Don’t Believe Everything that You See on the Screen—An Insider’s View of Living with Dissociative Identities 

Hollywood loves to improperly portray dissociative identity disorder (DID), still playing into so many tropes from days gone by when our condition was called multiple personality disorder. As recently as 2020 with Ryan Murphy’s Ratched and 2022 with the Marvel Cinematic Universes’ Moon Knight, the characters with dissociative identities were murderers and assassins. Their plurality—which formed as a response to severe trauma—automatically made them prone to violence. We celebrate the efforts of documentary series like A & E’s The Many Sides of Jane, and even the scores of TikTokers with DID who give the public a glimpse into their lives, showing that dissociation is not inherently violent. Yet I am/we are one of many people with dissociative identities who find even portrayals like The Many Sides of Jane or what TikTokers elect to showcase as frustrating or even problematic. 

We are not worried that such portrayals are turning DID into a “fad.” However, these portrayals can exploit the dramatic and even humorous sides of having a dissociative system for the sake of entertainment. Citing the wisdom of my friend living with DID, “I think most people would be surprised to see how routine and boring my life really is.” 

Several of my friends like this person who identify as having dissociative systems recently joked that we should get together and make a documentary about the routine, boring reality of living with dissociative identities. Especially when we’ve been able to experience quality therapy and a good amount of healing, life can be a fulfilling, thriving place. As my friends discussed this possibility, many of us running successful businesses and taking care of families, we laughed upon drawing the conclusion: “Who would watch that? There’s nothing entertaining about our lives.” 

Dissociation, or the tendency that the human mind has to sever, divide, or separate from a disturbing, unpleasant, or stressful experience, is a rather normal part of the human experience. All human beings dissociate at one time or another in their lives. For survivors of chronic or severe trauma, dissociative responses exist to meet a need or to protect oneself and their internal system. We’ve grown accustomed to accessing these responses more regularly and with greater intensity. If you’ve ever referred to yourself before as being able to compartmentalize in order to handle the demands of being a parent with the stress of your job, that is a form of dissociation. For those of us with dissociative parts, our brains have simply allowed us to do it to a more intense degree and it can feel like we are navigating life with various selves in our head to help us manage. My system uses the metaphor of a car—Dr. Jamie (our professional self) and Jamie (our more laid-back self) drives the car, yet the other Jamies are constantly with us as passengers. Sometimes they take a nap. Other times they are full of commentary. And at many times in our adult lives, they have cried out until we stop the car to take care of them.

There are as many varieties of dissociative experiences as there are flavors of ice cream or hues on a color wheel. So what I/we offer you here is only one example of how a mind with dissociative experiences can develop and learn to thrive. Like many of my fellow humans in the plural community, we are generally able to show up for work and get things done because we have those parts that allow us to do that. Thus, I always laugh when people express fear about individuals with dissociative identities being doctors or lawyers, therapists or teachers. 

“What if they switch parts during work? What if they forget things?”

Being on the job is usually the least of our worries—it’s the rest of life that gets hard to handle. And this is not to say that our systems need to be fully operational with our super person part at all times in order to be valuable members of society. Because even that super person part can get overworked and overheated, causing the entire system to need a rest. In 2016, we experienced a great deal of marital difficulties that ultimately led to a divorce, and then Donald Trump getting elected President jolted our system. As a survivor of abuse, seeing so many people rise to support Trump was too much to handle, and we were grateful to be able to take some time off at the end of 2016 to get the necessary upgrade in our care that we needed.

My dissociative identities developed in response to early childhood trauma, mostly of a spiritual and religious nature. I/we also experienced other forms of abuse and severe bullying from our peers at school. We experience life through the lens of three parts who we refer to as Four, Nine, and Nineteen—versions of ourselves when we were chronologically those ages and the wounding became too much for us to bear. Reflecting back, now with the knowledge of being a professional ourself who has spent much of our adult life getting to know dissociation, more parts formed around these ages to help us carry the burdens and the shame. Yet as we grew and healed, these smaller parts stayed with the major ego states of us at those ages—versions of us that we do not want to go away. To this day, even though they can cry out in agony when situations that are reminiscent of what they experienced become too much, they also help us handle whatever life brings our way. They are radiant aspects of what makes our personality adaptive—they are important parts of our shine, like edges of a diamond reflecting light. 

Having a dissociative mind is not something that needs to be cured. So many people in our community are still reeling from the hurt of therapists or spiritual leaders telling them that they have to integrate, or combine all of their parts together and just live life as one person. For us, such messaging is cruel and damaging. We love our parts and would not want any of them to go away. We do, however, desire the deepest possible healing for each of them and have been privileged to work with a variety of therapists, teachers, and spiritual practitioners over the years to help care for us. When we can tap into that healing state in each of them, we are able to do marvelous things in life, like being able to embrace different sides of a story or debate, or shapeshift in a way that allows us to really meet people where they are. This skill works wonders for me as a practicing therapist and educator. 

Even when my parts still cry or act out in pain, that is a sign that I need to listen to them. My Nine part, who originally held our tendencies towards self-injury and suicidal ideas, could be seen by many therapists as our most destructive part. Yet today when we feel her throw a temper tantrum inside of us, it’s generally a sign that we need to be still, rest, and listen to her. When we can do that, she tells us exactly what she needs. And it’s usually something like, “Why don’t you stop trying to fix everything and just let us get angry or frustrated…or even sad for a while,” or “Jamie, take a nap…we all need to rest.” 

She really is a genius. And in my experience, many of us blossom with this simple wisdom and creativity. Our hope now, as a community, is that you will directly listen to all of us about what we have to share and what we can offer.