Hey i am new at commenting on a forum.. but i am currently doing my portfolio on Dissociative Identity Disorder. Ive learned so much from researching it and one of my biggest concerns is the fact that many people do not believe in the disorder. I have talked to a psychiatrist about the disorder and they have convinced me that it is real... but i am still not to sure. Obviously you all will tell me it is real.. but can you give me more information as to why you are certain it exists thank yooou
Aside from all the evidence of very many people:
In my own case, first my fiancee had DID. She didn't know that she did actually - I made the error in judgment of letting her know it. But from several years of being with her and her alters -- for that matter a few weeks would have sufficed -- it was 100% clear that no one could fake what was happening here. No actor or actress I've ever seen can change their "look" in the way that alters can change appearance, and just as they say that someone who lies a great deal can never hope to remember all their lies, there's no way that anyone faking DID could over the course of several years remember with 100% accuracy which part said what, with 100% accuracy not know things that they shouldn't and 100% know what they should, etc. Just too complex.
Secondly, it turns out that I am DID myself. I had thought I lost no time since a teenager but various evidences have shown this isn't true, including handwritten notes from my alters, and people pointing out things I for sure did not say or do, as well as experiencing my voice changing drastically (yet in a totally natural sounding way) when profoundly co-conscious with some of the parts, their taking enough control to control the voice.
I don't think it's as mysterious a condition as many think. The normal mind is shown to have "ego states" which are individual consciousnesses within, roughly speaking, the subconscious. The only things are that in the normal mind these don't have the ability or perhaps not the power to take executive control of the body; the degree of influence they have on the on the outward consciousness is more limited and appropriate; and there aren't amnesic barriers between the outward consciousness and these parts. I don't think anything fundamentally new is created in DID, but rather there are differences in degree and extent of these things and in memory barriers, as well as the more remarkable phenomenon of the parts being able to take control of the body. Personal opinion.
Even that may perhaps have its counterpart in the normal mind: when a person takes Ambien and then, despite being 60 years old, jumps up and down on the bed like a child and has no memory of it later, or goes on an eating binge and does not remember it, this might possibly be an ego state fully taking control due to the pharmaceutical, though in the normal mind that doesn't ever happen without such a drug. Personal opinion there also.
Hopefully this helps understanding it a bit.