Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession. The disruption in identity involves marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning.

I still didn't know very much about the complex coping mechanism that had helped me survive my childhood. It was as if my conscious mind wasn't strong enough yet to fully grasp that I had parts. I knew it superficially, but I didn't feel it all the way through.

I'd heard all the jargon dozens of times ~ the 'alters', the 'personalities' — and dismissed them. Now they all took on new significance. They were no longer just words or ideas or theories. They were people.

Traumatic experiences in adults generally do not produce multiple personality disorder but rather states of catatonic withdrawal, out-of-body experiences, fugue states, or psychogenic amnesias.

Finally, those who do not meet the SCID-D-R standard for "distinct identities or personality states," but who do meet the SCID-D-R's other four standards (for DSM-IV's Criterion A and Criterion B) for DID, receive a SCID-D-R diagnosis of DDNOS-1a.

My mind instinctively developed new parts to specialize in skills I needed to make it through law school. They learned to focus on the important information: the outlines, the nutshells, and what each case meant.

as my understanding of and competence in treating the disorder have grown, multiple personality has come to seem, though still horrendous, less unique and incomprehensible, and thus more manageable

People with DID often experience conflicting advice or opinions emanating from their alter personalities. Individual alter personalities may have coherent, consistent identities, but, taken as a group, the incompatible internal personalities generate an atmosphere of conflict as well as incoherence. As one patient described it, "Do you know how hard it is to get a hundred and four minds to come together to a single decision?

Trapped within the confines of his mind, he is too aware of every thought passing through it, as if he were outside, looking in. At night he often lies awake ruminating endlessly about what’s wrong with him, about death, and about the meaning of existence itself. At times his arms and legs feel like they don’t belong with his body. But most of the time, his mind feels like it is operating apart from the body that contains it.

We have faced many pitfalls and negatives on our journey so far, but dissociation and dissociating gave us a methodology to cope with the trauma as a child. We have no doubt that skill probably saved our life back then, making it bearable for us to cope with the trauma we encountered.