person with DID can be very, very difficult - it will break up relationships, prevent regular employment, destroy finances, and threaten physical health.Despite her DID, she is a wonderful human being. She connects very well with people, especially children, and has a number of very close friends. So it is possible to prevail, but it's not an easy path.
Is multiple personality disorder a real disorder?
Because we can't physically get inside someone's mind and live life in their shoes for a while, the verdict is out. Many psychologists will say it isn't real and use evidence while others may say it is real, and provide evidence. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/expert.q.a/02/23/dissociative.identity.disorder.raison/index.html ^ the guy who answered the question from the link gave a very thorough and non biased(for the most part anyway) answer. I personally believe that someone definitely can have major mood swings or bipolar disorder but I do ot believe one can have two actual personalities. EDIT: Schizophrenia is often confused with multiple personality disorder because schizophrenics may hear voices in their head that they can't control and they may be perceived as personalities. It's really quite an interesting history. You might want to look more into it.
Can you get Dissociative Identity Disorder from being bullied?
Ok, so my friend is only 15, but she was bullied for 10 years.... (I know, it's really sad...) She told me she does not remember anything before 8th grade. She only remembers certain memories, and most of them are bad. She hates remembering them, but she has no choice. She also has 6 other alters. She has a mean 16 year old, a cry-baby 12 year old, a mature and motherly 17 year old, a quiet one (age unknown), a suicidal 14 year old, and an evil one (all in order). Her speech is very different when the personalities come out, and sometimes she talks in 3rd person, but because she's in school, she can hide it. She has loving parents and loving siblings, and she really awsome friends. But she also suffers from some traits of dependent personality disorder (spell check). She does NOT like being alone in certain places (I think this is because she didn't have any real friends when she was younger. I also think the 12 year old is showing this because this is kind of the age when the bullying spiked up a lot when she was in middle school.). Sometimes she is very agressive, sometimes very motherly, sometimes very childish, sometimes very quiet. She even told me her school therapist told her she seemed younger than she is, which is kind of amusing to me, but the therapist is also not the only one who noticed! Anyway, I know I am posting on her account, and she is bound to see this sometime... but... I wanna help her, and I don't have a yahoo account (of course I asked to use hers to post here). So, help would be appreciated, and no mean comments please... I wanna help her..