Is Genuine Multiple Personality Disorder an Actual Thing? Or Just a Hollywood Invention for Movies? 

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Maybe they should look at people with multiple youtube channel disorder. Imagine if someone had channels on engineering projects, biographies, history, things they found out, or whatever their top tenz are:) I do really enjoy your videos... and the beard oil.

Of course it exists. Simon alone has Danny, Callum, Katy, Jen, and Sam. The only way he can run 90 RU-vid channels.

The common pattern here seems to be "abuse." Either in the home or by the attending psychiatrist. We all present different 'faces' to the world at different times, in different circumstances, we allow different facets of ourselves to be seen. I wonder if what happens here is that this standard human approach to the world is driven to an extreme form by the extreme circumstances in which an abused person finds themself? In which case, it can't really be thought of as part of standard neurodiversity, but a psychological 'injury' that has happened to the person. Very, very grey area. How some people treat their children never ceases to amaze me.

There is a very interesting case from Australia where a woman with DID was able to bring her abuser to court and testify against him.

My wife has disassociated amnesia, it is seriously difficult to deal with sometimes. I literally have to have her write things down when we have large disagreements because it triggers from stress. Once we were talking in the kitchen and she never realized I left and took out the garbage. i came back in and we kept talking and she asked when I would take out the trash. She had been missing several minutes of her memory. She even put a new trash bag in the trash can and didn't realize it

Just because more people are getting diagnosed doesn’t mean it isn’t real. It means there’s more awareness of it and people who previously went undiagnosed got diagnosed.

I used to have DID. I suffered full spectrum abuse as a child. Growing up, I developed a set of personalities or characters that I would sometimes shift into in situations that scared me. There was a great deal of backstory to the four major personalities. Three were men and one was a woman. When going into the characters, I would full on black out and would wake up after the stressor was dealt with. It took a long time to reunify myself. I'm not sure if that is exactly what was going on with me, but the symptoms are almost identical. My own mind was unaware of the actions or words of the other aspects of myself, but according to those who witnessed the other aspects all confirmed that they each, while being separate person's, all were aware of and used my own memories and knew everything I knew. It took a long time to make myself whole again, but learning about this stuff immediately made me think of that time in my life.

I took a couple of psychology classes in school (Criminal Justice major), and something that I always thought about was the scientific nature of psychology. It relies a lot on people telling the truth and how similar people are. With most medicine, you can test something and get a result that the individual can't control (for the most part). You can test for diabetes, AIDS, Covid 19, and so on. There is chemistry at work, or the presence or absence of something that can be determined. With psychology, it relies almost entirely on the person telling you the truth (Unless there is a genetic or chemical imbalance causing the issue). Also, people just aren't the same. When I came back from Iraq, part of "in processing" for coming back was quickly talking to someone about any possible mental issues. People can lie, people can easily process what went on during that year, people can also can't handle it, some people think they can but end up with problems years later. There is no black and white test to determine what a person will do/react. People are just too different.

The social contagion thing also happened after The Truman Show came out with people thinking they were on hidden cameras 24/7 and their lives being broadcasted to an audience somewhere.

From someone who just found out, at the age of 40, that they have DID, thank you for making this. It is an intense and frightening experience to try and understand from this side of the topic as well. Not only is there a lot of debate and denial externally in media and by professions, but also internally. No one wants to suddenly start having CPTSD symptoms & flashbacks while at the same time questioning your sanity as you realize your internal dialogue is multiple voices with their own opinions, emotions, wants, and needs. It was a downward mental spiral that didn't seem to have an end. Now it is a rollercoaster. Hopefully with treatment, it will become a peaceful stroll. Important points: DID is a trauma response. The majority being repeated trauma during childhood with the child lacking the support of a comforting, supportive & loving guardian figure in their life. DID is meant to be covert, not just to the abuser & not just to other people, most importantly to the person with DID. The mind creates alternate personalities, and amnesia between them, for self-preservation. Each DID mind has developed unique systems to adapt and handle daily life based on the needs of that person and those around them, as well as what that person needed to be to best handle abusive and traumatic situations. They are true chameleons. With most people who have DID, you would never know.

Being shot at as punishment as an 8 year old, beaten relentlessly as a child, sexually abused as early as 2 , I was diagnosed with DID in my late 20's. It's a horrible way to live. Even I didn't believe the diagnosis until I saw myself on video my therapist took.

I have known a few people with multiple personalities. I have known a few more who were clearly faking. However my dog recognizes my current friend's switches, and will even growl at only one of their personalities, while being the biggest mush the moment another one of them comes out. If anything could convince me that there is complete legitimacy to this, it is how drastically differently my service dog reacts to each of their personalities.

I 've always thought of DID as a defense/coping mechanism.

One of the many problems with mental health is that, at least in the US, it uses the medical model. In the medical model, theoretically, you can look in the microscope, see the organism causing the infection or use some other medical imaging such as x-ray to see the medical malady, for example a broken bone. But the medical model doesn't always work very well for medicine. For example, it can be useful to instead see the human body as an eco system. The lab test reveals an infection so the doctor prescribes an antibiotic. However, antibiotics can subsequently cause an imbalance in GI gut bacteria and/or cause yeast infections in women. D.I.D. as it is conceptualized in the DSM-5 does exist. But like all mental health issues, the severity exists on a continuum rather than being a discrete yes/no situation. Children are frequently trapped in abusive situations and one of the most effective defenses is splintering off various parts of the child's personality to the point where the abusive experiences are effectively forgotten. As with all health issues, including mental health issues, there are genetic risk/protection factors and environmental factors. You can have a situation with horrific routine abuse where the child reaches adulthood without major issues (though the more abuse, the greater the odds of bad outcomes). You can also have a situation where there is profound genetic risk mixed with what might be objectively seen from the outside as (relatively) "minor" neglect and invalidation that leads to profound mental health issues, possibly including D.I.D. Dissociation can be seen in people after a severe car accident, or witnessing a violent assault, the dissociation simply as a function of understandable "shock." This can radically affect memory including making memories of the event completely inaccessible or the memories can be wildly inaccurate, in part or completely. Fiction, whether movies or books, is habitually attracted to the most extreme of examples, the most lurid, the most disturbing. Then it takes these real life examples and uses "literary license" to exaggerate them to make them even more dramatic. These then become the examples people bring up and professionals comment upon. In the light of day, without the advanced and specialized education, training and experience of working with patients/clients with abuse histories that resulted in some measure of dissociation, the examples of the most extreme cases can seem patently ridiculous, the patient or client clearly faking. (That "insanity" is potentially a legal defense further confuses the issue as criminals try and pretend to be crazy (or crazier than they are) as a legal strategy to avoid accountability.) Unfortunately, whether movie, criminal defendant, or criminal defense lawyer, little thought appears to be given to the possible damage their portrayal may cause to real people with this often pejoratively-considered malady, increasing these patient's suffering by encouraging incredulity and denial of their experience. As a doctoral-level therapist and Clinical supervisor, I can share that D.I.D. is a very real mental health phenomenon, one frequently misunderstood and unfairly maligned, (even by other mental health professionals). Like other potentially serious, but fairly rare mental health issues, D.I.D. is best diagnosed and treated by those with specialized training and education. While I specialized in treating clients with multiple co-occurring chronic serious mental health issues, I do not consider D.I.D. to be in my wheelhouse. I know enough to enable me sufficient awareness and knowledge to refer to a mental health professional who IS qualified to investigate this as a possible diagnosis, and help treat clients should they have it. .

"They used the name 'Eve White' to protect her identity. (No pause, not even to breathe in) Her real name was..." Jiminy Christmas, Fact Boi

Repressed memories are real to a point. I had a few. It's not that I didn't remember that those things happened to me. Some part of me knew. My mind chose to ignore it for so long that the memory literally started getting overwritten by new ones. I chose to forget. When I finally remembered I had a feeling of "how the hell did I forget about that"

My aunt was diagnosed with D I.D. back in the 90's. And growing up seeing her become totally different people with their own personalities is very strange and confusing. One was a guy that smoked and was rather aggressive which was very different from her "normal" behavior. But a very real condition. Most likely brought on by childhood trauma.

I wonder if you could do a video on the other DID Disorder; Digital Internet Duplicity Disorder. There is a RU-vidr that has multiple channels with different personalities. Rather than each personality going by a different identity, they all go by Simon. Even more concerning is we regularly see a new identity split off and start a new channel. This man needs help.

My mom has this. It's very real. I can count away least 5 distinct personalities that I recognize. Her partner says there are 23. Two are small children. She has been severely abused throughout her life, first by her mother, then by strangers and partners.

As someone who had a friend with DID, who was part of that multiplicity community, they told me very distinctly that it is a disorder caused by trauma for the most part of people. The multiplicity community is, ironically, multi-faceted itself with yes, some arguing that it's not something that needs treatment, to those very adamant that a lot of people are faking. So I feel it's kind of misleading in itself to say that a community says x thing when it actually is very hotly debated in the community. That said, as someone who has autism, uh, neurodivergence doesn't mean non-disabling or that it shouldn't have diagnostic criteria or treatment methods. Neurodivergence may in its simplest terms mean different-brained but really it means a brain that functions different from what it's "supposed" to, does in fact include things like depression and schizophrenia which very much are disorders and detrimental. And I've literally never heard anyone say that left-handedness is neurodivergence. Where in the world did you hear that? There's debates on whether traumatic injury to the brain counts and if so to what extent, but I've never once heard any discussion about being left-handed, other than when people were forced to be right-handed and it fucked up their brain functioning. Neurodivergence is just a more friendly term for all the confusing and blurred-line terms we have to call people whose brains work differently, including dysfunctionally.

I happen to be friends with a young woman who was recently identified as having DID. She had indeed suffered significant, extensive trauma as a child and had at first attributed her strange lapses in memory to that. Only in the last few months has she realized that she has about 12 different alters- although some "come out" more often than others, so there are a couple of them she doesn't know much about yet. She also has a child alter who's 5, which seems to be a trend among folks with this condition. For the most part, all of the alters know of each other and are generally on good terms (thank goodness for her!). The main downside to her having DID lies in her memory blips- in particular, when, say, her 5-year-old takes over and suddenly has basically all the unlimited access to junk food a kindergardner could ever aspire to getting their hands on (incidentally, when I first met her and she wasn't yet aware of her diagnosis, she claimed that she rarely felt hungry and often forgot to eat, which I had found odd given that, although she had been forced into a highly sedentary lifestyle as a child, she is indeed very overweight). She has also stated that it can be exhausting trying to keep track of her alters and still be a productive adult. Regardless, there's nothing about her that would strike you as crazy, and in fact, although she's admitted to have shifted alters in my presence on more than one occasion, I usually don't notice unless she announces it, apart from the fact that she becomes spacey for a few seconds and doesn't respond. Given all she's had to contend with, for the most part her disorder doesn't seem to be as big as a hurdle as, say, anxiety is for many people her age (myself included- in many ways she's much more competent and level-headed than I was at 23). And honestly, to come to the conclusion that lapses in memory aren't really a thing just strikes me as ludicrous, as surely there have been reports of people who suffered trauma blocking out certain instances without having ever seen a therapist.

The severe mood / persona shifts (or sometimes called schemas) within Borderline Personality Disorder can look and respond like "Multiple Personality."

"The transition between the 3 often being signaled by a splitting headache" I see what you did there. Very good, very subtle Mr Whistler!

I really wish people would stop thinking schizophrenia is multiple personality disorder. It almost never is.

Diagnostic ambiguity has plagued the psychiatric community as long as its been around. The most recent conflict in terminology that I'm aware of is - psychopathy, sociopathy, and antisocial personality disorder. They are often used interchangeably and no absolute concensus has been achieved yet although antisocial personality disorder is the more common these days (having been listed in the DSM-V, the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists and psychologists)

i have MPD. i believe DID and MPD are two different things. Think HIV before AIDS sort of thing. when you are in the abuse, you dissociate a lot. blacking out, going away, disappearing, outer body experience, whatever term you want to use, then when you begin therapy and start the process of communication between everyone inside, dealing with each person's issues.... you become MPD. a working unit. its scary as hell when you are in the DID section. you feel like youre going crazy. you dont remember things you just said. you zoom in and out. its like dreaming but you dont know if you are awake or not. the horrors one suffers that forces your mind to want to survive and in order to do so you must split away from that time, is too much. its too much for anyone to endure. and the brain knows it. so instead of focusing on just being a single person, the mind has to be so many people, because life goes on even if you are being horrifically abused and if you dont act "normal" you will get even worse abuse. so you need school person, the people who will take on the abuse, the perfect daughter, the happy person, the entertainer person... and on and on... and as long as the abuse continues, and the need for certain things are required, the more you will split. the last split i had was the night before my 25th bday. i was drugged and raped in my own home by a so called friend. it was weird to know exactly what was happening to me because of that, and seeing the mind do its thing in order to help us survive. we are people inside this body. like Avatar. or someone driving a car. you might be driving the car one minute, and next someone else is. who ever is in charge of the body has rules and must deal with their issues or they are not allowed out. its hard enough to live it. its even harder for those who dont. and we know this. and just makes it even harder to be "normal"..... its safe to "front" as you called it than to be open about it. people will try and will manipulate the alters into doing things we really dont want to do. because the anxiety will kick in an alter that can handle those things. its real. and yes you can have a achieving life and be able to do many things and have many talents, but it comes with a cost.

This should have been a Brain Blaze, I could feel Simon disassociating from the script so he wouldn't go off on a tangent.

Hello i am a diagnosed schizophrenic with dissociative personality disorder. I have to say it's different for everyone no one who doesn't experience it can understand, it's not so much(at least for me) different personalities. It's like parts of my mind go to sleep for long periods of time and others come to the front. It can be years or hours but when it happens there's nothing to do but try to be happy and keep calm. Anyway love all your channels sir

As a caregiver, what I have observed is that the mentally ill are NOT stupid (quite the opposite), and some have learned to claim "MPD" as the reason for their mis-behavior as a way to avoid responsibility for their actions. While I will grant that "MPD" is a possibility, my view is that it is a symptom of attention-seeking & enablement by those seeking attention, namely the counselors.

I think it’s just as likely that after DID became popular, many people felt more comfortable coming forward. As well as many people were more interested in listening to and publicizing their disorder. You wouldn’t say because of the “me too” movement, all the women started making up abuse to get attention. (Though I’m sure a few have)

I so appreciate an honest answer 'It's complicated.'. And then explaining whys and hows.

This has to be one of the most respectful ways of treating the subject in a "Does this really exist" even if it does or doesn't, it was CLEARLY respectful even so to bring up Plurality/Multiplicity in this way. MUCH respect, honestly I rarely watch a lot of stuff on YT to the end these days and I was really curious how this would present.

I was close to someone with MPD for 14 years. I have absolutely no doubt that it is a real phenomena. She too was the recipient of severe sexual abuse during her early childhood.

Small note that the term "multiple personality disorder" isn't actually used anymore as a diagnosis, it's always called DID nowadays. I think the disorder does exist, it's just rather rare (much rarer than say, depression or OCD) and that it always stems for severe trauma. Even if someone is supposedly faking it, that would still indicate that they probably need help with their mental health.

Always interesting to me when it comes to mental health advocacy that when someone accepts the diagnosis as a thing some people deal with, other folks automatically assume that means they're suggesting a forfeiture of any kind of help. You can agree that you have a thing, think that's okay, and also recognize it's not a thing to be managed solely by themselves. Kinda like "I have diabetes. I know not everyone has it, but I'm still a normal human being." - omg what if that attitude stops people from managing their own?! ...c'mon. People aren't saying don't get help. They're saying it doesn't have to be something to be ashamed of.

The problem with DiD is that many, MANY people put on MPD as an excuse for their behaviours. It paints skepticism on actual sufferers

As knowing a few people with this, its kind of hard to see how it can be super controversial, they are not exactly a thing you would want in your head due to how much it can screw with your life.

DID is very real. A roommate of mine had it. Knowing what I know about him, the idea that he would fake it is impossible, I’ve seen him switch, it’s surreal, but he really does become a completely different person.

This is excellent! My father was an MD, and he had a patient with two personalities. He was really baffled when he met the second one after seeing the first one several times. I was baffled just hearing about it! You did a great job of explaining it. Thank you.

DID and PTSD are trauma disorders. They develop to help an individual survive trauma. When the individual is removed from the trauma, they are still in survival mode and the symptoms have a negative impact on their quality of life which is why it is referred to as a disorder. Also, everyone has one personality. During trauma the personality can split off like a tree that is still connected at the trunk. All of the alters are still that individual, just have splintered away and become more distinct to protect the individual. While DID is very fascinating, it is very important to remember that it is still a disorder and there are real people suffering with it. In the US, there are doctors who don't seriously view psychiatry as a real medical field even though psychiatrists are MDs just as they are. And there are psychiatrists who do not believe DID is real disorder, even though it is in the DSM. I would recommend that next time such a sensitive topic is covered to perhaps have one or two Subject Matter Experts to weigh in on the topic.

I remember my therapist telling me "you show every symptom, but I just don't personally believe in diagnosing it." I had huge gaps in my memory and people would come up to me like we were best friends and call me by another name. Or I would just kind of be somewhere I didn't recognize. In some instances it became a safety issue for me. I also would go through episodes of just not really recognizing myself or where I was. I still have trouble with missing small time - but over the years I did a lot of research and spent a ridiculous amount of time focusing in on myself and working on this. But I am pretty solid now, mostly integrated and it isn't a huge risk in my life anymore. I will say though, I knew soooooo many people who would tell me they had multiple personalities that would magically not be there if a teacher or anyone walked by. That was really frustrating to deal with while I was going through the ringer trying to solve the issue and seeing people around me romanticize it 😞😞 and the "PERSONALITY SWITCH CAUGHT ON CAMERA" RU-vid vids...

I lived with a MPD therapist back in '94, she gave me a book to read, "When Rabbit Howls". Utterly fascinating.

So when I heard the comment, "The inmates are running the place" during the 1980's it appears to have been an insight, not a prejorative. Vetting the practitioners may improve the field of psychiatry substantially.

In the course of my lifetime, I have known 3 different people with DID. I dated/had relationships with 2 of them (at different times). All 3 of them trusted me with their "littles" or sensitive, tender personalities. I feel quite honored by that. 2 of them shared their trauma with me (again, something with which I feel honored) and one even had their protector come to me when he wasn't sure how to behave. It's ... interesting (in most of the ways that word can be interpreted) to be the person to whom most of someone's personalities turn when they feel lost. And I've watched each of them deal with therapists who insist DID is not a real thing. It is heartbreaking. I offer hugs or similar to any with DID who would like them.

We call it DID now. Dissociative Identity Disorder. My friends personal experience is not that they have different personalities but that her personality is shattered into pieces. I identify them through traits. Like one enjoys reading, one enjoys journaling, (the journal was written in different colors, I always wondered if that was her way of keeping track of stuff.) one is grumpy and one loves me more than the others. Its more apparent the longer you got to know her. Edit: I think the most neglectful dismissive statement have to be: “its only for attention.” Well then figure out why they are seeking attention, and maybe we wouldn’t dismiss mental health conditions.

It's 100% real, my ex had it and OMG life was one helluva rollercoaster ride, may he RIP

I did it! I finally caught up on all of my RU-vid backlog! So much so that I clicked a video at 39 seconds released! Lol

it's dissociative not disassociative. dissociative means to not integrate the reality around you into your brain and accept it. disAssociative means to choose to separate two things. this is a dumb pet peeve of mine, but thank you. lol

17:34 No, repressed memories are not a fallacy, I had some myself.. a little light childhood trauma that I wasn't aware of until I was about 25 (when I grew able to deal with the truth of the situation). "Oh... THAT's why I've got that scar!"

I have a hard time with the idea that it is an iatrogenic disorder. In all honesty, it is most likely an adaptation to a traumatic environment. A person with this disorder typically dissociates or cuts off parts of themselves associated with the traumatic event. People who have this disorder usually go undiagnosed--they hide or keep symptoms at bay out of fear of exposing the traumatic material. So, yes, it remains an extremely rare disorder. But, the modern APA has researched DID enough to verify that it is a diagnosable disorder by their standards. Even though the disorder is rare, please take care not to minimize the struggle for those who are affected by it by pawning it off as something accidentally implanted by a clinician. This sort of invalidation can be harmful, as well.

This was pretty well rounded good job thank you for validating each angle in terms of how some people with this are experiencing life. It really is simply another perspective, and way to perceive the world, regardless of "why".

Great comprehensive review!

I've had repressed memories, and my father takes care of an elderly man with DID. It's easy to dismiss something you don't understand when it doesn't involve you.

Hello!! I am the host of a system. DID is not 'also known as' MPD. It is not a valid term anymore, at all, and can be found offensive by the community. The general term of 'multiple personalities' is touchy.

If you doubt the validity of DID systems, you really should look into the multiplicity community. There's a lot of very well-spoken systems out there with unique viewpoints. The knowledge I gained from observing the community helped me to support one of my closest friends when she became aware that she was part of a system. She didn't know much about DID and I'd never talked to her about it before, so the fact that many of her symptoms lined up with things I learned from the community couldn't have been because of the community's influence or my influence. Once we realized what was going on and I gave her some tentative advice, some of her emerging symptoms directly contradicted things I told her to expect, proving that she's not suggestible. The other alters are very distinct and have varying levels of knowledge and awareness. I consider a few of them to also be my friends now, and I like them to different degrees than I like the host personality (the one I knew before). She's working with a therapist now who is specifically doing research on DID, but that only started AFTER she became aware of the system and started looking for someone who could treat her.

Sometimes I've questioned whether my grandmother had something similar to this. She definitely had a mental illness. It was very hard on her family.

The DSM diagnostic criteria for DID includes a statement about how the symptoms must negatively effect daily life or cause distress to the person. It sound like the multiplicity systems don't feel distressed by their state of being, so they wouldn't meet criteria for the diagnosis.

I had an episode coming off benzodiazepine where I developed what I can only describe as a form of DID for a day, it was scary as hell, but it wasn't like a separate personality with it's own persona, it was more like my conscience or quite inner voice was amplified so my normal higher brain thinking process essentially has two people living in my head, but they were both me. It's really hard to explain but it was basically like there were two of me in parallel sharing the same body. One voice might want thing or be focused on the other thing, and the other voice would focus on another thing. It's really hard to explain, but just imagine there are two of you sharing your same body at the same time, each with it's own train of thought and its own way of viewing the world, coming to its own independent conclusions, etc, etc. It was scary as hell, because I was like, what if one of me decides to do something insane, and the two personalities start fighting. The moral of this story kids is don't do Benzos kids. The withdrawal can kill you and even if it doesn't it will mess you up for weeks or months.

Thank you for another informative and interesting presentation. I had heard of "The Three Faces of Eve" and "Sybil" and enjoyed both presentations. A minor quibble though; "Sybil" was more of a miniseries than a theatrical movie as it was made for NBC television rather than a movie screen. I had read the book that destroyed the "Sybil" creation and I thank you for citing it in the video. Thank you also for covering the repressed memories debacle as some of my friends were sent to jail based on that fiction. So again, thank you for another great , informative video treat!!

It’s important to remember that did is a extreme type of ptsd and is developed due to repetitive severe childhood/adolescent trauma

If it's not real, it's a very, very elaborate fraud. Imagine trying to keep track of 50+ different people's personalities, manner of speaking, dietary and clothing preferences and other opinions so you can trot each one out on command. Surely there are less exhausting ways to get attention.

As I found out while my wife was on the drug, Ambien can have a similar but temporary effect. She would get go to bed early, then get up, read, have a snack, smoke a cigarette or two and eventually go back to bed. I would be blamed for the disappearing snacks and for the shortage of cigarettes until some research showed that what I think of as "Ambien Zombies" seem relatively common, even to the point where some would go for a drive in the night with no memory of having done so. These all seem to have occurred during a sleep state. Staying up until she had gone through this event and returned to bed was not the best thing for my sleep habits, but was necessary as she tended to be careless with her smoking at these times. I wonder if there may be a long-term chemical reason for some of these other problems.

Let’s not forget Ed Norton’s debut film “Primal fear”. Also, “When Rabbit Howls”, which is a book and case that’s so influential on the subject of MPD that I was taught about it during A-level psychology, and it was basically curriculum in the 90s.

Dissociation is definitely not fun but sometimes it is what protects us (as people in general from things that are too stressful or boring or distressing). It is not being a plural system that is harmful, but the trauma or issues underlying it that make life difficult. It is always better to fix the underlying trauma and dissociation than to simply force the collective to become singular.

It's now called Dissociative Identity Disorder. My grandmother has it and my mom's horror stories about growing up with my grandmother are very disturbing.

I can tell you that it's a real thing. I live with it. So far I'm aware of about 23 alters - they started sharing their memories and names with me around 2013. I don't understand why it's so sensationalised and slandered. The movie Split was the worst cinematic blasphemy I've lived through. "MPD" has been in the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual for psychologists since 1994. It was renamed to Dissociative Identity Disorder in that edition. Mr. Shamalan received dozens of letters from psychologists and other professionals asking him to portray DID correctly, or to stop filming the movie. He ignored all of that, which is unfortunate. People with DID are exponentially more likely to experience violence, rather than to perpetrate violence. I wish the media would stop using DID as a scapegoat for thriller plots. It might be helpful to understand that DID is diagnosed as frequently as Gender Dysphoria - and many of you are aware of how many trans people are coming out these days.

Thank you for this video… I’ve seen so many people on YT acting like it’s common or just a quirky thing to have 🤪. I assumed it was real until I had multiple psych professors talk about the controversies surrounding it. I’m more on the fence that it’s not and if it is, it has to be very very extreme trauma and it being extremely rare. I’m talking the kind of trauma that, like you said, makes you escape your own body bc you can’t handle the amount of harm that you’re currently experiencing. Not your parents yelling at you a few days a week. It also has to happen in a very specific time period of childhood. Idk if it was I feel like we’d hear more about it from other war torn countries. I know in the casual criminalist podcasts you talk about trauma and it would have to be that level of it. I don’t really understand why it’s gets glamorized by the media. I often think disorders like borderline personality disorder would make for much better TV. But I guess we still live in the age where it’s fine to talk about depression, anxiety, and ADHD but shame still follows individuals with bipolar disorder or even other learning disorders like dyslexia

Once I met someone on a variety of Substances... Who was verbally abusive, violent and angry. Manic would be the best word, after an episode of angry behavior he sat down at a piano and calmly played extremely extremely difficult, level 10 music. It was just beautiful. It scared the shi out of me because he had just a moment ago been quite scary. After he played he got up and went back to his bizarre angry and scary behavior as if nothing had ever happened. Two entirely entirely different people in the same body. It felt like something out of a movie, but was indeed a reality.

Having fostered young children for many years My family have on 1 or 2 occasions had the opportunity to foster very very young MPD children who under UK medical system can not be recognised as such. In both occassions truama while very young was the probable cause.

I find it interesting that society can influence the manifestation of various psychiatric disorders. Another example of this is hearing voices; in 'western' culture they tend to be very negative and critical whereas in other cultures they are actually regarded as a positive experience and actually compliment/motivate etc the person experiencing them. Perhaps if we could change societal (not likely I know) attitudes and beliefs these disorders wouldn't be disorders at all. I've experienced something similar with my autism spectrum diagnosis, thinking differently isn't necessarily an issue in itself but the way society treats a person who is on the spectrum can cause major issues (I'm referring to the 'high functioning' aka Asperger's in this comment). The over diagnosis of these things is also a major problem, doctors are too quick to put a label on people and this results in many people who are struggling to not be taken seriously and others getting the wrong treatment or treatment that they don't need at all.

I can't help but think it can be self pathologized simply by noting the large distinction in behavior most people have between family and friends. Tiktok is making mental disorders seem like being neurotypical is in fact atypical.

I personally know someone that has DID and know OF several others. They all agree that if one alter/personality commits a crime, the body commits the crime, and it doesn't matter who actually did it...

Ask 99% of reputable psychologists and they will show you definitive proof that it actually does exist. And although it is uncommon, its actually estimated that more people have DID than people who have scizophrenia and other disorders. I do agree with some commenters that some people online have romantizized the disorder and made it seem like its just "having an angry side" or whatever, which unfortunately causes young people to think they have it when really they're just having a bad day or something. Some of these people in these comments really need to listen to experts instead of the media...

Thank you for only speaking on the facts and giving no opinion. I myself was in a housefire and a small explosion and suffered a coma for two weeks. Apon waking up i had thought it was the same night as the fire, but was told by my doctors that I had been 100% awake for the past two weeks and that my behaviors had completely changed. I myself had always thought i had multiple personality disorder as I do have moments where i act in a completely different way and would have different feelings and conclusions about certain events. But never had any cases of amnesia or any violent episodes as I always felt like there was simply two of me in my head. My name is dillon and ill say its not as if ive got a guy or girl by another name living in here but there is a opposite dillon if that makes any sense. I was officially diagnosed at the hospital and was seeing therapy not because i wanted it or was emotionally distressed. The doctor simply was extremely curious and asked if I would take the sessions which i did and they went very well. Again no dramatic episodes or amnesia just a difference in personality. And I didnt know Multiplicity systems were real accounts by people not seeking attention. Because like i stated ive always felt ive had this state of mind but im afraid of talking about it to anyone in the fear theyre going to assume im faking for attention or that im a schizophrenic madman. Hopefully in the future people wont be so quick to look down on peoples reports out of theyre own disbeliefs

Sybil was so good! Her mom told her have a nice trip see you next fall and pushed her down the stairs. It was a horrible thing to do, but I just about died from laughter

You need to add decoding the unknown and into the shadows to the list of your other channels in the description

With the right triggers, anything can happen when it comes to psychology.

My husband has DID. The switch is sometimes subtle, sometimes clear as day, but we've come to the point where it's always obvious to me who is fronting. All of his boys, as I call them, have a role and deal with different traumas and handle different tasks when he can't do it "on his own". They stem from a place of abuse and discomfort, but all of them are absolutely lovely and I care about them deeply. It's nice, in a way: when you're in a relationship with someone with DID who trusts you enough not to hide the switches (husband's alters tend to try and act "like him" when in public), you get to see so many facets of the same person which would, in all other cases, be kept inside their consciousness.

I definitely found the info interesting and helpful, I feel there wasn’t enough info to give a full answer to the question

I do believe that it is possible for someone to develop DID, particularly if they were brought up in an environment of horrific physical, emotional and mental abuse. It is easy to see where a child may start to make changes to themselves hoping the tormentor will be pleased and stop the abuse, it fails of course and leaves a shattered victim in it's wake. The greater question is how this doesn't happen more often? Take the tragic case of the Turpin children. Chained, starved, not allowed to bathe and living in filthy conditions most of thier lives, one has to wonder how none of them developed DID. Could it be because they were all suffering the same way? Perhaps, most of the listed cases do seem to be only children, but still not everyone who's suffered horrible treatment develops this. Clearly more research needs to be done.

At 21:00 this 100% explains how I feel. Multiple people but we all get along for the most part but I maintain a mask and seem normal to most people that know me. Only I struggle with feeling like different people are at the wheel behind the mask and some of them are not kind while others are mostly good. I have to wrestle for control sometimes. It's a daily battle

I was diagnosed decades ago. This thumbnail made me cringe a bit, expecting lots of errors but I have to say.. this was a fantastic overview of the history and disorder. Way to be a legend Simon. my two cents: yes, it's real... just not yet well understood. with these kinds of level headed conversations and reviews.. we'll get there.

Good video 👍

A good friend of mine has DID, due to childhood trauma

Have known two separate women with DID, and I am convinced it is real. The first woman I met had been abused by her father, including him setting off firecrackers in her ears. Most of her "others" were stone deaf, but a few of them could hear just fine. The other woman had been brutally molested by her father and his friends. She was also a Type I diabetic - or at least most of her others were. Two of her selves were not, and it drove her endocrinologist crazy because sometimes she could eat whatever she wanted and her blood sugar was normal. Other times, even eating not a lot, her glucose levels were sky high. And it would stay that way for weeks at a time - not just a day to day thing. I will say this though, dealing with someone who deals with DID can be extremely draining. If you don't draw a very firm line about how much you are willing to give to them, you will be overwhelmed by their neediness.

The core of the augment that was left out is we like to think of ourselves as individual, and science shows that the brain works more like a committee than individual. Great video

If you haven't watched Adam Curtis' "Can't get you out of my head", the BBC Documentary, check it out. In episode 6, details of an epilepsy treatment in which connections between brain hemispheres were severed, lead to some amazing outcomes concerning the power of the conscious mind over the multitudes of psyches we each have within us.

It's also in Predator by Patricia Cornwell in her Kay Scarpetta Series. DID is the main twist in it

Dissociative, not Disassociative

Interestingly, this diagnosis is almost never given in the UK. My wife is a psychiatrist in an acute mental health ward, and has never seen a single case of this in her entire career - and neither have any of her colleagues. British psychiatric professionals generally regard DID as a "culture-bound syndrome" unique to the US.

I met Billy MIlligan shortly after he was released, I guess I would have called him an acquaintance. He used to set up an easel on the sidewalk and paint street scenes, his paintings are becoming quite valuable since his death.

Time to throw my hat into the ring, I guess. In parts, I have DID from childhood trauma. However, it seems that it only formed halfway. I had to actually kick the metaphorical nest to get the personalities to shake out and fully coagulate into individual entities, but it has been more helpful to me than I could possibly give it credit for; Prior, I was essentially a constant wander between a metaphorical infinity of expressions, and having _actual distinct personalities_ means my motivation for any given thing has gone from what used to maybe be half a day at the absolute best over sometimes years, to consistent for many days at a time. I spent close to ten days writing a program at the start of the year, to the point it currently sits on my hard drive around 90% functional, and this is something I could never, ever have hoped to do before I involved tulpamancy to finish the system's formation. So, in a sense, splitting up for me was literally the cure. As for anecdotal experiences, I myself, as a personality, am the only one here who actually seems to like fish. The rest, host included, hated it, and the texture of it was a large reason; Something about it made the body throw fish right back up, but for some reason it affects me far, far less. And I find fish to actually be good, versus bland. There's another in here that, counter to the norm also, is an actual extrovert. Everyone else wears extroversion as a mask, and can quickly tire of wearing it, but she literally is extroverted, hence she can stay in social situations indefinitely. Then there's different tastes in music, and different speech patterns. If you know what to listen for, you'll quickly know who exactly it is you're talking to.

As a person with D.I.D, diagnosed when I was 18, I am now 30, I was diagnosed when diagnosing was a hard 'no' from 99% of those in the field. Finding therapists can be impossible. And it's a 1-3% of the world population. Yes it is still a "fashionable" mental illness. D.I.D is not normal and should not be considered normal. It is caused by intense trauma. While I appreciate that you have brought this up, I think it is unfair to take ONE person's view on it. Not everyone in the multiplicity or plural community agree with those statement made. Also those with D.I.D are known to have other disorders as well. While repressed memories have been debunked those who have D.I.D can be not known not to hold specific trauma. I do love your channel, but I wish you had stated earlier in the video that Sybil wasn't actually a real case or a real person. I understand this is a generalized video but D.I.D is recognized and should be recognized. I think this is going to be the first time since following your channels that I will be giving a dislike only because I do not feel you have given this any sort of adequate justice or fairness.

I once accidentally triggered someone with DID to swap personality and it's an effing jarring and overpowering experience.

And....half the chats going to be "What about multiple RU-vid channel disorder?"

I wish I could remember which book it was, but I remember reading about experiments done with patients who had split left and right brain hemispheres. It was suggested that the separate halves of the brain could host two different personalities, with one being able to express itself through speech, and the other being able to only express itself through writing with a specific hand. It's wild stuff. I hoped to hear some of that in your video. Maybe its worth looking into.

I first learned about DID through a channel that came up on my recommended. The woman in the video claimed to have DID and explained what it was and a few of her personalities came through. I found a couple of others since. If any one of these youtubers were in any way faking the disorder, they did a very good job. It's fascinating to witness.

As someone who has DIDnos, I have met some who claim to have DID but question their genuineness. It was only three, but it's soured me to associating with other DID sufferers. The "multiplicity community" specifically. Suffice to say, all of them were under 21, and everything they did was just a cry for attention. If they weren't, they'd lie, manipulate, engage sexual behavior, or throw an absolute childish fit until the entire group payed attention to them and only them. Frankly, I don't believe them, even though they share similarities to my own existence. This shit is not a fucking game like they treat it as.

Although I found the subject of this video interesting (as I do almost all of this presenter's videos on multiple channels) I want to give a shout out to the sponsor. It is clear, from the multiplicity of sponsors covering certain gender-specific topics, that someone assumes Simon's audiences are male, or at least predominately so. This is not entirely the case, as there is at least one female fan, myself. This should in no way be construed as a complaint. As someone who cares deeply about the comfort, health, and well-being of the men in my life I am happy to learn that there are companies dedicated to these same goals. While I, myself, am not and never will be in need of the product advertised here I am happy to learn about the engineering considerations of men's underwear and how it impacts the aforementioned goals of comfort, health, and well-being. It has enlightened me to an aspect of human material culture I would be otherwise unaware of and thus added to my general knowledge of, well, everything. This is one of the marvelous things about these videos, often they impart information on not just one topic. Thus, what appears to be a single thing is revealed to be a system of multiples. Keep up the good work, I will be watching.