I was asked today by email if I’ve encountered any common misconceptions about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Where to start I wonder?? Here’s my reply:

• We’re all serial killers.
• We’re all dangerous.
• We cannot be trusted.
• We are liars.
• We are attention seekers.
• We are all messed up victims with nothing to offer anyone else and no capacity to function without extensive support.
• We are so weird, different, and bizarre that we are basically aliens, utterly unlike other people in any regard.
• We are psychics, in touch with the spirit world and merely misunderstanding our gift and thinking we have DID instead.
• We are gullible vulnerable people our shrinks have implanted with the idea that we have DID. (see Is DID iatrogenic?)
• All people with DID are the same. (See Multiplicity and relationships)
• DID is only ever the result of the most extreme, inhuman, unimaginable child sexual trauma you can possibly think of.
• All people with multiplicity lose lots of time. (See What is co-consciousness?)
• People with DID can’t work.
• Everyone with DID has an inner self helper, an inner protector, an inner wounded child (and so on).
• All people with DID should integrate.
• Integration means you are now ‘well’ and all your problems go away.
• The goal of every person with DID is to become a normal person.
• DID is basically just a complex way to try and avoid your problems.
• DID is just a way to avoid taking responsibility.
• DID is just an excuse to be lazy and confusing.
• Everyone has DID.
• People with DID are extra special people who are nicer, more intelligent, more creative, and more wonderful in every possible way than all other people.
• People with DID are all conscientious and loving and would never hurt anyone.
• People with DID are crazy.
• DID is the same thing as schizophrenia.
• DID is the same thing as PTSD.
• DID is the same thing as BPD.
• People with DID have ESP and other otherworldly characteristics.
• People with DID can never recover.
• People with DID are impossible to work with.
• People with DID are manipulative.
• People with DID should pick one stable part to be out all the time. (See Parts getting stuck)
• People with DID are merely under the delusion that they have alters.
• People with DID always have a ‘real person’ and a bunch of alters.
• If you hear voices inside your head you have DID, if you hear voices through your ears you have schizophrenia. (See Parts vs Voices)
• It’s not possible to have DID and psychosis.
• If you have lots of parts you have less chance of recovery.
• Switching is always really obvious.
• It’s always easy for other people to tell the difference between parts.
• If anyone you knew had DID it would be easy for you to tell.
• Alters always know who they are. (See Multiplicity – Mapping your system)
• Alters always have a complex back history of their identity.
• People with DID can never control their switching.
• People with DID always know they have it.
• People with DID are always in control of their switching. (See Multiplicity – switching and relationships)
• People with DID make each other worse if they spend time together.
• People with DID only get better in therapy.
• People with DID never have any other challenges (disability, poverty, discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender orientation etc).
• All people with DID are white, straight, cis women. (See Another coming out)
• DID is always formed when an abused child imagines that the abuse is happening to a different child instead.
• People with DID never spontaneously integrate.
• People with DID who integrate never split into parts again.
• People with DID always have lots of parts.
• DID is the worst thing you could ever wish on someone.
• DID is caused by things other people do to you. (rather than your response to those things)
• DID is all about pain. (See I am not Sarah)
• You either have DID or you don’t, there’s no spectrum of multiplicity.
• If you have more than one diagnosis, you are sicker and weaker and less likely to recover.
• All people with DID are going to recover horrific memories of traumatic events they hadn’t been aware of.
• People with DID understand each other in far deeper way than a singleton will ever understand a person with DID.
• DID is an adaptive gift and never really causes any problems for anyone. (See Adaptation and Control)
• People who say they are DID are just trying to get out of a crime.
• The United States of Tara is an accurate representation of all people with DID. (See my review here)
• People with DID have to be careful not to encourage or allow their parts to become any more separate than they already are. (See Multiplicity – Is naming parts harmful?)
• Parts will always hate each other. (See A poem conversation between parts)
• Most psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctors know a lot about dissociation and DID (See DID Card)
• There’s lots of good resources for people with DID
• It’s easy to find quality, reliable information about DID
• Most therapists are willing and capable of supporting someone with DID
• Carer supports don’t need to be tailored to the experience of loving a person with parts.
• People with DID are the most unwell, challenged, vulnerable, and needy members of any family or group. (See Caring for someone who’s suicidal)
• Regular mental health services are appropriate and good supports for people with DID.
• People with DID should all be locked up away from the regular community.

Yeah, I know I changed first to third person. I’m tired, and you get my point. I don’t think the list is complete, that’s just off the top of my head at the end of a long week. Have any to add?

Edit: Just to be very clear that I’m presenting all these ideas as myths. I don’t agree with any of them. The links in the text are to other posts I’ve written that explain why not in greater detail, and what I do believe instead. I think that maybe reading such a big chunk of myths, particularly very common ones, perhaps it’s more difficult to remember I’m presenting then as myths. I think I’ll put up a counter – post where I summarise what I do believe about DID…. Watch this space! 🙂

• Countering DID myths – we’re not all the same!

For more information see articles listed on Multiplicity Links, scroll through posts in the category of Multiplicity, or explore my Network The Dissociative Initiative.