Member-only story
The Problem of Misdiagnosis with Dissociative Identity Disorder
The Hard Journey to Healing
Finding a mental health professional who is a good fit is difficult for anyone. However, if you have dissociative identity disorder as I do, the chances of finding a therapist or psychiatrist who knows how to treat DID are minimal.
Dissociative identity disorder affects 1–2% of the population, causing it to be a leading cause of mental health problems. Regardless, DID is one of the planet’s most misdiagnosed and misunderstood mental health conditions.
In this article, we shall explore the problem of the misdiagnosis of dissociative identity disorder.
The History of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is not a new diagnosis that appeared in the 1980s without any history. Some people believe that the disorder hales back to the Paleolithic age when shamans painted cave images of people seeming to have more than one personality.
The year 1791 brought the first detailed account of an “exchanged personality” in a 20-year-old German woman who suddenly began to speak fluent French. The woman denied the existence of the other alter and that she spoke French.