this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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Multiple personality disorder isn't a thing. Having multiple personalities as a result of disassocitive identity disorder isn't a thing.
The supporters of the idea that multiple personalities exist rest their faulty belief on shoddy studies and unproven beliefs.
Mental health clinician here. Everyone I've ever encountered with a DID diagnosis or who claimed to have multiple personalities instead had either PTSD or Borderline Personality Disorder or both. I genuinely believe DID does not exist as a standalone diagnosis.
People who think they have DID often respond well to Dialectical Behavior Therapy and/or trauma therapy, depending on their specific needs, which are the primary treatments for BPD and PTSD, respectively.
My spouse had a therapist that tried very hard to convince them that they had MPD (before it was rolled into DID) and repressed memories; they dumped the counselor. And yeah, they have CPTSD from familial abuse.
The perspective I'm coming at this from is that a lot of these super-fringe ideas really got off the ground with the Satanic Panic that started very small in the late 70s, and went on through the 90s; you had groups like RAMCOA (Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse Special Interest Group) that pushed really wacky ideas as being absolutely true, you had people insisting that repressed memories were 100% real rather than being things that you'd simply forgotten or fabricated memories (the work of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus shows how memories can be fabricated, and strongly suggests that 'repressed memories' don't exist in the way that was popularized in the 80s), that multiple personalities were 'fractured' personalities that sprang into being to protect the self, and so on. The people that came up with these batshit ideas are still around, pushing the same nonsense, but they keep changing the names to try and give them a veneer of reasonableness.
And yet, if that's the way that shit really worked, you should see that often with highly traumatized people; you should see DID and repressed memories in soldiers that have been in intense combat, in torture victims, in people that have lived through extreme, long-lasting abuse from parents and partners. Instead you see people that can't forget the terrible things that happened, people that have a trauma response with certain sounds, smells, etc. (triggers).
I should add there's a 3rd category of people I've encountered who have DID: people who have therapists who convinced them they have DID. We've definitely recommended some people terminate toxic relationships with therapists.
Right, but they don't have DID, they believe they have DID. Obviously that's not the same thing. (Yeah, I know, it's pedantic.) I absolutely agree with you about dumping toxic 'therapists'.
You're right, but my entire point is no one has DID 😂
Point to @protist@mander.xyz . :)
How about projection? As in, you imagine a personality/character and you project it upon yourself as to become said person. What would that fall under?
The psychological term "projection" means something totally different. What you're describing doesn't sound like any mental health condition I'm aware of
Pure curiosity now, as i love this stuff, but what is projection then?
And what i meant is to go as far that the person basically becomes the 'projected' person
Projection is an ego defense mechanism where someone denies a negative aspect of their own personality or behavior and instead accuses someone else of being that way.
An example is someone who's guilty of something may attempt to blame others for being guilty of that thing. This is mostly an unconscious thought process, people who do it on purpose aren't projecting
Oh, i get it, thanks! Kinda like projecting the bad things on somebody else to make yourself feel better about it. Cool!