People With Dissociative Idenity Disorder

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities, or personality states, are present in—and alternately take control of—an individual. (Pshycology Today, 2017)

D.I.D previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) is a really sensitive yet beguiling mental disorder. But Hollywood doesn’t understand the sensitivity and continues to exaggerate and manipulate D.I.D as a mental sickness in movies / dramas which not only fuels the stigmatization and myths associated with D.I.D in the minds of the people but also greatly effects and offends the people suffering from this mental disorder.
D.I.D patients are often mistreated because of the myths associated with this mental sickness and have to suffer both physically and mentally because of this unfair treatment by the people around them.

“Our culture has dissociated dissociativity. Profound aggressor/victim themes and psychodynamics, along with narcissist, sadistic or psychopathic coloring of such patients run deep in our culture. DID are often blames and shamed.” (Braun, 1986)

Malcolm Rivers develops a homicidal personality within himself who kills and torture people for practically no reason at all. (Mangold, 2003) Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man suffering from D.I.D kidnaps and terrifies three young ladies in order to sacrifice them to let the final personality ‘The beast’ come ‘into the light’ (take control). ‘The beast’ viciously kills two of the young girls and supposedly turns into a ‘monsters’ which one have never heard of. (Shyamalam, 2016)
The worst part is that D.I.D is still unacknowledged in many parts of the worlds as a mental sickness and is considered only as a fictional mental diseases. Resulting in patients being mistreated medically for years.

“Because DID has erroneously been thought to be rare (because the disorder is often hidden), assessing and treating clinicians have often missed the diagnosis. Researches has showed that a DID patient normally spends between 5-10 years in a mental health system before receiving a correct diagnosis.” (Howell, 2011)

According to Dr. Bennett G. Braun, Dissociative Identity Disorder doesn’t make the patients violent. As a child they went through some traumatic experience or abuse which actually makes them passive and introvert to some extent and hence in majority cases they would never commit any vicious crime as shown in many movies. (Braun, 1986)

So the negative portrayal of D.I.D patients in movies as ‘monsters’ and killers is totally opposite to the reality and the facts. Through my thesis I want to eliminate these negative serotypes associated with this mental disorder and built a positive image of D.I.D suffers in the minds of the masses which is really important not for the patients but also for the society as a whole.
Cha Do Hyun, son of a business man develops D.I.D and when he is found to be suffering with this mental disorder, he is sent to mental asylum to seek treatment. (Jin-man, 2015)

The worst thing that one can do to a D.I.D patient as stated by Dr. Braun, is to send them to mental asylum assuming that they would get “better”. Instead of getting better they turn to self-harm and most of them end up committing suicide. That’s because D.I.D patients’ get overwhelming flashbacks and memories when in isolation which can trigger them to suicide. Hence they need constant attention and emotional support from a loved one. (Howell, 2011)

Upon the discovery of Do Hyun being a D.I.D patient, he is forced to quit his job because assumingly ‘he is no longer in a stable mental condition to perform his duties’ (Jin-man, 2015)

D.I.D patients are more than just ‘monsters’ as depicted by the media and in some literature as well. They have one of the brightest minds and with the help of alters, they can do extraordinary stuff which normal humans are not capable of. Kim Noble is a fine example of that. She is not only an artist, an author of a book “All of Me: How I Learned to Live with the Many Personalities” but also a mother to a beautiful 21 year daughter of hers. She has shown the world what actually D.I.D patients are capable of. (VICE, 2018)

In the world of 3D animation, this topic of D.I.D has yet to be discovered but there is some work done on this topic in Japanese 2D animation.

Lucy suffering from D.I.D is held captive in a research laboratory where she is maltreated and as a result develops a murderous alter named Elfen who viciously kills everyone even her savior at the end of the anime in order to take control over the world. (Kanbe, 2004)