FAQ

For terms used in this FAQ, and throughout the rest of this site, the glossary should help clarify.

What is DID/Dissociative Identity Disorder?
DID is essentially the existence of more than one person or mind in a body. You may have heard of it as Multiple Personality Disorder/MPD. It's the same thing, but the name has changed, due to it being a dissociative disorder, not a personality disorder.

What causes DID?
DID is caused by severe and/or prolonged trauma during the formative years of childhood. Supposedly, the personality of a young child is in flux until about six or seven years of age, and trauma can cause it to split off instead of integrate into a since cohesive person.

How can there be more than one person in a body?
An analogy: Babies can be born in groups. Twins, triplets, and so on. Two or more people from one source, where early on in the developmental process, something didn't quite form normally, and there ended up being more than one baby from one egg. The babies are completely different people, even if they're identical in appearance. A similar process can happen after birth, while the brain is in a very delicate stage of development. Severe trauma can cause the brain to focus on protecting the child from further harm, which it does by creating barriers between the danger and the child. This is the basis of the 'dissociative' part of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

What is dissociation?
Dissociation isn't exclusive to DID, and can be a part of many other disorders, or even none at all. It can happen to otherwise normal, healthy people, and you may have experienced a form of it at one point in your life. For DID, however, it is much more pervasive, and in its strongest form, is called dissociative amnesia. Sometimes, it's feeling like you've taken a step back from your body, and are watching yourself move through the world as if it were a movie. Other times, it's feeling completely numb, both mentally and physically, and having no sense of your own existence. There are hundreds of ways to describe what it is, or how it feels, but it's always a form of disconnect betwen yourself and the world around you. Dissociative amnesia is probably exactly what you expected it to be: A sizable blackout in your memory where you can't recall anything that has taken place during the episode. This is usually due to someone else from the system taking over the body, and you being pushed back inside where you can't percieve the outside world.

Is this similar to schizophrenia?
Nope. Schizophrenia is caused by a chemical imbalance, and is treated with medication. DID is caused by trauma, and is treated with therapy. Since there's nothing chemically wrong with the brain, there's nothing to medicate; although there may be other comorbid disorders that can be treated with medication. Even though 'hearing voices' is most commonly associated with schizophrenia, it should be noted that those voices cannot take control of the person's actions. They're just voices. With DID, the voices belong to people that can take control of the shared body.

What is it like to have DID?
A lot like sharing an apartment with a bunch of roommates, really. Except it's your brain, and there's no screening process. There are going to be arguments, lack of communication, social mishaps, and awkward situations, sure, but for the most part, it's about going to work, paying the rent, running errands, and kicking back when the day is done. It depends a lot on how well everyone gets along and how well people work with each other. Here, we don't tend to get along very well, or cooperate, for that matter, but mostly everything gets done with minimal frustration, so it's not too bad. Although, for many people, the concept of never being alone in your own brain may be a bit disconcerting.

But aren't people like this supposed to be dangerous?
Don't believe what you see on TV. Having a secret killer in your own brain makes for a great plot twist, but it's not so great for a bunch of disgruntled strangers trying to keep everyone else from getting the whole group thrown in jail. The whole point of DID is self-preservation, after all. It's possible to have a person in the system be like the ones in the movies, but it's rare, and the odds of someone stopping them before they can act are pretty high when you've got like ten other people in your brain watching you all the time.

Does that mean you keep each other under control?
Kind of. Not really. It's not so much about stopping someone when they get a murderous urge so much as helping them not have those urges in the first place. Communication does wonders for keeping things running smoothly. If someone's having a bad day, having a friend there to talk to really helps. Many systems (including this one) have a code of conduct and/or internal laws that the system enforces upon its members. For instance, it's commonly expected for a system to regulate its own members, through punishments or otherwise. It's part of the code of shared responsibility. If someone in the system commits a crime, you don't play the 'it wasn't me, it was them' card; you take responsibility for not only the actions of the body, but your inability to prevent the crime as well.

Are the people in a system really separate from each other?
We can't speak for all systems, obviously, but for the majority, absolutely. My experience of life is as a single individual person. As it is for the others in this system. We experience ourselves as individuals first and foremost, and we appreciate being treated like any other single person in the world. Of course, many people don't seem to understand that just because they're looking at the same face, doesn't mean they're talking to the same person. We get that it's a strange concept, and it's okay for it to take some getting used to. But we try to avoid that situation whenever possible, and try our best to act like one person. It usually doesn't go very well, but there was an effort. We all have different skill sets as well, so while one person is an excellent public speaker, another can barely communicate in broken English. One can weld, another can blow smoke rings. One can effortlessly do parkour, while another is better with math. The list goes on. We are different people, like everyone else, and who we are and what we do reflects that.

So you can talk to each other?
Yep! Not all the time, obviously, since alone time is something everyone needs, system or not. And sometimes we can't get a hold of someone for whatever reason, or maybe they're busy, and so on. Most systems can't talk to each other at first. That's something you have to work towards. Opening communication is incredibly important in order to get anything done. After all, it sure helps a project if the people working on it can talk to each other.

It says on some of the other pages that some of you aren't human. How is that possible?
Honestly, we don't know. My theory is that when trauma is happening, a child's brain searches desperately for something to protect them. If the kid is a huge fan of batman, maybe they'll think "this wouldn't be happening if Batman were here to protect me". So, the subconscious being adapable as it is, gets Batman to protect the kid by delegating a piece of the developing brain to be 'Batman'. What if the kid was into Thundercats or dinosaurs instead of Batman? Same thing. People in a system can be *anything*, since they're essentially mental bodyguards. Animals, mythical creatures, fictional characters, even real people or concepts. If the subconscious thinks it will help the child survive into adulthood, anything is fair game.


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