Skya M. answered • 07/20/24
B.A. in Psychology With 4 Years of Psychology Teaching Experience
Hi, Christian! Great question, Dissociative Identity Disorder is a complex disorder that is often extremely misunderstood in popular media, so I appreciate and encourage your curiosity!
'Alters' are the hallmark symptom of D.I.D. and are formed by the brain's incredible gift for compartmentalizing memories and experiences, in particular those that are traumatic. When undergoing severe trauma, the brain can at times construct 'amnesia walls' of sorts, that block out entire memories, stages of life, and even core personality traits that were formed due to the experiencing of those events. This effectively causes the brain to 'split' and become segmented, allowing for an entirely new identity to form alongside the original. These identities can be different genders, ages, races, etc.
It is also likely that without therapeutic intervention following the school of 'co-consciousness' treatment, that these separate personalities will be unable to access each other's memories and lived experiences (due to the amnesia wall causing mutually exclusive memory loss).
There's no way of effectively predicting how a personality may become divided in this manner, or what the new personality will look like. However, these are often fully functional, fully sufficient personalities capable of forming their own memories, relationships, likes/dislikes, and even grander things such as life goals.
Skya M.
I've heard very similar things about Moonknight but I haven't actually gotten around to watching it myself! I know that I personally found the portrayal of Jane in Doom Patrol to also be a fascinating and well thought out representation of DID and the insight into her inner mind curious (if you ever wanted to check it out!). Regarding protection of trauma, often times alters will act as guardians and protectors to core (or 'primary') identities, also known as 'the primary' by removing that identity from the situation and refusing access to the outside world that would force them to experience it. In many cases, as the trauma happens, they won't hear, see, or feel through that experience. This in turn protects the primary from forming direct links to that traumatic event (although of course that event is now a repressed memory with its own difficulties). This can be beneficial to avoid the primary going into shock, experiencing psychosis, or struggling to operate in their everyday life. It is often seen that alters will use this time to remove themselves from the situation if possible or even proactively shut it down. However it is also possible that they will have to experience the trauma themselves and therefore develop their own PTSD outside of the primary's awareness. There's only so much that an alter can do. It's helpful to think of them as a protective friend, sibling, or parent in these situations. They will insert themselves and push the primary out of harm's way. Alters are often a defense mechanism like any other. Effective at times, but also very complicated and not a solution to the long-term issue (often causing long-term issues themselves).07/22/24
Christian C.
Thank you so much for the help with this! You've been an amazing help learning of this topic. I have one last question if that is alright. I've read and been told that the exact personality, the 'background' and 'childhood' of the alter, and even to an extent their skills, accent, etc., all stem from what the trauma was and what the brain thinks they need to best defend against it. Is this true? And if so, how does the brain determine what is best to defend against the trauma?07/22/24
Skya M.
Absolutely, no problem! I'm glad I can be of help. I would say that in some circumstances that *can* be true, but just as often isn't related at all. If a primary longs for a motherly figure, it's possible an alter will resemble their mother or someone else they consider to be maternal. But they may similarly be a randomized assortment of traits from any number of sources. Of course, there's now way to completely 'randomize' a person, just as there isn't a way to randomize faces in a dream, but the number of sources and reason for their compilation can be as far and wide as the mind can comprehend. To answer your question more directly, no, I wouldn't say that alters' traits, skills, etc. directly correlate to the trauma at all. Trauma also isn't necessarily mandatory for D.I.D. to manifest.07/22/24
Christian C.
Alright. That helps me out a lot. Thank you for answering my questions, you've been extremely informative!07/24/24
Christian C.
Thank you for the quick answer! And yeah I wanted to do extensive research on this since I know that DID is misrepresented A LOT. Moonknight was what peaked my interest as I heard that thus far it was the most accurate to true DID that had been seen in media, though I knew that didn't mean entirely accurate. If I may ask further, beyond the amnesia, how does the new identity protect the whole from the trauma? From articles I read, they either said or hinted that either the core identity or the new identities are unaware of the trauma, and that the identities that form have something meant to protect them from that particular trauma. But how does that work exactly? What are subtle, and rarely extreme ways new identities shield the core and themselves from trauma aside from amnesia?07/20/24