Posted: Wednesday 15 February 2012
We recently published our updated information on dissociative disorders. Inger from our Information team blogs about what dissociation is and some of the myths surrounding it.
Imagine driving to a place you have never been to. Then when you get there, you find that you have no idea why you went there or what you are supposed to be doing. This is what can happen to someone with severe dissociative disorder.
Fortunately most people with dissociative disorder will not experience symptoms as severe as this. And very few are likely to experience multiple personality disorder, perhaps its most well-known form.
The Guardian published an article last year about an artist called Kim Noble, who switches between more than 100 different personalities. Kim told the paper:
I don't ever know if I am coming or going. I could switch at a door, like at the doctor's surgery, and think, 'Have I just been in?'
In film, books and on TV, people with these disorders are often portrayed as mad and a danger to other people. The fact is that people with dissociative disorder are unlikely to harm anyone; except perhaps themselves.
Often those affected find it difficult to tell other people what they are going through. Few medical professionals have training in identifying the disorder, so many may have it without knowing it.
A large number of people who are diagnosed with dissociative disorder have experienced trauma and abuse. But not all who’ve experienced abuse will have a dissociative disorder, so it’s not a simple case of cause and effect.
If you want to know more about its different forms, effects and much more, read the new page and let us know what you think.
Inger Hatloy, Information Officer
Read our updated information on dissociative disorders and find out what support is available.
Im confused what is the diffrence betweem dissociative disorders and mixed personality disorder.
As I understand it, dissociation is a survival technique, when trauma or pain becomes too difficult, the mind checks itself out without the person being aware of it.
For example, I have borderline personality disorder, and one my my symptoms is that I dissociate if things become too stressful. I sort of float away mentally and things don't seem real. It's a protective thing.
Dissociation can be a disorder of itself, or symptom of post traumatic stress or personality disorders. It can happen to people with different mental health disorders. It is a response to stress.
Multiple personality disorder is where different personalities or personas form as a result of trauma, people split into different personalities to help manage how difficult life is. It's not a conscious thing, it happens when people reach a breaking point, t works to protect them, often other personalities deal with different aspects of that persons life.
Some people live fairly happily as part of a 'system' of personalities who co operate and 'share the body' and others find their multiple personality disorder makes their life difficult and work to integrate those personalities through therapy.
I'm saying the above based on my knowledge of having had friends who suffered MPD. What I have said might not be true for everyone who has it.
I was diagnosed as having Schizoaffective Disorder around Sept 2010. It seems part of the symptoms I experience to have Dissociation quite regularly. I often find I am somewhere I have been many times but when I dissociate I can't seem to recognise where it is I'm at. Experiencing the feeling of someone else controling the body or flowting above the body seems to be another common one I experience also. Debora, you can read about the symptoms of both the disorders if you go right to the top of the page and click 'How can we help you' You'll find a bit that has from A-Z of all the different mental health problems. There's loads of info that I find really helpful. :o)
@ debora ingles ... OMG debora ... I mean what's the difference between tea and coffee. It's probably a better question "what have dissociative disorders and mixed personality disorder got in common?"
"Mixed Personality Disorder" is a colloquial expression for Personality Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified). What it means is that you (or the person who was diagnosed) are suffering from an array of symptoms that fit a variety of personality disorder criteria, but don't meet the complete criteria for a single pathology. That sounds kind of scary, but it's really a "1 from column A, 2 from column B" kind of thing. So, you may be experiencing the paranoia associated with Paranoid Personality Disorder, but not the delusions and morbid distrust, along with the impulsive emotionality of a Histrionic Personality Disorder and the object rage of the Borderline Personality or the reactive rage of Complex Post Traumatic Stress...but you don't meet enough of the other criteria for any of these to be a complete diagnosis.
Dissociative disorders are so-called because they are marked by a dissociation from or interruption of a person's fundamental aspects of waking consciousness (such as one's personal identity, one's personal history, etc.). Dissociative disorders come in many forms, the most famous of which is dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). All of the dissociative disorders are thought to stem from trauma experienced by the individual with this disorder. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism -- the person literally dissociates himself from a situation or experience too traumatic to integrate with his conscious self. Symptoms of these disorders, or even one or more of the disorders themselves, are also seen in a number of other mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
You can compare them for yourself :)
Thank you for all your comments. You raise some important points. I agree that it can be difficult to make sense of different diagnoses.
Multiple personality disorder is a controversial disorder (some argue it doesn't really exist). It is often also misunderstood. Mainly because multiple personality disorder is a not actually a personality disorder, but a form of dissociative disorder. So you can only be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder if you dissociate.
On the other hand, mixed personality disorder is a personality disorder, and you can be diagnosed with this disorder if you have never dissociated. I hope that makes it clearer.
I never dissociated during my (hundreds of) highly traumatic experiences and, therefore, I do not believe that a person must have dissociated during these experiences as some kind of survival mechanism to block them out or, as you have phrased it, "use[d] dissociation to protect yourself from the trauma" - as though previous dissociation is some kind of prerequisite for DD later in life.
Approx 3 years after I escaped from my abusers I woke up one sunny morning in a state of "out-of-body experience," I was floating behind my body, the world was foggy and dream-like, nothing seemed real, not even my physical form. I walked into walls, furniture (etc) all the time, fell down the stairs several times, my memory had gone from virtually photographic to non-existant.
I had NEVER experinced anything like this before in my life.
I literally woke up to it one day and it has never gone away (8 years and counting).
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