“Multiple personality disorder” probably doesn't exist

Next you're going to tell me supersoldier serum and horny sentient planets aren't real either, you monster

See also: Internal Family Systems. It's a form of therapy that considers all of us has having many different discrete "parts".

I recently started IFS therapy and have been having success with it. I'm not sure how literally I take the "parts" (I think they may be much less "solid" and more transient than IFS claims), but it seems to be a really interesting and helpful way to approach your own mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model

I think quite a few identity-centered mental illnesses might actually be particular delusions, and in some cases we may be grouping people subject to one mental abnormality with others who are under the delusion they have that abnormality. That could explain why certain subsets of people exhibit symptoms which don't match the normal presentation. For example, and anecdotally based on my personal experience, people under the delusion of being transgender get grouped together with people who are actually transgender. The "real" transgender people behave about the same way before and after their transition. They carry themselves like their gender, they talk like it, they react like it, and the biggest change after transitioning is them getting happier. The ones I hypothesize are actually subject to a delusion of being transgender don't act like that. Their personality shifts radically after transitioning and they behave like an exaggerated caricature of their target gender and have a very difficult time navigating small group dynamics of their target gender.

I've seen similar patterns with people whose presentation of disorders like DID and Tourette's Syndrome differ radically from the clinical symptoms but match the pop culture presentation.

I'm not a mental health professional and I'm not even specifically going to advise against this or anything. I truly don't know enough to know whether it's inherently dangerous or just an extreme outlier on the continuum of human experiences of selfhood.

But I have some experiences and observations that may be relevant that I'd like to share and maybe you can find something useful in them.

I have, at this stage in my life, known several people who, whatever their specific clinical diagnosis, you could fairly say "lost their mind." Government-chip-in-brain believers, reincarnations of alexander the great, friends with an invisible alien, that sort of thing.

What remains one of the most frightening experiences of my life was realizing that I had known one of these people 15+ years before, when he was a college student. We had a brief but strong friendship and then lost touch. Was he predisposed to serious mental illness back then? Must have been I guess but I couldn't tell and neither could he I think.

All the other people I know who lost themselves in this way, it happened through addiction. When talking about a single individual it's very hard to find where addiction begins and mental illness begins, so maybe this is unique to that context but I don't think so. You don't get a warning letter about what specific risks your own mind has for you. There's no blood test for this.

Most of the craziest people you've ever encountered were probably pretty normal once. This transformation is a process and I don't think you can see it happen from within it. I've spent some time out there myself, and it wasn't all bad, but I didn't mean to go out and I'm glad I'm back.

I think the slavic religions and others with this tradition are onto something with the "holy fools" and similar figures. Some of us may be called to have a different relationship with reality, and they, or we, may benefit from that in some complex societal way. But from my experiences and from knowing people who have gone on that trip, there is a heavy cost.

So my advice is just to pursue this, if at all, with another person. An open-minded mental health professional, a spiritual guide, just a close friend; someone who knows and respects you outside of this context. Someone who is going to stay moored and let you know if you're starting to drift, who can evaluate what you might lose if you continue. That way you can at least make an informed choice about whether to continue on that path, rather than one day notice where you are and realize you don't know the way back.

> I know I'm rambling, I guess I'm saying is that even though I am skeptical of DID, or at least the mainstream depictions of DID, after making a tulpa I am a lot less skeptical of the subjective experience of DID.

I'm under the impression that the existence of DID as a subjective experience isn't that controversial.

It is something of a stereotype that someone suspected of a crime would claim DID as a defence or excuse, either in the sense that they aren't in control of themselves and that the disorder can cause an "alter" can take over akin to Mr Hyde, or simply as grounds for not remembering what happened. I suspect, though, that a qualified professional in psychiatry could call the bluff, and this entire stereotype might be more prevalent in pop culture and among laypeople than among experts in psychiatry.

Apart from pop culture and suspects feigning psychiatric disorders, the actual controversy seems to be not about the subjective reality of the disorder, but mostly about whether the symptoms and experiences of alters are caused by the trauma or the disorder itself, or whether they're iatrogenic and caused by the therapeutic and psychological theory used in treatment.

The latter might not require much more than a suitable emotional state and suggestibility of the patient. Considering that some people who are emotionally vulnerable due to trauma or prolonged stress may be particularly susceptible to suggestion, I wouldn't be surprised if the symptoms were at least partially iatrogenic.

I'm not a mental health expert, though.