I recently saw a couple of videos on a well-known SM platform purporting to be from folks with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Moving between 'alters' seemed to be the dominant theme. This is what DID actually is: 🧵
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is not a TikTok aesthetic or a theatrical trend. It is one of the rarest and most severe trauma responses known to the human psyche and when it does present, it is quietly devastating.
DID does not emerge from ordinary childhood hardship. It is born of chronic, unthinkable trauma, often severe sexual abuse, during the years when the self is still forming. It is not a choice, but the psyche’s last resort to avoid obliteration.
The psyche fragments not for attention but out of necessity. 'Alters' are not characters, they are dissociated parts of the self, each carrying unbearable memories, affects, or experiences that could not be metabolised at the time.
Contrary to social media portrayals, most with DID do not perform visible ‘switches’. More common are dissociative amnesia, profound confusion, and identity disturbance. The condition is rarely diagnosed, and even more rarely understood even by clinicians.
The danger of such social media trends is twofold:
They trivialise severe trauma, and they risk encouraging vulnerable young people to self-diagnose or emulate symptoms without comprehension of their gravity.
They trivialise severe trauma, and they risk encouraging vulnerable young people to self-diagnose or emulate symptoms without comprehension of their gravity.
Clinically, DID does not look like costume changes. It looks like silence, fragmented memory and deep relational terror. It demands a slow, careful process of safety-building and integration, often over the course of many years.
The task of therapy is not to organise or ‘present’ the alters. It is to support the person in reclaiming continuity, coherence, and the capacity to exist safely in a body and mind that once felt too dangerous to inhabit.
Most therapists will never see a true case of DID. But for those who do, curiosity must be paired with competence. Without specialist knowledge and supervision, the condition is often misdiagnosed, or missed entirely.
DID is not entertainment. It is the mind’s defence against collapse into psychosis or non-being. It deserves clinical seriousness, ethical respect, and cultural sensitivity, not performance, spectacle, or fame.
In fifteen years in the field, I have only ever worked with one case. Want to know more? 👇
In fifteen years in the field, I have only ever worked with one case. Want to know more? 👇
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