What is Dissociative Identity Disorder?

 

It is created when in early childhood you are subjected to violence, torture, rape or severe mistreatment for several years, repeatedly.

 

We have 5 senses don't we? Sight, Hearing, smell, taste and touch. These 5 senses will tell you for example if you have a strawberry pie in front of you if this pie is good to eat. The view will inspect whether the strawberries are ripe and red as desired, if there are no worms in them. The smell will recognize the smell of strawberries and if they smell good, if the cream on the pie has not turned. The taste will confirm to you if they are well sweetened and if the paste and the cream are smooth and well prepared ... Hearing will hear your teeth crunching in the pie and your chewing. and touch will tell you if the dough is not soft… So that our body and our brain can decide if this pie is good to eat, if we are not likely to be sick, if this moment is a moment of pleasure, of delights and security he needs to have all this information at the same time. He will treat them then send a message to your whole body, you will relax, sigh with ease and feel in yourself happiness and pleasure, delight for this good time.

 

Having an Dissociative Identity Disorder also called DID is like your 5 senses have become unable to work together and send the necessary information together to your brain to process information from your environment and tell you if all is well, if you are safe.

 

Dissociation is as if your brain, your consciousness, your ability to think, to analyze your environment had been fragmented. Your thoughts and your capacity for analysis will arrive at your brain but in a disorderly way and you will no longer be able to know how to analyze your environment since you will only have the information of "hearing", then after the view, then the smell .... Imagine you are in town on a crowded street with lots of road traffic. Imagine that your 5 senses can no longer communicate, that your 5 senses send you the information they collect only one after the other. First you only have the view. You analyze that there are a lot of cars, you see people walking fast, you see a child who caresses a dog, you see the sun shining, you see a flower seller next to you and a man playing of the guitar… Then this sense "closes" and hearing takes over, you hear horns, you hear a tune of music, you hear a barking dog, and you hear conversations around you. Then around touch, you feel a little breeze on your skin, the warmth of the sun's rays that warm you, you feel objects or bodies that graze you or jostle you .. then the taste, you smell the scent of mint of your chewing gum in your mouth and your saliva flowing down your throat each time you chew. Then the smell, you smell the exhaust pipes, you smell of flowers, you smell of perspiration and after-shave…

 

So you have hundreds of information. But how do you make a decision? How do you know if you are in danger, if all is well? if you can cross? If this walk in the city does you good or is it dangerous? How to move forward? what to do? Run? Put yourself in safety? Do not move? Ask for help? Buy flowers? Listen to the music?...

 

Having a DID amounts to evolving in an environment, a daily life or information about what surrounds us is difficult to analyze. Our brain is based on all the analyzes of our 5 senses to know how to treat it and what to decide as an action or what to think, feel ... All the information is good and important.

 

But what can be done when this information cannot reach the brain at the same time and this information struggles on a daily basis so that only one point of view, one analysis is taken into account in the choice of action and feeling? What can we do when each sense believes that it is the only one to exist and thinks that it is the only one that can protect us, inform us, and help us survive? How to do when no communication exists between these senses? And what can be done when, within a meaning, the same fragmentation on the information analyzed is also compartmentalized? Imagine that your brain only knows that you are jostled? How would you analyze it? You are in danger, we want to hurt you! What if you only have the information that there is a small child petting a dog? You would smile, you would feel good. Or if on the contrary you only heard the barking of the dog? You would think you were going to be attacked by a ferocious beast ... The scent of flowers? happiness, intoxication ... Complex DID is formed in the brain of a small child because it cannot reconcile, tidy up, classify, order the excruciating things it has experienced. When an adult, a parent, a person responsible for protecting, loving, or securing him is able to rape him, to torture him, to threaten him with death, and at the same time he is able to tell you that he love you, the two things are incompatible. The brain would go crazy trying to understand and is unable to classify it as good / bad, good for me / bad for me, security / death ... and the reaction of those around and society play a lot to reinforce this dissociation .

 

How to reconcile the tortures undergone with the warm welcome or the marks of recognition, notoriety, affection… of the entourage? Only one possibility: compartmentalize everything so that you can see at times only the "good sides of the abusing adult" and have only reassuring information on the subject in your brain, then have at other times only the "bad sides" "and the alarms that light up warning and making sure to survive when the violence continues. But to live thus is not to live, it is to FOLLOW. And it is necessary that the society is aware of it and effectively protects and helps these children after having put them in safety to gather "their 5 senses", their "internal self" so that they are able to live their lives fully without being assailed by a treatment with trained professionals!

 

Each "sense" is there, present and operational at all times but as long as there is no care, help, they do not see themselves and do not know that they coexist. To seek to dialogue only with a single "sense" would be tantamount to telling all the other "senses" that what they see, feel and perceive is false. Each sense hears, sees, senses permanently except that it believes that it is the only one to be present and knows nothing of the analyzes of the other "senses". They will all react differently to the speech and the environment of the present moment and an internal "battle" will take place to know how to react what to do who is right ... what must the brain and the body do ... Without the no one with DID understands why they feel and think about all these different and contradictory analyzes.

 

Dissociative complex identity disorder is not a fabrication or an invention of charlatans.

 

Having a DID is having a daily life where each second of our life is punctuated by fear and anxiety then the second according to security and well-being then an immense anger then a sadness and an abysmal despair. .. the person living with this disorder will never have a whole day or they will only feel well-being and security until they are helped, cared for. Nothing that we live inside will be coherent and smooth. We do not understand each other. We do not understand why a few seconds ago we were a strong and confident person, and why the second after we are erased, shy, anxious in danger of death ... Why everything in our life seems go well and we only want to die ...

 

It is a daily life, of survival punctuated by suffering and misunderstanding of our actions and reactions as long as trained professionals have not helped to reconcile and harmonize the analysis of everyday life. And a risk factor for further violence if our brain is unable to make a decision taking into account all the data on our environment. It will be very difficult to defend yourself, protect yourself, be able to make a decision ...

 

A video from the "under influence" series broadcast on ARTE showing what sideration is:

https://www.koreus.com/video/viol-amygdale.html