Doctor REACTS to The Crowded Room (Ep 1 & 2) | Psychiatrist Analyzes Dissociative Identity Disorder 

Hello! I'm 18 y/o Akvilė from Lithuania. Recently I got diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. It really scared me considering all of the stigma that surrounds conditions like these, especially in a post Soviet Union country. That said, your videos made me feel more at piece with myself, less scared of myself, less lonely and gave me hope that I will be able to live a "normal", full- filling life. You rock. Thank you💚

I really hope the media stops focusing on harmful stereotypes for DID. Real people live with this disorder every day and theyre just trying to live normal lives. Its hard enough as it is to accept ourselves, and even harder when the world is telling us we’re dangerous criminals. I recommend Doom Patrol for the best DID representation ive ever seen. It’s generally positive and explores the disorder in depth, without trying to paint the character as a danger to society. She’s actively trying to live her best life

Diagnosed person with DID here! I really like the way he describes the “core” personality. The typical idea of the core personality isn’t something many people with DID associate with, so it was nice to see a different explanation! Typically “core” personality refers to the personality that first existed before splitting. However the way he explained it was much more accurate to the way a lot of folks with DID see it. like splitting a piece of paper, which one is actually the “core” or “original”? It was 1 piece of paper, and now it’s 2 or 3 or 4 etc. Same goes with personality. It’s still 1 person, just with 2+ personalities.

it took a few episodes for me to warm up to this show, but i genuinely really enjoyed it, and even though i don’t like when violence is the mainstay in media about DID, having read the book already, i really loved some of the later episodes, and the way they portrayed each individual alter, and revealed Danny’s story. not to mention Tom Holland’s incredible performance, everything from his mannerisms to the emotion he portrays, he 100% deserves some award for his acting in this show, it’s no wonder he had to take a break after it. one of my favourite Apple TV shows for sure. it wasn’t perfect, but i enjoyed it.

My favorite book is called "In the third person" by Emma Grove. It's a memoir comic book about a system slowly discovering they have DID while is therapy. It's also about trying to get gender affirming care while having DID and medical gaslighting. It's triggering at times because realizing you have DID is kind of inherently traumatizing and it gets into why they developed DID a tiny bit. Sense its a memoir, it's written about the authors actual experiences so its pretty good representation.

I am SO SICK of the media representing DID as some dangerous disorder. They never acknowledge that systems with DID are almost always victims of REPEATED HORRIFiC abuse as really young children. They aren't dangerous, they're just traumatized. I know two systems with DID and they are lovely. I'm currently working to see if I should get diagnosed with OSDD or another cluster B thing. It's so hard living like this.

I'm currently 37 and have DID, diagnosed finally about 3 years ago with 8 known alters. I've been in weekly talk therapy prior to and since getting the diagnosis. Prior to that I participated built in psychological therapy and medication management via psychiatry from Early childhood to 18 19 20. At which point I voluntarily stopped going and had intermittent re-engagement with little success. However I went back in completely voluntarily back around the beginning of 2019 and have had very wonderful success with my therapist. To my memory, I say that as the current host of my system, the DID has been present as long as I have memory. This as well is shared with the current alters in regards to duration of the disorder. My earliest memory goes back to roughly 4 years old, and earliest continuous memory goes back to seven or eight. I have long worked with my system despite not always being the host to try and come to a cooperative arrangement that takes into account what all of the alters want and best serves us as a system for shared occupancy and successful outward interfacing with life in general. At this time and has always been the case since my diagnosis my therapist agrees with not pursuing integration, and existing as separate alters would you continue goal of working together as a cohesive team unit. The way I always best try to describe my DID is I tell people to envision a conference room with a conference table as step one. Step two is to imagine all of the alters are inside the room at all times. Step three is to imagine one chair at the conference table has a light shining on it at all times. From there I explain not every alter sits at the table. The distinction is important, because the alters that sit at the table are ones that I am able to speak to and periodically either voluntarily or involuntarily sit in the chair with the light shining on it which is where I primarily sit. It is also an important distinction, because everyone who sits at the table is able to externally perceive what goes on and is able to experience what goes on externally at least as an observer. The alter that sits in the chair with the light on it however is also separate in that for ease of explanation they're the one who can interact externally or pilot the body so to speak. Now in the cases of like a dramatic experience or if one of the protectors needs to step in, they will sit in the chair with the light, and I will go away from the table either voluntarily or involuntarily depending on how much advance notice and how traumatic a situation is. Those that are not sitting at the table have no perception of what goes on externally. Before I said not every alter sits at the table, and this is where it gets a bit more esoteric or fuzzy. I can always talk to every alter that sits at the table whether I'm at the table or not. However that does not mean every other alter can talk to every other alter or to me. In the cases where trauma occurs and a protector steps in, or a traumatic situation, and it is an involuntary or voluntary shift I lose complete track of time awareness and any control with regards to what the body does and external circumstances. Sometimes it's feels like going to sleep, sometimes it feels like going blind and deaf. Other times I'm still in the conference room and aware of what's going on in the conference room and talking to the protector sitting in the chair with the light but they are giving me a filter play-by-play of what's going on and we're discussing together and making a joint decision about what to do until the cause of the trauma is resolved. So to clarify, sometimes there are temporal, spatial, and experiential, gaps of the disassociative amnesia. Other times there are gaps only in spatial and experiential, or just experiential. This same phenomenon of gaps is true with every alter in that not everyone always pays attention to what's going on either voluntarily or involuntarily. I hope this is able to help explain some and give a detailed example. If you'd like to talk more directly about any of this I'm more than happy to oblige via whatever remote communication you'd prefer to use strictly as a content creator and fan of content and just general discussion of mental health not in any professional treatment engagement capacity has obviously that would be a much different conversation. As well as I imagine being unethical or just simply RU-vid is the wrong place for that. I want to say also I very much have been enjoying and appreciating your content both as a mental health patient who among other things my chief diagnosis is DID, but also as someone who actively studies and researches mental health for advocacy purposes. It's been really refreshing seeing someone with your expertise doing commentary on a wide range of media productions. So please understand I say this with all the respect and enjoyment of your content, and you as a person. I realize this particular show is about an individual who underwent a court case and successfully used DID as part of an insanity defense however I think at least some commentary that by and large people with the disorder are not dangerous and do not exhibit violent behaviors could have been an additional anecdote on your part. Specifying obviously that this would be separate from the chase displayed at hand and said more as a general disclaimer to help destigmatize what people like myself and others frequently come up against in social interactions with people who know nothing about it.

I somehow hadn't heard about this show! Paused the video, binged the 8 episodes that have been released, and then came back to finish your video. Loving the show, so thanks for introducing me to it!

A friend of mine has DID and I'm trying my best to learn more about it so I can adjust any behaviour I need to. I have interacted with a few of the alters since some of them feel safe enough with me to be present. When I hear more about the traumatic experiences my friend has been through, it breaks my heart.

as a person with DID/OSDD, this case hits strangely knowing that this could’ve all been a ploy to get the insanity plea and that just hurts knowing that we’re still used and perceived as dangerous and insane this doesn’t help the stigma

Post-watch comment: I'm glad you're not a DID denier. My experience of DID is that it was incredibly hidden/covert, even from me. I was first diagnosed in college & when the psychiatrist attempted to prevent me getting a job because of the diagnosis, I denied it and ran from it for a decade. I'm 36 now & have sought multiple additional opinions, but am now in therapy specifically for DID. It's still very covert, and I don't know what I don't know. I typically only start losing time during periods of very high stress. I don't relate to the idea of a core identity. One of my parts was "the primary one out" from ages 12-25. Why would they be any less core than me just because I stepped forward at that time & have been "the primary one out" ever since? I don't relate to all of them/us being parts of "me." I am me, they are who each of them are. Some of us have shared lived experience - not all of us do. None of us go by the birth name; we all respond to it. That person doesn't exist / is a construct - it's whatever people in the external world observe, but it's not one of us or even all of us.

I just wish we'd stop focusing on this did archetype of a dangerous/master mind alert. Apart from the stigma that comes from it, it's highly unlikely that a system can function so perfectly and so in control in these high stress situation so a single alter can keep hidden the "evil" part and act almost outside and in secrecy of the others. Moon knight and doom patrol are relatively good depictions of did without further stigmatizing the mentally ill Edit: especially when statistically, people with severe symptomatology are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators

One thing I have found confusing (and a bit alarming) is realizing you drove home and cannot recollect your actions in doing so. That's a blank. It always happens on an established route on the way home rather than on the way there, I am preoccupied on a thing. I drove fine apparently and obeyed the rules and got home safe and sound, but cannot recollect anything about that commute. I understand that state is fairly common, not indicative, rather benign. My mind is greatly skilled at sorting and filtering and ignoring unimportant ephemera. I've lived on busy streets with easily discernable traffic noise most of my life. 98% of the time I hear it with my ears, but my mind doesn't register it. It is meaningless background noise that gets filtered out. I have my own noise cancelling headphones, basically. It does bother me that I drove a vehicle 11 miles with a mass capable of huge violent impact, carnage, death. And I cannot recollect. I was on autopilot, not "there" and drove perfectly. That's spooky!

I just discovered your channel doc and immediately subscribed. I'm a medical student preparing for our licensing exam. I hope to get into psychiatry residency someday. Please do also a video on how to cope with stress in studying and as a psychiatrist what is the best approach to stress. Thank you and more power to you doc.

I was diagnosed with DD/DID in my midtwenties ( allthogh I have been a inpatient several times since I was sixteen) and a lot of other stuff that accompanies such a disorder over the years, like general anxiety, trauma, depression, bipolar (though rarely manic episodes - I do miss them), hypersensitivity to sound and other stimuli, fear of touch and open spaces.......the list gets actually tiring and I am really tired. I get meds from my neurologist/psychiatrist but I cannot find a psychotherapist willing to take my case. And I got rejection after rejection from therapists who had sometimes understandable reasons and sometimes just excuses for not wanting the case. A lot of times I got the "It would not be ethic to take the case, cause they are not trained for that"......and I get that but I got that excuse from every trauma specialist I tried as well. Some therapist (despite their description listing them as therapists) suddenly were only prescribing meds and not offering other forms of therapy at all and so on. And then I get shamed from other psychiatrists (when I have to get my meds from someone else because my doc is on holiday) that I take the prescribed meds because they make me dependant (I know, I don´t like it either) but I get no alternatives. No one offers to help, give me number of a therapist that does this kind of treatment. One therapist a long time ago wanted to take my case and I was really happy with her, just after meeting her but she wasn´t covered by my insurance and I live on disability so I cannot afford her. I have been living with this for most of my life (I am 45 now) and symptoms only have gotten worse. Chronic pain and other physical ailments got more debilitating but when I tried physical doctors or a hospital, they look at my file and treat everything as psychosomatic, despite the fact that even my neurologist and my housedoctor have speculated that from tic bites in my childhood and untreated lyme disease plus later infections with lyme disaease that it has become chronic which could affect the symptoms of my mental health so everything gets muddied. But with what test they did they couldn´t find Chronic Lyme Disease....which, fine. I don´t want it but then, please, find out what is wrong with me. But they just send you home. I know that writing this here accomplishes nothing apart from me venting but I have to do it somewhere at least every few years even if it is screaming into a void. Also my trust in doctors as evaporated over time. I am not saying that I wouldn´t give a doctor in the future a fair chance but I would not really expect much and maybe my defeat gives the impresssion it´s not that nessecary to treat anyway. This was a lot of whining, I know. I just needed an outlet and I trust you as an lgbtq+ member psychiatrist and I really like your videos. So, I don´t need an answer. It just helped to write.

I can't wait for you to catch up to recent episodes 🙏🏾... We especially get to see from the psychiatrist's POV later on

There’s a lovely British youtuber who goes by DissociaDID, and they started their channel after their diagnosis to try and educate/illustrate/explain DID to a wider audience. There have been highs and lows, lots of … unfriendly interactions from people who have a problem with what they’re saying for whatever reason (a lot of ‘DID is fake you’re just a scammer’-type stuff, etc.), but by and large they’re doing what they can to share the DID experience from the inside, down whatever path it takes. I did suggest to her, Elliott, that she might be interested in reaching out to you, because a lot of her comments have been asking for more detailed explanations of PTSD, other trauma disorders, etc., and she’s not sure she’s capable/qualified to cover too much. The two of you might be able to work together to share information, and they could give you a first-hand account of all the ins and outs of DID. I think you could help each other. But also for anybody else curious for a peek inside the experience, her channel has a *lot*.

Dr. Elliott!! Please check out the series Lie to me, season 2 episode 1. Which is also about DID. They take a rather unorthodox approach to helping the woman... Love to hear your thoughts on it!

What, I’m sorry, that second voice in my head isn’t just a normal manifestation of loneliness with maybe an edge of psychotic depression? I just thought that since we were both the same person and talked to each other all the time, it was… idk, not DID. We’ve been together for a long, long time. And it’s not really an issue, because when I have a flashback, I can still recall stuff unless I repress it.

I'd love to see you react to the latest episode I think it was episode 8.

Such a cool Video please continue

This was a great video

We know a certain amount of dissociation is normal, and while it's difficult to comprehend what DID must be like, I did hear someone mention a dissociation we've all experienced.... You get in the car after work, and suddenly you're home, but don't remember the whole way home, don't remember those traffic lights being green, but you were still driving so must've been aware at the time. It's disconcerting when it happens, but it happens to us all. Our brains filter stuff out. This is normal dissociation on a very small scale. I imagine the first-hand experience of DID being similar, but on a larger and much more complex scale.

Tom Holland is a good actor though and this show is good

As a person with DID in the past. I never experienced amnesia. Instead I experienced states during which my perception (and ability to be conscious of specific behaviors and actions) was altered. I wasn't able to notice changes in behavior or shifts in perception. The only moment when something close to amnesia occurred was when I couldn't connect the dots between what is happening and how it could have happened while getting pulled down in to memory of trauma. So it was less of not having memories of what happened and more of not being able to integrate them with each other and sense of self.

Is 'each personality' truly distinct, as in a single and complete personality, or are they each just a part of one whole personality?

Pre-watch comment: as someone diagnosed 3x in the last 20 years with DID, I'm scared to watch this reaction, because I really like you & hope you aren't a DID denier...

D.I.D. does not equal insanity. You’d have to be able to prove that one of your alters doesn’t understand the difference between right and wrong. Also the entire system is responsible for their behavior. I’m guessing it was the time period that led to this case being upheld. Also when you’re declared insane you don’t you go home, you go to a high security mental health facility so you’re still basically in jail.

Hey! I know its unrelated, but do you think you can talk about reality shifting? It was popular a while ago, and while i dont know much about it, i have many concerns. I was worried that stuff like reality shifting is like maladaptive daydreaming, which can be a harmful coping mechanism, or derealization/depersonalization. A lot of young teenagers have been getting into this trend, and im very worried..

I'm watching this coz I don't have access to Apple TV, and I want to watch The Crowded Room before I have an opinion on it

As much as I love Fight Club, it unfortunately conflated DID with full-on visual and auditory hallucinations (probably for the purpose of not revealing the twist), which a) are actually very rare in the way they were presented in the film and book and wouldn't even really be representative of something like schizophrenia and b) are not compatible with the actual experiences of DID, which is what the book and movie were trying to represent. This changed popular culture's view of DID as "an actual person you experience and view who's also you" rather than "multiple personalities (not persons) experienced within the same body", which is probably why it's portrayed as such in media like this. Split, despite actually being a competent movie coming from M. Night, did DID representation a big disservice too (as much as I love The Sixth Sense, M. Night's got some brain worms for sure). Also, the reason why DID is controversial is largely due to the Recovered Memory Movement of the late '70s-early '90s. In summary, this movement led to countless false allegations of sexual abuse in a very witch-hunt-like fashion and popularized the notion of "recovered" memories (which are not based in legitimate science, because they are based on the notion that you can have no signs of trauma/sexual abuse and then suddenly you "recover" a memory, unlike repressed memories where you don't remember the event per se but you still know it happened and have signs you were traumatized). It led to an explosion of false DID diagnoses, mostly in young women. The whole theory around DID is still partially based in the RMM and that's why it's so controversial. I think it definitely exists (despite being very rare) but "recovered memories" and associated pseudoscientific concepts don't exist. In addition, DID has been brought up in many criminal cases since the Milligan case as an excuse for criminal behavior, and cases like the Kenneth Bianchi cases have also been debunked as malingering. Cases like Billy Milligan in my opinion shouldn't have been granted the insanity defense though. Billy Milligan raped three women. That's not something you can excuse with DID.

Hi Elliot, have you watched any of Micheal Stevens (Vsauce) MindField episodes? Would be really great if you could could react to some of those!! :D

5:32

i'm queer and have an obsession with disorders, specially was with DID at 17, i hope i can watch the series someday 😭

I love looking at the pictures on your monitor and seeing which drag queen you've featured. Today, I can't tell what's on your monitor! A person holding a dog, maybe?

I just finished watching the show. I know the original case this was based on is much more horrific then this. They kept on with the theme of "how it was proven as a legitimate analysis on court for the first time" idea; I guess to make it be mainstream, that's what the people like to see. And still, made sure to manipulate the crime plot Danny did so it wouldn't cause harm to the DID society as Billy did. Hopefully, at least. I still have a question for the people with DID. It seem like they are trying to educate in this show so people will be more sensitive and open minded about that disorder. But didn't they spread misinformation? At the end of the show, they gave Danny treatments that are supposed to merge all his alters into him. One person. That's not right. This treatment cannot exist, right? DID is a way of the brain to exist and you can't just "heal" from it or merge it all into the host. It will keep on splitting. Anyways, there's not even just one person that is the "real" one. Also, can you "kill" alters that don't serve you anymore?

I'm not the first to comment :(

the DID community was not happy about this

As someone professionally diagnosed with DID by a psychologist affiliated with the ISSTD, I must say that the information you are spreading about the disorder is completely inaccurate. First of all, your insistance that alters are reflections of a scattered mind is absolutely preposterous, as you're completely disregarding the theory of structural dissociation, which is the most commonly held belief among professionals in the field today. Also, DID is a complex trauma disorder, which means it is going to thoroughly vary from patient to patient. While some DID systems may feel as though they are "parts of a whole", others may feel that they are entirely separate selves who share a body due to the trauma experienced. Both of which are completely valid, considering how according to the aforementioned and mostly accepted theory, there is no core identity that "breaks", as you put it. Phrasing the disorder as you did is harmful because you are pushing a narrative (intentionally or otherwise) that we are broken and need to be "fixed", along with spreading information that is completely inaccurate to what most people with DID face.

I find it really hard to believe that DID is real at all. Sounds like a bunch of crap. I'm sure there's something wrong, but there's also something wrong with the sudden rise in people claiming to have it online. I don't know if it's self diagnosis or if someone really did diagnose these people, but I wish them luck with whatever it is.