Meet Tara, she is 29 years old and a Harvard graduate. She is ambitious, confident the most respected and successful attorney at her law firm. Tara loves to read and does charity work in her spare time. Tara believes that the world is filled with good people and that one should spend some of their time to help others. But lately Tara has been experiencing severe memory loss, suffering from unexplainable headaches, blackouts, losing track of huge chunks of time and is having flashbacks to her childhood were she was abused but as far as Tara is concerned she was never abused as a child, she had a good childhood. When she is out on the street sometimes people call her by a different name or mistake her for someone else. All of sudden Tara now is starting to hear voices in her head from time to time. She blames her symptoms on the stress that her job brings.
Now let’s meet Victoria, who is also 29 years old and according to her she never graduated from high school. Victoria works as an exotic dancer, under the stage name “Ms. Peaches”. Unlike Tara, Victoria was abused as a child and remembers every detail of the abuse. As a result of her abuse Victoria is a callus, cold, selfish and a promiscuous young woman. Victoria believes that there are no good people in the world and the only way to survive in this world is to lookout for yourself.
Tara and Victoria are very different people from very different backgrounds, but what these two women have incoming is that they are the same women. Tara is suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Tara is the primary personality, while Victoria is the alter ego or alternate personality. Dissociative Identity Disorder is psychiatric conditions were a person displays a number of distinct personalities, which are known as alters or alter ego (wikipeda). Each alter is different, they have their own way of perceiving and interacting with their environment. They have their own thoughts their own goals and dreams. The “alter” is a totally different person; the only problem is that they have to share a body with someone else. Let’s take a trip through the symptoms, causes and treatment of fascinating and horrifying illness.
The symptoms associated with this disease are debilitating and freighting. The most common symptom is severe memory loss that goes beyond the occasionally forgetfulness. The sufferer cannot remember where they have been, do not recall conversations they have with friends or cannot remember where particular items in their possession came from. The next symptom is the blackouts. People who suffer from DID my lose consciousness and wake up hours or days later in a totally different location from where they last remember and have no idea how they got there. Also another “symptom” that is associated with this mental illness, is the sufferer, being mistaken for someone else or recognized as someone else by other people when they are out in public. But the most chilling symptom that characterizes this disease is the voices that the sufferer may hear in their mind.
Severe and prolonged or routine torture, sexual abuse or neglect experienced during childhood has been correlated to the development of D.I.D. When a child is experiencing trauma that is associated with emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or some combination of the three, they will often dissociate themselves from the abuse in order to escape it, by creating a different identities or alternate personalities. The created alter will suffer the abuse while the primary personality escapes the abuse. For children dissociation is simple and becomes a useful defense for the child. The strategy allows the child to place all the abuse or traumatic event onto another personality (Mind).
Treating a mental illness on this level of complexity is no small task, because there is no cure for D.I.D. There is no way to get rid of alters but there is away to get them under control. Therapist or psychiatrist mainly use psychotherapy or talk therapy in combination with hypnosis to help the suffer gain control of their alter(s). The therapist must find the personality that holds the memories of the traumatic experience in the patient’s past, the therapist does this by making contact with the alter or alters and try to understand what role they play in the patient’s life. For instance an alter may take on the role of a protector for the patient emerging only when the patient feels threatened or scared by someone or something. Sometimes a person can have multiple alters and there is one alter in particular that keeps the other alters in line. if the therapist can find the alter that holds the traumatic memories then the therapist can devise the best strategy to help the patient. Also the therapist must make contact with the alter or alters that maybe responsible for violent or self destructive behavior and try to get them change or curb that behavior. The primary outcome of therapy that the therapist is trying to achieve is the integration of the personalities into single personality, but sometimes integration is not possible so the alternative is to find harmony between the patient and the alter or alters. (DID)
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