Stigma in Professional Spheres of DID

Now there is a lot of stigmas associated with both professionals and people diagnosed with this disorder. Some professionals aren’t educated enough on what DID is or don’t even believe in its existence or believe therapists “give” clients the Disorder.

What really has pissed me off is the bad portayals of people often violent portrayals of the victims of this disorder. What professionals or laymen or sufferers of this disorder don’t understand is that everyone dissociates sometime. The way dissociation identity develops is usually before age of 7 from abuse, neglect, or any other traumatic experiences and since a childs psyche is so fragile their unconscious decides to split or compartmentalize the trauma away to deal with it. That’s why disorders dealing with trauma or neglect or abandonment like PTSD or Borderline Personality Disorder.

The stigma is mainly due to mainstream movies like “Split” or “Sybil” that inaccurately show DID.

Now concerning professionals only the stigmas often arise because most people who finally get treatment for DID have several previous mental health diagnoses, which had poor treatment outcomes, and in the course of an individual’s therapy you could switch or have what appear to be symptoms that don’t “add up”. So finding a therapist who deals with trauma and dissociative disorders is a priority once the diagnosis is made.

Any other reason is the stigma of Borderline Personality Disorder in the psychiatric community and some of the overlapping features of those. Actually most people with DID have a previous diagnosis or co-occuring diagnosis of BPD.