Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a diagnosis described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Revised, as
the existence in an individual of two or more distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. At least two of these personalities are considered to routinely take control of the individual's behavior, and there is also some associated memory loss, which is beyond normal forgetfulness. This memory loss is often referred to as "losing time". These symptoms must occur independently of substance abuse or a general medical condition.
Dissociative identity disorder was initially named multiple personality disorder (MPD), and, as referenced above, that name remains in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.
Regardless of whether the disorder is termed dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder, it is in no way related to schizophrenia. Although schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are commonly linked in the minds of lay people, it is a misconception.
While dissociation is a demonstrable psychiatric condition that is tied to several different disorders, specifically those involving early childhood trauma and anxiety, multiple personality remains controversial. Despite the controversy, some mental health institutes, such as McLean Hospital[1], have wards specifically designated for dissociative identity disorder.
Dissociation is a complex mental process that provides a coping mechanism for individuals confronting painful and/or traumatic situations. It is characterized by a dis-integration of the ego. Ego integration, or more properly ego integrity, can be defined as a person's ability to successfully incorporate external events or social experiences into their perception, and to then present themselves consistently across those events or social situations. A person unable to do this successfully can experience emotional dysregulation, as well as a potential collapse of ego integrity. In other words, this state of emotional dysregulation is, in some cases, so intense that it can precipitate ego dis-integration, or what, in extreme cases, has come to be referred to diagnostically as dissociation.
Dissociation describes a collapse in ego integrity so profound that the personality is considered to literally break apart. For this reason, dissocation is often referred to as "splitting" or "altering". Less profound presentations of this condition are often referred to clinically as disorganization or decompensation. The difference between a psychotic break and a dissociation, or dissociative break, is that, while
someone who is experiencing a dissociation is technically pulling away from a situation that s/he cannot manage, some part of the person remains connected to reality. While the psychotic "breaks" from reality, the dissociative disconnects, but not all the way.
Because the person suffering a dissociation does not completely disengage from his/her reality, s/he may appear to have multiple "personalities". In other words, different "people" to deal with different situations, but generally speaking, no one person (who will retreat altogether.
Patients often have a remarkable array of symptoms that can resemble other neurologic and psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety disorders, personality disorders, schizophrenic, mood psychoses and seizure disorders. Symptoms of this particular disorder can include:
depression
anxiety (sweating, rapid pulse, palpitations)
phobias
panic attacks
physical symptoms (severe headaches or other bodily pain)
fluctuating levels of function, from highly effective to disabled
time distortions, time lapse, and amnesia
sexual dysfunction
eating disorders
post traumatic stress
suicidal preoccupations and attempts
episodes of self-mutilation
psychoactive substance abuse[4]
Other symptoms include:
Depersonalization, which refers to feeling unreal, removed from one's self, and detached from one's physical and mental processes. The patient feels like an observer of his life and may actually see himself as if he were watching a movie. Derealization refers to experiencing familiar persons and surroundings as if they were unfamiliar and strange or unreal.
^Wikipedia
Link:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/mpd_did5.htm
At first, MPD therapists regarded the disorder as a unexpected consequence of extreme abuse during childhood. But some went further and found what they believed to be evidence of deliberately induced MPD. They developed a theory that "mind-control cults" systematically used techniques of ritual abuse and/or Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) in order to create MPD in children. Bob Larson estimates that "An estimated 25 to 60% [sic] multiples have been subjected to ritual torture, sodomy, and mutilation. Conservative projections of ritual survivals have reached 100,000 in the United States alone." 1 The Los Angeles County Task Force on Ritual Abuse describes programming as follows:
"
Mind control is the cornerstone of ritual abuse, the key element in the subjugation and silencing of its victims. Victims of ritual abuse are subjected to a rigorously applied system of mind control designed to rob them of their sense of free will and to impose upon them the will of the cult and its leaders." 2
The Task Force lists techniques commonly used by the cult, which include:
physical abuse: starvation, thirst, pain, drugs, exhaustion, physical isolation, sexual abuse, disorienting bright lights.
emotional abuse: the creation of moods of terror, guilt, shame, emotional isolation and rage.
cognitive abuse: being kept in a state of ignorance, confusion.
spiritual abuse: being taught that God has abandoned them and that Satan is in control
It was believed that some women within Satanic cults became pregnant often, in order to maintain a supply of newborns to the cult for abusive purposes. They would be delivered by doctors within the cult. Their
births were not registered, so that there would be no record of them having existed. Other infants were kidnapped, and used for human sacrifice. Some investigators believed that the cults maintained large, baby-
breeding concentration camps. Teenage runaway women were repeatedly raped there; babies born were transported across North America to satisfy the continuous need of the cults.
Children were tested at an early age for dissociative ability. Those who passed were systematically abused and carefully programmed in order to generate MPD.
A common belief is that the cults create at least one alter which would become a Satanist in adulthood. That alter would have the responsibility of continuing the cult into the next generation through intentionally induced MPD. In this way, the cult would continue inter-generationally forever. Those children found with a low level of dissociative ability were not programmed; they were ritually sacrificed and their bodies disposed of.