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Diagnostic Labels Can Become Your Identity

Changing How You See Yourself

Shirley J. Davis
6 min readOct 1, 2022
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

After receiving the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID), it is tough not to see yourself through that lens. While this is a phase people living with dissociative identity disorder go through, I hope to dispel some of that tragic and dramatic thinking with this piece.

This article will tackle self-identity as DID instead of a person who lives with the diagnosis of DID.

Dissociative Identity Disorder is Not Who You Are

It is common for people who are freshly diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and for many years after getting wrapped up in their diagnosis. They see themselves eating, drinking, dreaming, and living DID.

It is easy not to see yourself as a person anymore, but as something of an oddity. After all, not everyone has their aspects of themselves separated by amnesiac walls. However, people with DID are just people who survived insurmountable odds using dissociation as a tool.

It isn’t necessary to only think about DID. Instead, someone should see themselves as individual human beings who happen to have a mental health issue.

The Harm of Labels

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Shirley J. Davis
Shirley J. Davis

Written by Shirley J. Davis

I am an author/speaker/grant writer in the U.S. My passion is authoring information about mental health disorders, especially dissociative identity disorder..

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