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Breaking Free: My Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder

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Dissociative identity disorder is becoming a more and more common diagnoses by psychiatrist every day. Studies show that dissociative identity disorder is no longer a rare condition. Although, there are a greater number of diagnoses, there is still an extensive amount of misunderstandings about the disorder. Treatment and prevention of dissociative identity disorder can be achieved, but an understanding of the condition has to come first. Dissociative identity disorder is a mental illness that causes a person to develop multiple personalities. Though two personalities are enough to diagnose the disorder, a person that has Dissociative identity disorder, or DID, can have an unlimited amount of personalities. The different personalities …show more content…

Herschel Walker, a formal National Football League player was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and published his experiences in a book called Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder. He admitted that he had subconsciously created alters to deal with different situations. He had one alter that he called “the consoler”, which would comfort him in situations by saying “it’s ok” or “you can do this”. Walker had another alter he referred to as “the hero”. This alter helped him deal with frightening events or fears in general. For example, as a child Herschel was afraid of the dark, and this alter would come out to take his place. Another of Walker’s personalities was known to him as “the warrior”. This was the alter that he used during sporting events. Many people are skeptical that people with dissociative identity disorder are unaware of these alters. Herschel Walker states that he was unaware of his alters and their presence until after his diagnosis later in his life. Other professionals say that it is common for the alters to have knowledge of each other, but the patient can remain unaware of their other personalities. It is common for alters to be nothing like the person at all. Alters can be of the opposite sex. Alters are often of a different age and even ethnicity. They can have different religious beliefs. The sexual orientation may be different of one of the personalities. The average number of alters for a person with DID is usually between thirteen and fifteen. However, there are cases that the patient has had over one hundred distinct personalities

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