Science Question

Description

When Media Goes Too Far: A Case of Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative Identity disorder (DID), also known as multiple personality disorder, has been a fairly heavily debated topic in the psychological field. More recently, trends; people suddenly claiming to suffer from such a debilitating disorder in recent times has thrown a shadow of suspicion from both psychological and non-psychologically inclined individuals all across the web.

What Is DID?

First introduced to the DSM in 1980 as multiple personality disorder, before being renamed in 1994, it remains a controversial psychiatric diagnosis. The most notable of symptoms that are included in a diagnosis of DID is that of at least two distinct personalities present in an individual. “Other symptoms of DID can include headache, amnesia, time loss, trances, and “out of body experiences.” Some people with dissociative disorders have a tendency toward self-persecution, self-sabotage, and even violence (both self-inflicted and outwardly directed)” (Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), 2023). The disorder is usually associated with severe, long-term, and chronic trauma, “People who have experienced physical and sexual abuse in childhood are at increased risk of dissociative identity disorder. The vast majority of people who develop dissociative disorders have experienced repetitive, overwhelming trauma in childhood. Among people with dissociative identity disorder in the United States, Canada and Europe, about 90 percent had been the victims of childhood abuse and neglect” (What Are Dissociative Disorders?, n.d.-b). DID is diagnosed at about the same rate as schizophrenia, at approximately 1% of occurrence in the population (Dissociative Identity Disorder: What You Need to Know | McLean Hospital, 2024). DID is specifically a tough disorder to diagnose, as it takes upwards of six years of testing to determine if an individual truly suffers from DID: “Typically those with dissociative identity disorder experience symptoms for six years or more before being correctly diagnosed and treated” (Expert Q&A: Dissociative Disorders, n.d.-b). This sort of extensive “requirements,” quote unquote, that accompany DID have a lot of overlap with other disorders, which only adds on to the speculation the diagnosis faces: “In addition to symptoms of PTSD and dissociation, individuals with DID often need treatment for co-occurring issues. These include depression, suicidality, self-harm behaviors, disordered eating, and body image distortions” (Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder, 2024).

Media and Its Effect On DID

Speculation surrounding DID is not new; from it’s addition to the DSM to very recently, DID has been pointed out as a false diagnosis. A Reddit poster from a year ago says “Despite being included in the DSM-5 I think there is good reason to doubt the condition’s validity” (CMV: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Is Not “Real” : R/Changemyview, n.d.). What most people, like the person who posted this, know DID as is a very unserious and misrepresented version of what the disorder genuinely is. The main reason there’s such heavy speculation on the validity of DID, despite it being an addition to the DSM since the 80s, is the trend of individuals (especially online) who claim to have a relatively rare disorder like DID. With the release of media that regards DID as a plot device, there’s an uptick in searches all over the web surrounding the topic. Media including movies like Fight Club (1999), Split (2016), and shows like Mr. Robot (2015-2019) and more recently, Moon Knight (2022), have DID featured in their shows without relaying just how serious and debilitating the disorder can be. This media very often misses the mark, so to speak, on their depictions of DID.

Misrepresentation in media like the ones named above aren’t the issue I plan on detailing. The issue I do plan on exploring is the effect that media has on its audiences, specifically the portion of the audience that absorbs the plot-relevant diagnosis of DID in the, for lack of better words, “incorrect” way it’s shown. While a DID diagnosis is not rare, there’s recently been an uptick in adolescents presenting/claiming they have DID. “A number of mental health clinics across the country, including ours, have recently seen an influx of adolescents who are presenting with self-diagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and claiming that within themselves there are a number of different personalities that emerge at different times. Much of this seems to be driven by a small number of influential people on TikTok who have posted very popular videos in which they describe their DID in great detail” (The TikTok-Inspired Surge of Dissociative Identity Disorder, 2022). While social media has worked wonders for awareness about several disorders, including DID, it has also skyrocketed the amount of people who claim to have these disorders. Social media, and the internet as a whole, makes it fairly easy for impressionable people to find out what symptoms they present with and what disorders they align with. Unfortunately, not many of these same people have the resources to find a psychologist or a psychiatrist to formally diagnose them. This leads to what’s been named a “self-diagnosis.”

In itself, self-diagnosis isn’t particularly harmful. The extensive information available all over the web detailing disorders makes it simpler for people to determine what they might be dealing with, like anxiety or depression, and may help them find resources through other mediums as opposed to an expensive psychologist/psychiatrist. This trend of self-diagnosis, though, in tandem with the (completely normal and healthy) adolescent need for attention from parents and peers (Russell, 2024), can lead to some claims that might not be exactly true. “These people, identified as false positives or factitious DID sufferers, are used to interacting in online communities about DID, with influencers on social media claiming to have DID themselves… On the internet and social media, more and more people are claiming to suffer from this disorder, which has become a token of popularity, with many young people relying on influencers who describe their daily lives with this pathology.” (Binet, 2024).

These instances are what genuinely lead to more harm than good. While teens online should be provided with safe spaces to explore their identities with the proper supervision if necessary, clinicians are quoted in papers like TeenVogue saying “’Almost all of my 14-22-years-olds that I work with right now have self-diagnosed something using TikTok,’ said New York-based psychologist Rebecca Semel, PhD. ‘When a client says, ‘I saw this TikTok…,’ I’m waiting with bated breath. Where are we going with this?’ Semel caveats that TikTok can be helpful, calling it ‘an accessible platform’ that ‘gives a lot of tools and strategies that are … not so far from what I would suggest.’ But, she says it can also be a place where people gather mental health advice and information from unreliable sources” (Styx, 2022). The harm this social media frenzy purports isn’t reserved for those who don’t suffer from DID, either; it’s leeching out to affect those who do have a DID diagnosis: “Seventeen-year-old Ivana, from Auckland, New Zealand, says she was diagnosed with DID at 16, and while she considers self-diagnosis a crucial step toward healing, she’s avoided TikTok’s DID community, as she feels dubious accounts ‘romanticize’ and ‘sugar-coat’ the reality of the condition” (Styx, 2022).

Conclusion

While social media has the potential to be a very informative and helpful tool for people to both spread and gain awareness of disorders, specifically DID, it’s had the opposite effect in recent times. These claims that cause direct harm, specifically those who purport to have DID without a formal diagnosis, are not normal nor are they healthy. If anything, these claims are ones that should be attended to a little more closely. These desperate leaps for attention, to spread the idea that you struggle with such a debilitating disorder simply for more attention, are a sign that an individual has some underlying causes that should be addressed. These unaddressed issues, of course, are not an excuse for these individuals to misinform impressionable people about DID. With the history DID has of being scrutinized by professionals and laymen alike, the false claims all over social sites only harm the reputation of a very real diagnosis even further. “The diagnostic validity of dissociative identity disorder (DID) continues to inspire controversy, with some commentators claiming that DID is a modern variant of “hysteria”; that is, attention-seeking behavior. The author asserts that DID is indeed a valid psychiatric disorder and believes that this skeptical reaction can largely be attributed to a specific set of transference/countertransference interactions that these patients tend to inspire” (Foote, 1999).