Table of contents:
- Multiple personality traits can appear alternately
- One person can have hundreds of different identities
- Childhood trauma is the cause of multiple personalities
- So, can it be cured?
Although it is more familiarly called multiple personality disease, dissociative identity disorder can not only bring out two different characters. Some people with it can even bring up more than that. So, how many identities can appear and what influences them?
Multiple personality traits can appear alternately
Multiple personality disease is a psychological disorder that affects the way a person thinks, feels and behaves. Personality disorders are characterized by the emergence of two or more different identities and can take over the consciousness of the individual host in turn.
As a result, the person loses control of the attitudes, thoughts, feelings, dispositions, habits, and actions that characterize himself. One identity can have a name, a speech accent, ethnicity and culture, memory, age, gender and sexual orientation, which is different from other identities, as well as with the individual host.
Each character can also appear to dress very differently from each other and the real you. It even includes different races, hobbies, and favorite foods.
When a certain identity is taking over, the individual host will not know or realize what that character is doing and will not be able to remember what happened to him in the meantime.
One person can have hundreds of different identities
Billy Milligan, the 24 Billy Face
Most people think that people who have multiple personalities are only able to bring out two personalities. The reality is not always the case. Maybe you've read a book called 24 The Faces of Billy (24 Faces of Billy) which is based on a true story that successfully shocked the world in the 1970s.
Is William Stanley Milligan alias Billy Milligan, a man from the United States who has 24 different identities. Each of Billy's personalities has a different age, gender, cultural background, and profession or skill.
Some of the most famous are Adalana (a lesbian woman who is shy, lonely, and thirsty for love), Artur (a British man who is good at biology and medicine), Christene (a three-year-old girl), Allen (a motivator and a painting expert. face), and Swan (deaf).
Yes. Initially, this personality disorder can appear on average 2-4 different characters. But over time, a person with multiple personality disease can have to over 100 different personalities. How many appear will depend on the trigger and the severity of the condition.
Childhood trauma is the cause of multiple personalities
Actually there is no definite explanation why a person can have multiple personalities. However, based on existing research, multiple personality disorders generally appear after being triggered by past trauma as a child. Whether it's trauma of physical violence, sexual violence, psychological or emotional abuse, and various other possibilities.
Traumatic experiences can create self-defense mechanisms by unconsciously bringing out another personality that is totally different from the original identity in order to escape the memory of the trauma.
About 99 percent of people who have multiple personalities report having experienced bad childhood trauma. Take the case of Billy, for example. The personality disorder that he has is known to surface after being triggered by acts of domestic violence by his own biological father.
Billy's father reportedly abused Billy repeatedly emotionally, physically, and sexually abused Billy as a child. All of the characters he has are his subconscious defenses to cover up the trauma of his dark childhood.
So, can it be cured?
Until now there is no specific drug to cure personality disorders. Existing treatments are only intended to relieve the symptoms that appear, such as excessive anxiety and depression.
In addition, talk therapy or psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, art therapy, and movement therapy can also help reduce the symptoms that arise due to this disorder.