Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Trauma

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Trauma Dissociative identity disorder is usually a reaction to trauma as a way to help a person avoid bad memories. When people face traumatic experiences, they have a choice to cope in a healthy or unhealthy way. Sometimes in extreme cases, they believe that having another identity could help them cope by escaping their current reality. For example, Dr. Jekyll has created a different personality, Hyde, that he uses to escape his reality and create a new one. Through Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll displays a Dissociative identity disorder due to a traumatic experience that happened in his past.

Dr. Jekyll displays signs of an abused childhood by having a second personality, Mr. Hyde. Jekyll uses Hyde to forget and run away

They use their second personality to escape the pain of losing someone they loved. It is most common that because of a loss of a loved one, people generally create a different personality to disband the pain in their original world. Some signs are a loss of identity as related to individual distinct personality states, and loss of time, sense of self and consciousness. In the book, it shows lots of times where Dr. Jekyll wakes up, not remembering what happened when he was Hyde. For instance, in the book Jekyll turns into Hyde by accident at a park, “ I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs…I was once more Edward Hyde” (Stevenson 51). This shows that he realizes that he changes, but not what he does, and example of this, “Dr. Jekyll was a double personality because he remembered the process of transformation (what today we would call dissociation), but not what he did while he was Mr. Hyde.” (Waiess Vol. 93, Iss. 3,). Also now Jekyll can switch to Hyde with just thoughts instead of potions, which shows how someone with Distinctive Personality disorder can escape to there other reality with just a thought and idea instead of a trigger of some sort. It becomes easier to escape if they lost a loved one, by remembering who the deceased was to them. Just the thought of that person can send someone into a deep depression, which they will heal by switching

When someone is alone their whole childhood life, it creates an image and gets them thinking why. They start asking if something is wrong with them and will live the rest of their life thinking that they are awkward and weird to others. In the book, Jekyll was sitting inside alone stating that he was, “ Very low. It will not last long, thank God.” (Stevenson 25). This was right after he stopped becoming Hyde. It was a cause and effect of the childhood trauma. Because Jekyll stopped becoming Hyde, he became very depressed and didn’t want to see anyone or go outside. In the book, Jekyll does not live with anyone except waiters, servant, and maids. He does not have a lover or any family that live with him. Jekyll even wanted to be left alone for a long time, “‘The doctor is confined to the house’ Poole said, ‘and saw no one’” (Stevenson 22). His want to be alone shows that he never had that much social interactions when he was a child. If he did then he would not be able to stay alone in his room without seeing his friends. He would be so used to having people and friends to talk to that he would be uncomfortable by being alone in a room. As a child he would learn that it is weird not having friends to interact with, so that would cause him to always want to be around friends his whole life. But, it