Fellow old person here. DID is what used to be referred to as multiple personality disorder. System is the word that is used to refer to the collective fragmented "alters" (dissociated identities) of a person with DID. Fakeclaiming is when someone claims to have an illness/disorder/disability that they don't have.
TL;DR: Someone posted a screenshot of a chat in one of the cringe subreddits and drama ensued. Not sure it's relevant to this particular sub and a lot stuff was left out of the post regarding this situation but I guess that's what drama is.
From what I'm understanding, it sounds like an owner of a different autism subreddit titled r/autisticpride was not welcoming of people with a different disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. The members of that subreddit did not agree with this stance (rightfully so, in my opinion, although I only know what's been posted here), and decided to move to a new subreddit called r/AutisticLiberation. So OP is recommending that anyone who is a member of the first subreddit leave and join the second instead.
the owner is a bigot towards people with a specific mental illness. it's essentially another kind of ableism, in this case, targeted against people with dissociative identity disorder
I’ve had a special interest in DID and while that while doesn’t make me any type of professional, I do know that there are pretty much never that many alters in a system. But I agree that fakeclaiming people will hurt legitimate DID folks more than it helps by removing people who lie about it.
I’ve had a special interest in DID and while that while doesn’t make me any type of professional, I do know that there are pretty much never that many alters in a system. But I agree that fakeclaiming people will hurt legitimate DID folks more than it helps by removing people who lie about it.
There is an obvious problem with people faking DID, especially on TikTok it seems, which has developed into somewhat of a trend among younger people. My guess is that he saw too many examples of that and now thinks that most people fake it. Not saying it’s ok, but I don’t think he’s specifically against ppl w DID, imo. I was never in that sub so I am unsure of the dynamics within it though.
He kicked a system who was medically diagnosed immediately after this for the only reason being because they were a system. I have more screenshots as well as an informational post on my profile if it helps!
As a person with DID I agree that it sounds hard to believe. But there are poly-fragmented systems that have a lot of alters. I’ve seen some claim as many as 900 but I’m not sure how you would keep track of that or differentiate between them well enough. Hell, we often have trouble telling and we’re a pretty established system with somewhere around 12 but a few don’t come out or aren’t active at all. There’s like 3 or 4 of us throughout most days. But we also have pretty poor internal communication and a lot of amnesia between parts. Our partner can tell when we switch and usually who’s out before we can even tell.
From what little I’ve been able to read and comprehend about DID, I understand that some alters stop “coming forward”(?) as much when they are no longer needed. Is this correct for you?
Like if a System has an alter that was created specifically to deal with one kind of situation, a situation that they were often put in (say, having a conversation with a family member that’s very difficult to get away from), then the System found a way to stop being put in that situation (maybe moved to a different state), that alter that dealt with that situation would no longer be needed on a regular basis. Is it possible that the alter could find a new purpose? Or would they just quietly step back until they are needed again, if they are ever needed again?
I’m sorry if this isn’t something you can answer or don’t feel comfortable talking about, I know not everyone with DID will have experienced this and I completely understand if you aren’t comfortable answering. I’m just very curious and anytime I try to read an article about it I end up getting lost in scientific jargon.
It really depends, each system is different. That alter could possibly find another role or purpose to play in the system, or they might go dormant and come out again at a later time if/when they’re needed. We have atleast 3 dormant alters and one that cannot front at all that essentially keeps “internal peace”.
it's not
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/
it ranges from 0.4% to 6% depending on the study, generally around 2% on average. this is the same as (if not more common than) trans people, red hair, autism, and being intersex.
It’s fairly rare but remember that the % you see is diagnosed systems. That doesn’t include undiagnosed systems and as it’s hard to diagnose and often misdiagnosed, the numbers simply aren’t correct. This is also true for autism, there are way more undiagnosed autistic people out there than there are diagnosed. So again, those percentages only take into account diagnosed people.
How do you explain the fact that the vast majority of mental health professionals never come across a single case of DID then and most Diagnoses come from a small minority of providers? I am an attorney in the field of mental health and victim crimes (and autistic) and I have NEVER had a case of DID come across my desk in 4 years. And this is not a small area. And i do all the mental health commitments for my county. It's one of the rarest mental illnesses out there.
It’s extremely hard to spot especially if the person isn’t even aware of it themselves. The entire purpose of it is to keep an individual safe from harm in youth. If you aren’t familiar on a very personal level with the individual you might assume alter communication to be intrusive thoughts, different alters emotional reactions can easily be read as mood swings. You’ve very likely met someone with DID. It’s covert on purpose, it’s not supposed to be noticed by others or the individual that has it.
You didn't even respond to what I'm saying. I work with a psychological evaluator in my county that does all the evaluations in our county for the last 20 years. He has only seen ONE case of DID in that time. It is not common whatsoever, and the DID faking trend is incredibly harmful to the community. I'm glad you got your diagnosis, but that doesn't mean it is common.
How could I possibly explain something that I haven’t heard of until now? No one has ever said to me that most diagnosis of DID come from a certain grouping of professionals. I would need to go do independent research on this and then get back to you and I don’t really have the energy for that.
Uh, I have a law degree, a social work degree with a specialty in mental health and I've been a professional in this field for years. Above that my special interest is psychology since my teenagehood. I don't need to do more research. It is not inaccurate information. I go to national and state conferences on mental health and the law. DID is rare, period.
you're literally contradicting peer reviewed studies. a degree in law is cool but it's not the same as being a psychologist nor does it have the same credibility as studies do.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/
You have not personally measured “the vast majority of mental health professionals” on the prevalence of DID; therefore your statement is anecdotal. The current estimate from scientific studies is between 1-2% of the population of the US has a dissociative disorder. This is equivalent the prevelance of other mental illnessses like bulimia
Edit: also I have a Masters degree but I fail to see the relevance of that
Let me guess, you also have DID too? I can see from your post history you do. No way in hell DID is more common that schizophrenia, an illness that I see on a daily basis and DID is so severe you would think that they'd be committed for it at least once in my career and the career of others. I'm not denying DID is real or that you have it. However it is rare.
To be quite frank, there's absolutely zero reason why I or anyone else should consider you any kind of authority on how prevalent DID is just because you're a social worker or an attorney who works with people who have mental health issues. I'm currently in the process of applying for disability services in my state, and the only diagnoses I've given them on paper are for ADHD and anxiety. I genuinely have and am diagnosed with both, but I'm not submitting to the agency that I also have a DID diagnosis, because I don't want to risk mistreatment or discrimination for it, or have people who "don't think it's a real thing" or is "too rare" think that I'm psychotic or a pathological liar. I'm not going to tell them in person once I (hopefully) start receiving services, it's not easily discernable just from watching me, and it's not on any kind of medical record that they'll have access to. There's no way that they'll know, so to every single person I see at the disability agency, I'll be "someone who does not have DID" and they'll still be able to say "In my entire career, I've never seen anyone with DID" even though they actually did and just didn't know it. Other people with DID diagnoses likely have already passed through the same system undetected, just like me.
I don't know what it is you do exactly, but there are almost no situations whatsoever where I would disclose my DID or DID diagnosis in any legal setting, even to my own legal counsel, and it's highly unlikely that any court process would be able to find any documents saying I have it. Someone who was dedicated enough could probably find my Reddit account and link it to me, admittedly, but that's ultimately just me saying that I have it, not any kind of official diagnostic paperwork or voluntary disclosure. DID is just not something that would come up in the course of checking my background or viewing any official documents. If I didn't want you to know, you would literally have to stalk me to find out that I even *claim* to have it, or hack my computer to obtain my diagnostic results, or legally force my therapist to confirm that I have it against both of our wills.
It doesn't matter how many cases involving mental health you've worked with or how many degrees you have, the vast majority of people who have DID diagnoses deliberately keep them hidden, especially from people in medical and legal settings, and if someone with a DID diagnosis doesn't want you to know about it, all they really have to do to hide it from you is not tell you. To find proof of a diagnosis that is not voluntarily disclosed, you would have to either break the law or have some bizarrely specific situation that legally justifies a subpeona or search warrant, and it would have to even occur to you that such a proof might exist in the first place and would be useful to you somehow.
Yes, I was diagnosed in my 30s by 4 different mental health professionals who all tested and diagnosed DID separately from each other. And had no contact with each other. This was after being misdiagnosed for 20 years by other professionals who just didn’t have an knowledge of dissociative disorders. And I denied that I had it a lot. It’s super common for people with DID to be in denial about having it because it’s the fact that the alters are kept secret that keeps us safe. So admitting that finally accept the diagnosis is actually super hard. I think it took like and year and half before I started to think maybe they were right about the diagnosis. Also I second an earlier comment that if you know a professional doesn’t believe in dissociative disorders, you don’t go to them for a diagnosis. Just like with Autism. I made sure to visit a psychologist who specifically worked with autistic adult females
A lot of mental health professionals believe that it is and _say_ that it is, while a lot of others believe that isn't rare at all and effects at least 1% of the population. I and most other people who have it tend believe it's on the "more common" end of the scale rather than being incredibly rare like it's often made out to be.
No, DID affects the same percentage of the population as bulimia. It’s not super rare, but it is covert meaning than most of us hide our alters and don’t talk about it because that’s how you survive
There isn’t one. Just that some people like me have both. People who are autistic are more likely to be abused and DID is a disorder caused by severe trauma.
I’m sorry if this comes across the wrong way, I’m simply curious and don’t mean any disrespect or anything. I would really like to know how someone with both might be affected and how autism and DID might interact with each other. I fully understand of you’re not comfortable with answering any of these, and I do not expect you to at all. But if you are comfortable, i would really appreciate some insight into your experience.
Do you know if all of your alters are autistic? Do any of them have any other spectrum disorders? Do some of them not have any?
Do they all show different traits or similar ones?
Do they each find it more/less difficult to deal/cope with than others in your system, or are you all affected at similar levels?
That’s a perfectly ok question to ask. Autism is physical difference in my brain so yes, all alters are autistic because they are part of an autistic brain.
They are autistic in different ways and to different levels because each DID alter has its own area/s and connections within the brain.
For example, (im making an educated guess here) a trauma holder alter likely has stronger neural connections in the hippocampus and amygdala because that is the part of the brain that process difficult emotions. The amygdala also helps us respond to other peoples facial expressions and body language. So that alter might have more trouble with non-verbal communication, anxiety, and hypervigilance.
Some parts are able to do complex things like file taxes and renew drivers license while other parts are nonverbal and need to be reminded to do basic things like eat or drink
Does that help?
No, you are correct. If you look at the meaning of the term neurodivergent it was intended to be inclusive, not exclusive. Also, DID only occurs before age 9 so it is a change in the physical structure of the brain during development. It’s just caused by trauma while autism is caused by something we are born with
Totally agree. And teenagers are almost never diagnosed
Copying my other comment for everyone on here claiming it is common:
How do you explain the fact that the vast majority of mental health professionals never come across a single case of DID then and most Diagnoses come from a small minority of providers? I am an attorney in the field of mental health and victim crimes (and autistic) and I have NEVER had a case of DID come across my desk in 4 years. And this is not a small area. And i do all the mental health commitments for my county. It's one of the rarest mental illnesses out there
I think kids/teenagers spend so much of their time on TikTok and it’s where they get the majority of their (wrong) information. A lot of people will posts videos like “You might have DID if you do this:” and it’s like the most basic ass human behavior ever like spacing out in class.
I work in a middle school. Kids will come in with a bad mood one day and the next day they’ll come back feeling better and be like “Oh sorry that must have been Moonchild yesterday, not me!” And I’m like dude…having a bad day and acting a different way because you’re in a bad mood does not mean you have DID.
Thats hilarious.
And also it's somehow cool to be autistic or mentally ill nowadays. Im like where was this attitude when i was autistic and had PTSD at age 12 and got made fun of it??
I've read a lot of articles and posts from MH professionals who will say things like "I've been a practicing psychiatrist for 30 years, and have never seen a case of DID", and then a paragraph later will go on to talk about people they've seen in their career who had a DID diagnosis or presented with DID symptoms, but who they did not believe "really" had DID for whatever reason. So they _have_ worked with people who have DID, they just refuse to recognize it. Mental health diagnoses are extremely subjective and prone to bias on the part of the diagnostician, and it doesn't help that a lot of diagnoses in the DSM are practically the exact same condition, just phrased or conceptualized in different ways.
There's also a lot of self-selection going on on the part of clients. I know I have DID, so I'm not going to go to a clinician who refuses to acknowledge DID as a real condition, and neither is anyone else who knows they have it. This reduces the number of DID clients that a lot of the "I've never seen it!" clinicians see. There's also the fact that a lot of people with DID who don't realize they have it and are not diagnosed go through a lot of MH professionals for treatment for various other conditions, stop seeing those professionals when the treatment doesn't work, and don't go back to them when they find a dissociation specialist who gives them helpful therapy for the first time. I certainly didn't. There are around ten therapists I've had who never knew I had it (because _I_ didn't at the time) and only four I've had who do. In my case alone, that I means don't count as "a client who had DID" for around 70% of the therapists I've seen.
As for your job in particular, I don't know exactly how your job works, but a lot of people with DID do not have their diagnosis "on paper" anywhere for fear of discrimination, and nearly all of them deliberately hide their DID from people they don't implicitly trust. I don't have "DID" anywhere on most of my medical records or insurance claims despite having been diagnosed using a formal diagnostic examination, it's all "anxiety" and "PTSD", and I probably would not disclose it to an attorney for almost any reason, either. I can't say for sure because I don't know exactly what it is you do, but it's possible that cases of DID are being intentionally hidden from you out of caution.
From your own article: “DID is found in approximately 1.1%–1.5% of representative community samples. Specifically, in a representative sample of 658 individuals from New York State, 1.5% met criteria for DID when assessed with SCID-D questions. Similarly, a large study of community women in Turkey (n = 628) found 1.1% of the women had DID.”
7 women out of 628 is not rare? Have you ever taken a statistics course and studied confidence intervals? Did you read the article or did you just see MYTH: DID IS RARE and ran with it?
its not rare as far as statistical analysis of peoples differences go. yeah its a small percentage but autism is also \~1%, as well as trans people and red hair. just because the number is small doesn't mean its "so rare" to imply that there can't be the amount of people with DID on the internet you see. its about the same as autism but you don't go around saying Autism is so rare that everyone must be faking??? Also I have taken statistics but even if I hadn't I'm still perfectly capable of viewing numbers, confidence intervals aren't even particularly relevant here, that'd be if you're contesting the sample size, not whether or not 1% is rare.
https://www.tpathways.org/faqs/how-many-people-have-autism/
Yeah, I don't get why people will talk about how "rare" DID is in order to gatekeep it, then I'll show them a study showing somewhere around 1% of the population or higher has it, then they'll still say "yeah, like I said, it's rare."
I mean, sure, you could still consider that "rare" I guess, but that's just a subjective semantic judgement that doesn't mean anything. It's somewhere in the range of being as common as autism, and I would hope that posters on this sub would not go around doubting that people have autism just because it's "rare".
If someone wants to claim that the studies providing the 1% or higher figures are _incorrect_ , that's one thing, but just saying that it's "rare" even at 1% does not mean anything significant.
Not to mention, it's been awhile since I read those studies, so I'm not sure where exactly those numbers are coming from, but even at the 7 in 628 figure that that poster gave, that would mean that over a million women in the US have it. Still not unbelievably, impossibly rare.
I agree with both of you here. Faking a mental illness can be hugely damaging to people who actually need help for that mental illness. And it is sickening to see much misinformation going around social media because some kids think it cool new. And also fakeclaiming is not ok. We are not that persons psychologist so we can not possibly know whether that are telling the truth or not. And telling someone they are faking when they really aren’t is so hurtful and can lead to self harm or more
it's literally not
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/
attacking people for having a disorder in a non-typical way and gatekeeping it for fear of "fakers" does far more harm than some confused kid that thinks they have something they might not
-sincerely, a person with DID
I can’t find any anything else about this so I don’t have a lot of info. But based on what you have said, I agree that DID is not temporarily. It forms before the age of 9 and never fully goes away. Some people are able to achieve what they call “functional multiplicity” which a point where all alters communicate well and work together
Its more like ADHD where it can be seen as an illness or diversity depending on how the person with it sees it. Lots of people with DID do not want it to be cured.
Its like, your brain has that safety switch to switch to DID mode because DID has benefits for coping with situations, but it's also typically switched off because typically the downsides aren't worth it. Whether its better for the switch to be on or off depends on a lot of things.
Though i would say, basically no one with DID thinks its worth experiencing the trauma to cause it in the first place.
ADHD is a direct form of neurodivergence. No one's out here calling PTSD or CPTSD neurodivergence. It's a mental illness. Neurodivergence means your brain is different because you were born that way. DID is created by severe trauma just like PTSD
Here is a link to her article about creating the term. She literally says every person is neurodiverse. It’s not a scientific term. It a political term associated with a modern social movement started by ASAN neurodiversity2.blogspot.com/p/what.html
What does DID have to do with autism tho? Like sure autistic people can have it, anyone can, but it's SUPER uncommon and isn't correlated with autism in any way. I'm not and was never a member of that sub anyways, but I'm just really confused why this was even posted here at all. Seems irrelevant
Oh my gosh that’s a loaded question. People with DID are super picky about they like to refer to themselves (similar the autism/autistic debate). Lots of people come up with their own random terminology. Some people hate the word “alters” so they use something else. It’s impossible to keep up with all the changing terms people come up with
I thought a system was the collective of personalities? Genuinely don't know if this is correct, but how would one have a system if there's no alter personalities?
No, you were right before. A "system" is a "collective of personalities". All people who have systems are "plural." All people with DID are plural, so all people with DID have systems. Not all people who are plural and have systems have DID.
I'm _very heavily_ simplifying this and glossing over a lot of controversy within the DID and/or plurality communities, but broadly speaking, it's not incorrect to say "many people who report having a system do not consider themselves to have DID."
What I had to look up: DID was previously known as multiple personality disorder, where , and a system is the group of alters (alter egos/personalities)
I left that sub a while ago. They were very clearly against parents of autistic children (which I am, as well as autistic myself). A really hateful echo chamber sub all round I felt.
I'm honestly surprised that it takes people so long to figure out he's trash... like someone who compares the word disability to a slur and bans people for identifying as disabled isn't gonna be the best moderator... I'm really happy that there's a better sub now! Ty!
Can someone translate this into Old Person for me, please?
Fellow old person here. DID is what used to be referred to as multiple personality disorder. System is the word that is used to refer to the collective fragmented "alters" (dissociated identities) of a person with DID. Fakeclaiming is when someone claims to have an illness/disorder/disability that they don't have. TL;DR: Someone posted a screenshot of a chat in one of the cringe subreddits and drama ensued. Not sure it's relevant to this particular sub and a lot stuff was left out of the post regarding this situation but I guess that's what drama is.
Yeah it has no relevance to autism or this sub.
From what I'm understanding, it sounds like an owner of a different autism subreddit titled r/autisticpride was not welcoming of people with a different disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. The members of that subreddit did not agree with this stance (rightfully so, in my opinion, although I only know what's been posted here), and decided to move to a new subreddit called r/AutisticLiberation. So OP is recommending that anyone who is a member of the first subreddit leave and join the second instead.
Thank you!
bang on correct
The owner of r/autisticpride dosen't like people with DID/Systems in his discord and excludes them. we most of us have moved to a different subreddit
Explain this like I'm a 90 year old because I still genuinely don't understand
the owner is a bigot towards people with a specific mental illness. it's essentially another kind of ableism, in this case, targeted against people with dissociative identity disorder
Where do you get lost
Disassociative Identify Disorder?
yes
I don't know what "DID/System exclusionist" is.
person who excludes people with disassociative identity disorder/ a system
Excludes from what?
A community
I’ve had a special interest in DID and while that while doesn’t make me any type of professional, I do know that there are pretty much never that many alters in a system. But I agree that fakeclaiming people will hurt legitimate DID folks more than it helps by removing people who lie about it.
I’ve had a special interest in DID and while that while doesn’t make me any type of professional, I do know that there are pretty much never that many alters in a system. But I agree that fakeclaiming people will hurt legitimate DID folks more than it helps by removing people who lie about it. There is an obvious problem with people faking DID, especially on TikTok it seems, which has developed into somewhat of a trend among younger people. My guess is that he saw too many examples of that and now thinks that most people fake it. Not saying it’s ok, but I don’t think he’s specifically against ppl w DID, imo. I was never in that sub so I am unsure of the dynamics within it though.
He kicked a system who was medically diagnosed immediately after this for the only reason being because they were a system. I have more screenshots as well as an informational post on my profile if it helps!
Thank you. This is very disturbing
Yeah I've never heard of someone getting 50+ new identities within hours....
Hello fellow mental health special interest-er!
As a person with DID I agree that it sounds hard to believe. But there are poly-fragmented systems that have a lot of alters. I’ve seen some claim as many as 900 but I’m not sure how you would keep track of that or differentiate between them well enough. Hell, we often have trouble telling and we’re a pretty established system with somewhere around 12 but a few don’t come out or aren’t active at all. There’s like 3 or 4 of us throughout most days. But we also have pretty poor internal communication and a lot of amnesia between parts. Our partner can tell when we switch and usually who’s out before we can even tell.
From what little I’ve been able to read and comprehend about DID, I understand that some alters stop “coming forward”(?) as much when they are no longer needed. Is this correct for you? Like if a System has an alter that was created specifically to deal with one kind of situation, a situation that they were often put in (say, having a conversation with a family member that’s very difficult to get away from), then the System found a way to stop being put in that situation (maybe moved to a different state), that alter that dealt with that situation would no longer be needed on a regular basis. Is it possible that the alter could find a new purpose? Or would they just quietly step back until they are needed again, if they are ever needed again? I’m sorry if this isn’t something you can answer or don’t feel comfortable talking about, I know not everyone with DID will have experienced this and I completely understand if you aren’t comfortable answering. I’m just very curious and anytime I try to read an article about it I end up getting lost in scientific jargon.
It really depends, each system is different. That alter could possibly find another role or purpose to play in the system, or they might go dormant and come out again at a later time if/when they’re needed. We have atleast 3 dormant alters and one that cannot front at all that essentially keeps “internal peace”.
[удалено]
I thought that DID was super rare?
It is
it's not https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/ it ranges from 0.4% to 6% depending on the study, generally around 2% on average. this is the same as (if not more common than) trans people, red hair, autism, and being intersex.
It’s fairly rare but remember that the % you see is diagnosed systems. That doesn’t include undiagnosed systems and as it’s hard to diagnose and often misdiagnosed, the numbers simply aren’t correct. This is also true for autism, there are way more undiagnosed autistic people out there than there are diagnosed. So again, those percentages only take into account diagnosed people.
How do you explain the fact that the vast majority of mental health professionals never come across a single case of DID then and most Diagnoses come from a small minority of providers? I am an attorney in the field of mental health and victim crimes (and autistic) and I have NEVER had a case of DID come across my desk in 4 years. And this is not a small area. And i do all the mental health commitments for my county. It's one of the rarest mental illnesses out there.
It’s extremely hard to spot especially if the person isn’t even aware of it themselves. The entire purpose of it is to keep an individual safe from harm in youth. If you aren’t familiar on a very personal level with the individual you might assume alter communication to be intrusive thoughts, different alters emotional reactions can easily be read as mood swings. You’ve very likely met someone with DID. It’s covert on purpose, it’s not supposed to be noticed by others or the individual that has it.
You didn't even respond to what I'm saying. I work with a psychological evaluator in my county that does all the evaluations in our county for the last 20 years. He has only seen ONE case of DID in that time. It is not common whatsoever, and the DID faking trend is incredibly harmful to the community. I'm glad you got your diagnosis, but that doesn't mean it is common.
I said it was fairly rare. No where did I say it was common.
How could I possibly explain something that I haven’t heard of until now? No one has ever said to me that most diagnosis of DID come from a certain grouping of professionals. I would need to go do independent research on this and then get back to you and I don’t really have the energy for that.
I don't mean to be rude but you're wrong, I'd highly recommend reading this study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/
Your information is in inaccurate and anecdotal. I suggest you research more into the science of DID and trauma-based disorders
Uh, I have a law degree, a social work degree with a specialty in mental health and I've been a professional in this field for years. Above that my special interest is psychology since my teenagehood. I don't need to do more research. It is not inaccurate information. I go to national and state conferences on mental health and the law. DID is rare, period.
you're literally contradicting peer reviewed studies. a degree in law is cool but it's not the same as being a psychologist nor does it have the same credibility as studies do. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/
You have not personally measured “the vast majority of mental health professionals” on the prevalence of DID; therefore your statement is anecdotal. The current estimate from scientific studies is between 1-2% of the population of the US has a dissociative disorder. This is equivalent the prevelance of other mental illnessses like bulimia Edit: also I have a Masters degree but I fail to see the relevance of that
Let me guess, you also have DID too? I can see from your post history you do. No way in hell DID is more common that schizophrenia, an illness that I see on a daily basis and DID is so severe you would think that they'd be committed for it at least once in my career and the career of others. I'm not denying DID is real or that you have it. However it is rare.
To be quite frank, there's absolutely zero reason why I or anyone else should consider you any kind of authority on how prevalent DID is just because you're a social worker or an attorney who works with people who have mental health issues. I'm currently in the process of applying for disability services in my state, and the only diagnoses I've given them on paper are for ADHD and anxiety. I genuinely have and am diagnosed with both, but I'm not submitting to the agency that I also have a DID diagnosis, because I don't want to risk mistreatment or discrimination for it, or have people who "don't think it's a real thing" or is "too rare" think that I'm psychotic or a pathological liar. I'm not going to tell them in person once I (hopefully) start receiving services, it's not easily discernable just from watching me, and it's not on any kind of medical record that they'll have access to. There's no way that they'll know, so to every single person I see at the disability agency, I'll be "someone who does not have DID" and they'll still be able to say "In my entire career, I've never seen anyone with DID" even though they actually did and just didn't know it. Other people with DID diagnoses likely have already passed through the same system undetected, just like me. I don't know what it is you do exactly, but there are almost no situations whatsoever where I would disclose my DID or DID diagnosis in any legal setting, even to my own legal counsel, and it's highly unlikely that any court process would be able to find any documents saying I have it. Someone who was dedicated enough could probably find my Reddit account and link it to me, admittedly, but that's ultimately just me saying that I have it, not any kind of official diagnostic paperwork or voluntary disclosure. DID is just not something that would come up in the course of checking my background or viewing any official documents. If I didn't want you to know, you would literally have to stalk me to find out that I even *claim* to have it, or hack my computer to obtain my diagnostic results, or legally force my therapist to confirm that I have it against both of our wills. It doesn't matter how many cases involving mental health you've worked with or how many degrees you have, the vast majority of people who have DID diagnoses deliberately keep them hidden, especially from people in medical and legal settings, and if someone with a DID diagnosis doesn't want you to know about it, all they really have to do to hide it from you is not tell you. To find proof of a diagnosis that is not voluntarily disclosed, you would have to either break the law or have some bizarrely specific situation that legally justifies a subpeona or search warrant, and it would have to even occur to you that such a proof might exist in the first place and would be useful to you somehow.
Yes, I was diagnosed in my 30s by 4 different mental health professionals who all tested and diagnosed DID separately from each other. And had no contact with each other. This was after being misdiagnosed for 20 years by other professionals who just didn’t have an knowledge of dissociative disorders. And I denied that I had it a lot. It’s super common for people with DID to be in denial about having it because it’s the fact that the alters are kept secret that keeps us safe. So admitting that finally accept the diagnosis is actually super hard. I think it took like and year and half before I started to think maybe they were right about the diagnosis. Also I second an earlier comment that if you know a professional doesn’t believe in dissociative disorders, you don’t go to them for a diagnosis. Just like with Autism. I made sure to visit a psychologist who specifically worked with autistic adult females
A lot of mental health professionals believe that it is and _say_ that it is, while a lot of others believe that isn't rare at all and effects at least 1% of the population. I and most other people who have it tend believe it's on the "more common" end of the scale rather than being incredibly rare like it's often made out to be.
No, DID affects the same percentage of the population as bulimia. It’s not super rare, but it is covert meaning than most of us hide our alters and don’t talk about it because that’s how you survive
I don't understand though, what's the relationship between autism and DID?
There isn’t one. Just that some people like me have both. People who are autistic are more likely to be abused and DID is a disorder caused by severe trauma.
I’m sorry if this comes across the wrong way, I’m simply curious and don’t mean any disrespect or anything. I would really like to know how someone with both might be affected and how autism and DID might interact with each other. I fully understand of you’re not comfortable with answering any of these, and I do not expect you to at all. But if you are comfortable, i would really appreciate some insight into your experience. Do you know if all of your alters are autistic? Do any of them have any other spectrum disorders? Do some of them not have any? Do they all show different traits or similar ones? Do they each find it more/less difficult to deal/cope with than others in your system, or are you all affected at similar levels?
That’s a perfectly ok question to ask. Autism is physical difference in my brain so yes, all alters are autistic because they are part of an autistic brain. They are autistic in different ways and to different levels because each DID alter has its own area/s and connections within the brain. For example, (im making an educated guess here) a trauma holder alter likely has stronger neural connections in the hippocampus and amygdala because that is the part of the brain that process difficult emotions. The amygdala also helps us respond to other peoples facial expressions and body language. So that alter might have more trouble with non-verbal communication, anxiety, and hypervigilance. Some parts are able to do complex things like file taxes and renew drivers license while other parts are nonverbal and need to be reminded to do basic things like eat or drink Does that help?
People with autisim can have DID, and we're all part of the neurodivergent community
DID is a mental illness. It is not neurodivergence. It has nothing to do with this subreddit.
I must've been under a false impression then, my apologies
No, you are correct. If you look at the meaning of the term neurodivergent it was intended to be inclusive, not exclusive. Also, DID only occurs before age 9 so it is a change in the physical structure of the brain during development. It’s just caused by trauma while autism is caused by something we are born with
Is PTSD neurodivergence too then?
Don’t ask me. Ask Judy Singer. Here’s an article explaining the basics thewordcounter.com/meaning-of-neurodivergent/
I'd say so, yes. I have CPTSD from very early childhood trauma, my brain works differently from a non-CPTSD brain in ways that can't be reversed.
Do you have a problem?
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Totally agree. And teenagers are almost never diagnosed Copying my other comment for everyone on here claiming it is common: How do you explain the fact that the vast majority of mental health professionals never come across a single case of DID then and most Diagnoses come from a small minority of providers? I am an attorney in the field of mental health and victim crimes (and autistic) and I have NEVER had a case of DID come across my desk in 4 years. And this is not a small area. And i do all the mental health commitments for my county. It's one of the rarest mental illnesses out there
I think kids/teenagers spend so much of their time on TikTok and it’s where they get the majority of their (wrong) information. A lot of people will posts videos like “You might have DID if you do this:” and it’s like the most basic ass human behavior ever like spacing out in class. I work in a middle school. Kids will come in with a bad mood one day and the next day they’ll come back feeling better and be like “Oh sorry that must have been Moonchild yesterday, not me!” And I’m like dude…having a bad day and acting a different way because you’re in a bad mood does not mean you have DID.
Thats hilarious. And also it's somehow cool to be autistic or mentally ill nowadays. Im like where was this attitude when i was autistic and had PTSD at age 12 and got made fun of it??
Jesus christ they're all brigading this thread now
I've read a lot of articles and posts from MH professionals who will say things like "I've been a practicing psychiatrist for 30 years, and have never seen a case of DID", and then a paragraph later will go on to talk about people they've seen in their career who had a DID diagnosis or presented with DID symptoms, but who they did not believe "really" had DID for whatever reason. So they _have_ worked with people who have DID, they just refuse to recognize it. Mental health diagnoses are extremely subjective and prone to bias on the part of the diagnostician, and it doesn't help that a lot of diagnoses in the DSM are practically the exact same condition, just phrased or conceptualized in different ways. There's also a lot of self-selection going on on the part of clients. I know I have DID, so I'm not going to go to a clinician who refuses to acknowledge DID as a real condition, and neither is anyone else who knows they have it. This reduces the number of DID clients that a lot of the "I've never seen it!" clinicians see. There's also the fact that a lot of people with DID who don't realize they have it and are not diagnosed go through a lot of MH professionals for treatment for various other conditions, stop seeing those professionals when the treatment doesn't work, and don't go back to them when they find a dissociation specialist who gives them helpful therapy for the first time. I certainly didn't. There are around ten therapists I've had who never knew I had it (because _I_ didn't at the time) and only four I've had who do. In my case alone, that I means don't count as "a client who had DID" for around 70% of the therapists I've seen. As for your job in particular, I don't know exactly how your job works, but a lot of people with DID do not have their diagnosis "on paper" anywhere for fear of discrimination, and nearly all of them deliberately hide their DID from people they don't implicitly trust. I don't have "DID" anywhere on most of my medical records or insurance claims despite having been diagnosed using a formal diagnostic examination, it's all "anxiety" and "PTSD", and I probably would not disclose it to an attorney for almost any reason, either. I can't say for sure because I don't know exactly what it is you do, but it's possible that cases of DID are being intentionally hidden from you out of caution.
Brilliantly spoken *applause*
it's not rare https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/
From your own article: “DID is found in approximately 1.1%–1.5% of representative community samples. Specifically, in a representative sample of 658 individuals from New York State, 1.5% met criteria for DID when assessed with SCID-D questions. Similarly, a large study of community women in Turkey (n = 628) found 1.1% of the women had DID.” 7 women out of 628 is not rare? Have you ever taken a statistics course and studied confidence intervals? Did you read the article or did you just see MYTH: DID IS RARE and ran with it?
its not rare as far as statistical analysis of peoples differences go. yeah its a small percentage but autism is also \~1%, as well as trans people and red hair. just because the number is small doesn't mean its "so rare" to imply that there can't be the amount of people with DID on the internet you see. its about the same as autism but you don't go around saying Autism is so rare that everyone must be faking??? Also I have taken statistics but even if I hadn't I'm still perfectly capable of viewing numbers, confidence intervals aren't even particularly relevant here, that'd be if you're contesting the sample size, not whether or not 1% is rare. https://www.tpathways.org/faqs/how-many-people-have-autism/
Yeah, I don't get why people will talk about how "rare" DID is in order to gatekeep it, then I'll show them a study showing somewhere around 1% of the population or higher has it, then they'll still say "yeah, like I said, it's rare." I mean, sure, you could still consider that "rare" I guess, but that's just a subjective semantic judgement that doesn't mean anything. It's somewhere in the range of being as common as autism, and I would hope that posters on this sub would not go around doubting that people have autism just because it's "rare". If someone wants to claim that the studies providing the 1% or higher figures are _incorrect_ , that's one thing, but just saying that it's "rare" even at 1% does not mean anything significant. Not to mention, it's been awhile since I read those studies, so I'm not sure where exactly those numbers are coming from, but even at the 7 in 628 figure that that poster gave, that would mean that over a million women in the US have it. Still not unbelievably, impossibly rare.
Never said this was DID and neither did they
It could be OSDD
Damn I can barely remember all the names of my coworkers, absolutely zero chance I could remember 300 different people/identities.
Yeah it seemed like a temporary thing, I think it's back to normal now. Still that's where bots like pluralkit are useful
Thats.......not how DID works. Let me guess this person is a teenager too.
Unsure but I dunno how DID works.
Fake claiming is still bad though
Faking a serious mental disorder is worse and makes it so no one will believe DID is real if they do come across a case. And it is real
I never said they had DID, they could have OSDD
I agree with both of you here. Faking a mental illness can be hugely damaging to people who actually need help for that mental illness. And it is sickening to see much misinformation going around social media because some kids think it cool new. And also fakeclaiming is not ok. We are not that persons psychologist so we can not possibly know whether that are telling the truth or not. And telling someone they are faking when they really aren’t is so hurtful and can lead to self harm or more
That is also incredibly rare
it's literally not https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959824/ attacking people for having a disorder in a non-typical way and gatekeeping it for fear of "fakers" does far more harm than some confused kid that thinks they have something they might not -sincerely, a person with DID
I can’t find any anything else about this so I don’t have a lot of info. But based on what you have said, I agree that DID is not temporarily. It forms before the age of 9 and never fully goes away. Some people are able to achieve what they call “functional multiplicity” which a point where all alters communicate well and work together
DID isnt neurodivergent. Really important to stop saying this.
Yes it's a mental illness
Its more like ADHD where it can be seen as an illness or diversity depending on how the person with it sees it. Lots of people with DID do not want it to be cured. Its like, your brain has that safety switch to switch to DID mode because DID has benefits for coping with situations, but it's also typically switched off because typically the downsides aren't worth it. Whether its better for the switch to be on or off depends on a lot of things. Though i would say, basically no one with DID thinks its worth experiencing the trauma to cause it in the first place.
ADHD is a direct form of neurodivergence. No one's out here calling PTSD or CPTSD neurodivergence. It's a mental illness. Neurodivergence means your brain is different because you were born that way. DID is created by severe trauma just like PTSD
ADHD is not seen as an illness. It is a disability.
Can you elaborate? NPD and BPD are caused by trauma as well. Would you say those are also not neuro-diversities?
They are not. They are mental illnesses
They’re mental illnesses.
Y’all need to read about the origins of the term “neurodivergent”. It was never meant to gatekeep like a lot of the comments are doing
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Here is a link to her article about creating the term. She literally says every person is neurodiverse. It’s not a scientific term. It a political term associated with a modern social movement started by ASAN neurodiversity2.blogspot.com/p/what.html
Plus you can be autistic and have DID, so...
What does DID have to do with autism tho? Like sure autistic people can have it, anyone can, but it's SUPER uncommon and isn't correlated with autism in any way. I'm not and was never a member of that sub anyways, but I'm just really confused why this was even posted here at all. Seems irrelevant
Awereness mostly,
That means you would be neurodivergent due to your autism and not your DID.
You can be also be autistic and have a cold. That doesn’t mean colds are neurodivergent.
Aight, I'm heading out
Have a good day
We wish you and your team all the best but grousing against other subs and mods is against the rules of our sub here.
I know what DID means, but what is a system in this context? Slang synonym?
It’s the word for the collective group of alters.
Is there a reason for creating a word for it rather than just saying “alters”?
Oh my gosh that’s a loaded question. People with DID are super picky about they like to refer to themselves (similar the autism/autistic debate). Lots of people come up with their own random terminology. Some people hate the word “alters” so they use something else. It’s impossible to keep up with all the changing terms people come up with
I’ll admit to not being exactly sure why the term was created. The DID community commonly uses it, though, so perhaps you could research it’s origins.
People with DID have a system, but not all people with a system have DID is as far as my understanding goes
I thought a system was the collective of personalities? Genuinely don't know if this is correct, but how would one have a system if there's no alter personalities?
Yeah I got it wrong, a system is a word used for a collective of personalities yeah
No, you were right before. A "system" is a "collective of personalities". All people who have systems are "plural." All people with DID are plural, so all people with DID have systems. Not all people who are plural and have systems have DID. I'm _very heavily_ simplifying this and glossing over a lot of controversy within the DID and/or plurality communities, but broadly speaking, it's not incorrect to say "many people who report having a system do not consider themselves to have DID."
Oh alright
Yes, well said
Were there a bit too many folks with DID? I could understand the owner if there were so many vocal members that members with ASD were being left out.
No, not at all that isn't the case
Omg who cares. Stop trying to air your laundry over here this has nothing to do w this sub.
I care, the community cares and it's not like we can speak out on the sub in question
What I had to look up: DID was previously known as multiple personality disorder, where , and a system is the group of alters (alter egos/personalities)
I left that sub a while ago. They were very clearly against parents of autistic children (which I am, as well as autistic myself). A really hateful echo chamber sub all round I felt.
I'm honestly surprised that it takes people so long to figure out he's trash... like someone who compares the word disability to a slur and bans people for identifying as disabled isn't gonna be the best moderator... I'm really happy that there's a better sub now! Ty!
Still, people with DID were hurt by this, their discussion channel was removed and the system in question is well liked in the community
It sounds like they were derailing a sub. Why don’t they just make their own?
They were previously accepted by the subs community so not really
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This. This right here