Living With Dissociative Identity Disorder

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Living With Dissociative Identity Disorder As a teacher walks into her classroom, and demands attention she carefully instructs the students on how to perform the next step in their multiplication problem her students would never have thought she was anyone else but herself. However, she holds a secret that no one but her husband and family knows about. This seemingly normal teacher has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or otherwise known as DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a disorder, which typically happens after intense sexual or physical abuse, that the individual somehow splits their mind into several different personalities. This is why the previous name of this disorder was called Multiple Personalities Disorder, and some individuals will still refer to this disorder as such. The owner of the blog, ‘Sunshine and Shadows Life with DID’ was a victim of child abuse by her father, and whether this was sexual, physical, or both types of abuse was never stated. She was diagnosed with DID in 2009, and began this blog in 2010. She refuses to express her true identity but goes by Sunshine on the blog. Sometimes she signs as one of her alters, but this is rare because typically she is herself when she writes. Sunshine is a teacher, and is afraid of the school district in which she works for finding out about her disorder because, due to their current policies, she could and most likely would be fired. Even with the fairness of the situation she currently resides in questionable, she understands it is what she must do to help provide for her two children and husband ("Sunshine and shadows," 2011). Therefore, the question one may ask is how exactly does she keep the personalities at bay while teaching? Thi... ... middle of paper ... ... had more alters present, but they have not came out while writing or she did not speak of them in her blog. Also, individuals who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder often feel more symptoms than just their different personalities. They also may suffer from symptoms that correlate more with depression such as fatigue, insomnia, hypersomnia, mood swings, suicidal ideation or tendencies and they may also exhibit compulsive behaviors, anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, and eating disorders (Johnson, 2012). Although neither Sunshine, nor Suzy expressed a majority of these symptoms in their blogs that does not mean they did not suffer from them. Also, one could definitely see mood swings between the two bloggers at certain times. Their posts ranged from highest of the highs to lowest of the lows in one day or less. This apparently is not atypical in the slightest.

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