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Symptoms of Split Personality Disorder

By Ben Mester

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 02Nov2010
Word count: 594
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I hadn't know that split personality disorder, more rightly called dissociative disorder, was so common until I started working at a place where someone had it. He had had split personality disorder symptoms for awhile, but no one had really caught on, except for his psychiatrist. This particular disorder can be very difficult to notice and diagnose because even the person with split personality disorder doesn't generally know that they have it. The personalities are kept as separate entities in the brain unable to communicate with each other.

Let's dispel a few myths. We've all seen the the horror films where someone develops an alternate personality that's a raging serial killer, but in reality, that's not the way it works. It is true that dissociative disorder usually develops as a way for a person to deal with trauma. Children in unstable or dangerous homes are especially susceptible to split personality disorder, because their personalities aren't even fully developed yet. Because of this, it's possible for a child to develop dissociative disorder and retain the condition throughout their adult life. At times of high stress, the disorder may manifest itself in order to help the adult cope. Let's take a look at some specific split personality disorder symptoms. Here are some specific symptoms:

1. Amnesia. Amnesia is one of the biggest split personality disorder symptoms. Like we learned in the first section, the multiple personalities don't communicate with one another inside the brain. Therefore, when one personality takes over to cope with stress or danger, the other personality in essence goes to sleep. If a person complains of memory loss, especially during times of high stress, they may have dissociative disorder.

2. Anxiety, Depression, Detachment. These are more general symptoms, but they are important to watch out for, especially detachment. Those with split personality disorder may get a sense that something isn't functioning the way it's supposed to, almost like someone else has been controlling their actions, which is very close to the truth. This sense can cause a person to feel detached from their life.

3. Distorted Perception. This goes along with the feeling of detachment. A person with split personality disorder may begin to question what's real and what isn't. The more a person feels detached from their life and surroundings, the more they may begin to feel that certain things aren't actually real.

Dissociative fugue is something similar to split personality disorder, but different. Dissociative fugue actually causes a person to flee their own identity. They'll leave whatever they're doing, work, their home, in the middle of cooking dinner, and just leave. They'll temporarily forget who they are and in some cases will actually take on a new identity in a different place. This condition is obviously more unpredictable, but the good news is that it's much more recognizable. In some ways, dissociative fugue is almost like the physical manifestation of the inner turmoil happening with split personality disorder. In many ways it's different though, because a fugue episode has a very indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes it can last as short as a few hours. Other times it can go for as long as a few months, though this is rare. Once the dissociative fugue episode ends, the person often feels intensely disoriented, not knowing where they are or how they got there. Dissociative fugue might not show any prior symptoms, but if it does, the symptoms will most likely match with those above.

** This article is meant to add to your general knowledge and is not meant to be taken as medical advice**

Thanks for stopping by and reading about some split personality disorder symptoms. For more information on conditions and symptoms, read my article on Vitamin D deficiency symptoms in adults.

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