Splitting open dissociative identity disorder

By Isabel Campos

Art by Laurian Gilliland

“Glass” is just the most recent movie guilty of sensationalizing mental disorders for entertainment and profit.

As I was browsing the Internet, I stumbled upon a video that opened up my view about dissociative identity disorder (DID). A young girl appeared on the screen acting quiet and reserved, but soon she became a whole different person through dissociation. Her other identity or “alter” appeared the complete opposite, exhibiting a bubbly and energetic persona. Due to this discovery, I began to develop an interest in the disorder along with its common perceptions.  

Through my research, I found that DID has recently emerged in popular culture. For example, the movie “Split” features a man with DID and earned $40 million dollars in sales over the opening weekend in January 2017. In the movie, Kevin, played by James McAvoy, has 24 personality states and abducts three teenage girls. Due to the plot showing a person with DID being extremely violent, those who have watched the movie and know nothing about this disorder are becoming concerned and afraid. As a result, people diagnosed with DID have become concerned about being perceived as violent or scary. Nevertheless, the success of the movie allowed for the creation of a sequel called “Glass,” which was released on Jan. 18, 2019.
The emergence of DID in a person presents as a failure to integrate various aspects of identity, memory and consciousness into one multidimensional self; violent tendencies are only one type of symptom and not all people experience them. The disorder can start to form at any age and typically arises from stress disorders or physical and sexual abuse. People with DID often report hearing multiple voices in their stream of consciousness. Unfortunately, 70 percent of these people have attempted suicide and other injurious behaviors. Ms. Segars, who has a master’s degree in mental health, claims that “When the body is trapped in the traumatic situation, the brain can dissociate from the body and almost leave it behind as a way of escape when the body cannot escape itself. A person can know that they have the disorder, but they will not have memories from an identity. Someone will typically say that they are losing time and do not remember anything else or that they have had periods of darkness. DID is evidence is that we really do not know what the brain is capable of.”
In the online AP Psychology class, SMS students are able to understand the truth behind people diagnosed with DID and turn away from the false image created by “Split.” Mrs. Jennifer Adams, one of the course’s teachers, says “[the class] will talk about the disorder when we discuss mental disorders. Although I haven’t seen this movie, I’ve seen some other ones about this disorder. “Sybil” is one that is a charade portrayal — although it is an old movie” Ginny Bratton (11), who took the class last year says “There was a short section in our psychology book that mentioned that [DID] was extremely rare and talked about DID being very popular in western America ... ‘Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde’ also spurred on the fascination with the disorder and made it popular.”
While cases of DID are extremely rare, popular culture has carved an image that harms the people suffering from the disorder by diminishing them and misrepresenting their illness. Ms. Segars says, “The inaccurate part is that the identities are all aware of one another. The goal of this thing that you are watching is to entertain you enough to get people to buy movie tickets to see it. They are doing what they need to do to make it interesting enough. Any time we are watching entertainment, we have to know the goal of the people behind it — to entertain us and make us pay $12.”

I hope that through precise knowledge of the disorder society will cease to provide mostly inaccurate depictions of these types of disorders.

The emergence of DID in a person presents as a failure to integrate various aspects of identity, memory and consciousness into one multidimensional self; violent tendencies are only one type of symptom and not all people experience them. The disorder can start to form at any age and typically arises from stress disorders or physical and sexual abuse. People with DID often report hearing multiple voices in their stream of consciousness. Unfortunately, 70 percent of these people have attempted suicide and other injurious behaviors. Ms. Segars, who has a master’s degree in mental health, claims that “When the body is trapped in the traumatic situation, the brain can dissociate from the body and almost leave it behind as a way of escape when the body cannot escape itself. A person can know that they have the disorder, but they will not have memories from an identity. Someone will typically say that they are losing time and do not remember anything else or that they have had periods of darkness. DID is evidence is that we really do not know what the brain is capable of.”

In the online AP Psychology class, SMS students are able to understand the truth behind people diagnosed with DID and turn away from the false image created by “Split.” Mrs. Jennifer Adams, one of the course’s teachers, says “[the class] will talk about the disorder when we discuss mental disorders. Although I haven’t seen this movie, I’ve seen some other ones about this disorder. “Sybil” is one that is a charade portrayal — although it is an old movie” Ginny Bratton (11), who took the class last year says “There was a short section in our psychology book that mentioned that [DID] was extremely rare and talked about DID being very popular in western America ... ‘Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde’ also spurred on the fascination with the disorder and made it popular.” 

While cases of DID are extremely rare, popular culture has carved an image that harms the people suffering from the disorder by diminishing them and misrepresenting their illness. Ms. Segars says, “The inaccurate part is that the identities are all aware of one another. The goal of this thing that you are watching is to entertain you enough to get people to buy movie tickets to see it. They are doing what they need to do to make it interesting enough. Any time we are watching entertainment, we have to know the goal of the people behind it — to entertain us and make us pay $12.” 

I hope that through precise knowledge of the disorder society will cease to provide mostly inaccurate depictions of these types of disorders.