Im sorry sir but I'm afraid your cat has contracted curiosity.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Motivations
Let's start off by first discussing my motivations to write this. Well the reason is really quite simple, brains are fascinating! Of all the organs, enzymes and tissues that we know off in the human body, there is none that is known as little about as there is the brain. In fact, I’d like to say that the brain is like the human bodies “final frontier”.This in it off itself is slightly amusing as when you think about you as a being, our entire consciousness and way of knowing and understanding is from the brain yet we still know so agonizing little about this ourselves.
Questions
I started my reading by first asking myself a few questions. Some perhaps more philosophical than others but it did give me a good basis to get my brain juices churning and find a starting point.
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What is consciousness? And to a lesser extent, what is free will?
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How are memories stored and why do some people remember things differently then others? IE, why do some have a more “Visual” memory while other recall events based on their other senses.
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Why do we sleep and dream?
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What is intelligence and what are emotions?
Now, I did not go in depth on each of these questions during my research as this was simply a starting point to find out what I did want to read into. And sure enough, the last question about “intelligence” truly resonated with me so that would be the overarching theme for this essay.
Further Questions
After I established what general area I wanted to look into, I then went on to consider which aspect of “intelligence” I wanted to address. After much consideration, I settled on delving into the ocean that is cognitive diseases as how each disease affect the and consequently intelligence. The main diseases which I will be covering are:
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Parkinson’s disease (because I was a fan of Mohammad Ali)
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Autism
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ADHD
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OCD
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Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (because I was inspired by the movie “Glass”)
More specifically I wanted to know what these Diseases were, what their causes and risk factors are, what is the genetics and Neurobiology behind these diseases and what treatment options are available for such ailments.
Structure of the brain
The first step in my research endeavor, I had to understand the general structure of the brain, so I did.
On the left is a proper google image of a brain while the right is well, I guess you could call it my interpretation of the brain. But despite how my brain looks, this drawing did help me understand the general structures of the brain which I previously did not know about. And this actually proved to be monumentally helpful later on as many of the diseases were inter-regional, as in they affected multiple areas of the brain.
With that out of the way, now we shall start with the real heart of matter, or should I say grey matter. Ba Dum Tssssss
So I first found out about this disorder not too long ago actually. I was on a typical youtube-Netflix binge when I stumbled upon the movie “glass” starring James Mcavoy. In the movie, he plays the antagonist of the film who is suffering from DID, with each persona or “alternate” , which is the medical term, having their own unique characteristics, sexual orientation, memories and even physcial attributes. Though the characteristics and symptoms of this disorder portrayed in the film were severely exaggerated, I was still hooked onto the concept of multiple personalities residing in a singular being, like a phone but with different home screen and apps depending on who accesses it.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Getting to the science behind it
Dissociative identity disorder(DID) is a mental disorder characterized by the maintenance of at least 2 distinct personality states. The disorder is often accompanied by severe memory gaps as the alternates take control at different times. There are also a whole slew of associated symptoms including but not limited to: Anxiety, Depression, Substance abuse/Addiction, Suicidal thoughts/Self-harm and hallucinations.
Next I went on to question the psychological impacts of DID, as in how the different personality states manifest, for what reason/ causes and what are the observable impacts of such personality changes (Switches). Interestingly enough, multiple studies published on credible websites like PubMed have shown real physical variations in the person and physical body depending on which alternative is in control. For example, different dominant hands, varying sensitivities to medication and differing allergies. In more extreme cases, differences in visual function and diseases may even present itself, such as differing degrees for eyes/spectacles. In one instance, an american female who was diabetic had an alter who was a younger teen which “did not have diabetes”. And when she was admitted to a hospital for diabetes, there would be times where she would show no symptoms of the disorder which correlated to the times when the younger teenage alter was in control.
This honestly was quite baffling to me, even if it were untrue, simply the concept of the mind and brain having such a diverse and comprehensive impact on the body was fascinating to me. It really puts into perspective the saying “Mind over matter” as it does seem to be the face for this disorder!
Tangential topic (Bodybuilding)
On a tangential note, being an exercise and fitness enthusiast as well, my reading into DID got me thinking about the term “mind muscle connection” which is often thrown around in the fitness and bodybuilding community. This was to explore even more how much influence the brain holds over the body.
The term Mind-muscle connection can be defined in layman terms as the conscious and deliberate muscle contraction to focus tension on a specific muscle. Reading scientific journals, I discovered a 2018 study by the European Journal of Sports science which reported that people who focused on muscle contraction during an exercise saw 15% more muscular growth and strength increases as compared to another group who simply focused on the outcome of the lift in an 8 week study. To me this supported my initial hypothesis and assumption earlier on that the mind and brain have definitive influence on the physical body.
Next I went slightly off topic, but still very interesting, an area of hysterical strength. Eddie Hall, World's strongest man 2017, in 2016 managed to deadlift 500kg or half a ton in competition. His previous best at the time was 460kg(that also being the world record at the time). That's a near 10% jump in the world record! To put things into perspective on how monumental that is, if we were to compare this to track and field sprinting, that would be like Usain Bolt taking 1 second off his 100M sprint world record of 9.58 seconds, absurd I know.
In the post interview with Eddie, he explained his preparation for this competition where he frequently saw a team of psychotherapists, hypnotists and neurologists to create what he called a “pinch point”. This allowed him to consciously access “hysterical strength” where he could recruit 100% of his potential to lift the weight while a normal day to day person only recruits about 60 to 70% of their strength potential. Pretty amazing how much influence the mind has over the body don't you think.
Causes of DID
So with all that said and done, what are the actual causes of DID?
Well, DID is often attributed to overwhelming experiences in early childhood like abuse in combination with a paradoxical parental style where the parent would be loving in one moment,but suddenly become abusive in the next. These traumatic yet inconsistent experiences would be coped with through an elaborate form of denial which manifests in the creation of the alternate personality states. Hence the underlying reason for the DID can be attributed to early childhood abuse.
The personality states in question each have their own unique qualities, hence when the “Main Character” or other alternates encounter a stressful or difficult situation, then this would trigger the switch to a different alternative which would know better on how to address the situation at hand. Hence the trigger factor for switching would be stressful, unknown or overwhelming experiences.
The neurological impacts of DID
My next train of thought was to consider the neurological impacts of this disorder, IE what areas of the brain are affected and the research exists, what are the mechanisms and of the disorder. Well in the case of DID, I was able to find studies involving MRI scans which showed how the 2 regions of the brain, the hippocampus and amygdala, were approximately 25% smaller than an average person. The hippocampus has a role in the formation of long term memories while the amygdala regulates emotions, hence with these 2 areas showing clear deterioration/shrinkage it becomes more evident to my the biological explanation on how the different personality states come to play. An interesting fact which was stumbled upon during this research process was the inconsistency in memory defects. While each memory has their own compartmentalized memories, there seems to be some overlap for “neutral memories” like an alter recognizing certain smells or sensations which another alter had experienced. This interidentity memory transfer had me pondering on how distinct and separated each personality states were, why some memories seem to be shared and how memories are formed. Unfortunately, I could not find the answers to these questions.
Overall, it would seem to me that the symptoms and characteristics of DID showed great similarity to PTSD which makes sense as both disorders stem from overwhelming experienes.
Treatment approaches
Next I got into reading about what can be done to treat such a disorder. Well currently, the only established form of treatment is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which advocates effective communication with the alters and helping the patient findmore adaptive coping strategies than simply switching to another alter when distressed. A study by RP Kluft also showed that working with the alters exhibited greater improvement to the “core alters” well being then trying to combine or suppress the alterers.
Ethical issues for consideration
The last point which I addressed in this research endeavor into DID are the ethical dilemmas which may come from this disorder. One recurring question which I asked myself throughout this writing was what if an alter of a DID patient committed a crime? Who do we punish in this situation. Well if we were to treat the patient as a singular being, then obviously that person would have to be punished. But from my research and writing, DID is an exceptionally complex disorder, creating vastly distinct personalities which each may be considered as an “individual” bearing their own likes and dislikes, characteristics and memories. So in that sense it would be morally wrong to punish that person, the Main Alter, for a crime which he did not commit. Perhaps a plea of insanity would help, but that would still vastly impact the lives of the main and other alters for the faults and wrongdoings of one.