Dissociative Identity Disorder Walking down the street, a child walking a dog comes into view. All of a sudden the dog looks to be malicious and the child looks melancholy while the leash between them droops in a depressing manner and the whole world seems to be one solid color of gray. Then, in the blink of an eye, the child is laughing and cheerfully walking his excited dog down the sidewalk again in a world full of bright and inviting color. For people who struggle through the disorder that is Dissociative Identity Disorder, or multiple personality disorder, this is a reality. DID is a disorder affecting the mind of a person who has experienced a traumatic experience and is using their mind to cope with it in an unorthodox way. Dissociative …show more content…
The Mayo Clinic says “symptoms [include] memory loss, being detached, a distorted perception of reality, blurred sense of identity, significant stress, inability to cope with professional or personal stress, and mental health problems including depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts or tendencies” (“Symptoms and Causes.”). This disorder can also lead to extreme cases of insanity, where the patient no longer has control over their other “identities”. DID is usually caused by severe trauma in a person’s life. “Dissociative disorders usually develop as a way to cope with trauma. The disorders most often form in children subjected to long-term physical, sexual or emotional abuse or, less often, a home environment that's frightening or highly unpredictable. The stress of war or natural disasters also can bring on dissociative disorders” (“Symptoms and Causes”). People returning from war impacted by their experiences in a negative way can be a perfect origination point for the disorder but most commonly it originates in children who have had severe abuse in their childhood home. A perfect example of this is a twenty- nine year old woman who came to the ER acting