Sure, “Everyone Dissociates”
But it’s not Dissociative Identity Disorder
I just finished my paperwork for my next treatment plan with my psychotherapist. It’s an intimidating amount of hoops, yet something unmistakable is my being firmly in the Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD) camp. Scoring twenty-two points above the requirement for the diagnosis of DID, I’m once again reminded of how tipped this end of the spectrum is.
The usual questions I hear are “normal” for almost everyone, like how we all tend to dissociate while driving close to home or when driving as light filters through trees, creating a strobe effect. We might even forget what we’re wearing when someone compliments us on our choice of jacket or handmade shawl, but that could be chalked up to a regular sense of forgetfulness. It’s when we “come to” a parking lot and have to figure out where we are and why we’re there, or knowing that there’s a road beyond a hill, that the scale slides further down.
The power of dissociation with DID far surpasses schizophrenia’s. It surpasses OSDD, a generalized disorder of dissociation, and is much more specific in its bouts of amnesia. Amnesia from everyday living, from important life events, from anything that causes someone to be front and center. DID, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder, isn’t like television or the movies where the…
