Multiple Personality Disorder

Multiple Personality

Multiple Personalities, also known as split personality is defined as a disorder in which an individual displays several functionally dissociated personalities, each of a complexity comparable to that of a normal individual. Multiple Personalities disorder occurs in many people across America , it does not discriminate. It affects men and women of every race no matter the age. Their has been cases reported of Multiple Personalities in children as well as adults and the elderly.

Multiple Personality Disorder also known as (MPD). MPD was first discovered by the famous psychiatrist by the name of Marquis de Puysegur in 1784. It was one of his first cases and was called "magnetic sleep" 7 years later, in 1791 the first published account of multiple personalities was written by Eberhard Gmelin along with his treatment of the woman for her illness. Since the discovery of MPD there has been two million cases world wide.

Multiple personality disorder is now called dissociative identity disorder as it is more accurate to say so. Even know there have been over 2 million cases world wide. It is often thought that multiple personality disorder is a trick, a bizarre form of "play-acting" that is committed by manipulative, attention-seeking individuals. It is not. Multiple personality disorder is a "disorder of hiding" wherein 80-90% of multiple personality disorder patients do not have a clue that they have the disorder. Most know that there is something wrong with them, many fear that they are crazy, but few know that they have a disorder.

Patients suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder loose memory in the form of major chunks. They do not remember things happened in their lives over an extended period of time or sometimes they forget what had happened with them between particular periods of time. For example, people forget everything about their childhood or sometimes they forget about whatever happened during a time period say some 3-4 year of time. When a person alters and a different personality dominates them, they do not remember what they did after they become normal.

Depersonalization is another symptom people suffering from MPD experience. Patient feel as if his/her body is getting dissolved, sometimes they feel as if they are out of their own body and watching something happening to there own body but do not have any control over it, sometimes they feel as if their body is not real and is changing in size, shape, color etc. Patient also experience derealization as one of the symptoms of this disorder. Patient experience whatever he/she is looking at, that thing is changing in shape, size or color. Sometimes they feel as if the things they are watching are not real.

In many cases Multiple Personality Disorder can cause other physiological disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, ect..... By causing the other physiological disorders this may cause psychiatrist to misdiagnose patients with other disorders and not MPD.

Causes of this Disorder come in many shapes and forms. Most people diagnosed with MPD were either physically or sexually abused as children. Many times when a young child is severely abused, he or she becomes so detached from reality that what is happening may seem more like a movie or television show than real life. This self-hypnotic state, called disassociation, is a defense mechanism that protects the child from feeling overwhelmingly intense emotions. Disassociation blocks off these thoughts and emotions so that the child is unaware of them. In effect, they become secrets, even from the child. According to the American Psychiatric Association, many MPD patients cannot remember much of their childhoods.

Not all children who are severely and repeatedly abused develop multiple personality disorder. However, if the abuse is repeatedly extreme and the child does not have enough time to recover emotionally, the disassociated thoughts and feelings may begin to take on lives of their own. Each cluster of thoughts tends to have a common emotional theme such as anger, sadness, or fear. Eventually, these clusters develop into full-blown personalities, each with its own memory and characteristics.

Often a very traumatic experience such as a death of someone close to you or a near death experience can trigger Multiple Personality Disorder. As well as living a very stressful life with the burden of work, having to take on a enormous amount of responsibilities, and having a very dysfunctional family life at home.

There is one cases of a child with Multiple Personality Disorder reported in India. In this case it was a 14 year girl. She was brought to the institution by her parents. They said that for the last two weeks she has been behaving like a male. She calls herself "Mr. S". She does not recognize her friends, family, teachers, or any other of her relatives. There was a huge change in her behavior, like she had become stubborn, confident, outgoing and demanding during this time compared to how she acted before she showed these traits.

She soon developed an interest for painting and drawing, and would also demand all different types of fast food items, dresses, and other articles in her new personality. She stopped going to school and demanded to stay home all day long. She would also write post cards and not address them to anyone. She soon began to faint and twisting to both extremities but not losing consciousness, major injury, or tongue biting. These episodes would last for a whole 30 minutes to 2 hours at times.

These start out happening every 10 to 15 days, then soon became 10 to 15 times per day. There was one time where she had an episode in the morning while she had just turned over to her male personality. After she got through the episode, she stayed in her male state for 15 days then she would return to her normal state for about 1 to 2 days then go back to her male personality. These would happen more often around events like her birthday and festivals.

After investigation of her life and other family members the scientist came to a couple conclusions. One of the more easily explained solutions to why she was having the problems are when she was younger her parents separated.

There is a case in St. Louis, where a young women who was thought to be possessed was in fact just struck with Multiple Personality Disorder. Until modern psychology came along, demonic possession was commonly mistakenly diagnosed