Redeem now - Trisha Paytas caused a stir on the internet once again for claiming she has Dissociative identity disorder (DID).
- DID is a psychiatric diagnosis formerly known as Multiple personality disorder, where people have several alters.
- It is always linked to early childhood trauma, where the personality is fragmented to protect the mind from tremendous pain, according to professor of clinical psychology Robert T. Muller.
- Whether or not Paytas does have DID, she spread several huge misconceptions about it in her video — many of which were explained by Nin, the host of a DID system, on their channel DissociaDID.
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Trisha Paytas caused havoc on the internet once again when she posted a YouTube video called "MEET MY ALTERS." In it, she claimed to have Dissociative identity disorder (DID), a psychiatric diagnosis formerly known as Multiple personality disorder.
The video, where she talks about having multiple distinct personalities called T, Trixie, Tyson, Tierney, and Tobolter, has currently been watched over 700,000 times, and has 75,000 dislikes at the time of writing. Much of the outrage came at Paytas because she spread misinformation about the disorder, diagnosed herself rather than going to a mental health professional, and used outdated and offensive terms.
Despite no formal diagnosis, Paytas said DID is what she feels is the best fit. We cannot know whether she really does have DID, but what is clear is that the incorrect statements she makes throughout the video are incredibly damaging to both people who have DID and those who want to learn more about it.
Spreading ignorance only intensifies the stigmas surrounding people who live with DID, who are strong and resilient, but already vulnerable because of what they have been through.
Paytas seems to misunderstand how alters work
Paytas' first error in the video is saying that alter stands for people who have multiple personalities. Alter actually stands for "altered state of consciousness," which are the different personalities who can front as part of a person's DID system.
Paytas also seems to misunderstand how alters work. There is no one original personality that controls all the others, but several fragments that are all whole in themselves.
YouTuber Nin, who identifies as part of a DID called DissociaDID, detailed Paytas' errors in an informative video. She explained how the alter who is at the front most often is called the host, but all of them are their own entities with their own personalities, skills, ages, sexes, and interests.
"A very simple way that I like to put it is, if you were to drop a glass bowl, and it shatters into a number of pieces on the floor, which piece is the original piece?" she said. "They are all part of the same bowl. But they are also all their own individual pieces. They matter just as much on their own as they do when they were part of a bowl."
DID is always linked to early trauma
DID expert Robert T. Muller, a professor of clinical psychology at York University in Toronto, told Business Insider that every case he has ever seen has been linked to early childhood trauma and abuse. Work by other psychiatrists such as Bethany Brand has solidified this theory.
When a child goes through something that is too damaging and harmful for them to comprehend before the personality fully forms at around ages 7 to 9, the mind dissociates. The child's mind cannot deal with the trauma and so it puts up a wall, often known as an amnesia barrier, to protect itself. This is when the personality splinters off so some parts remember the trauma and other parts don't, so the person develops several personalities instead of one.
It's essentially a defence mechanism for the mind, like playing possum, only it has been taken to the extreme, Muller said.
"In order to develop DID, there has to be repeated childhood trauma before the ages of where your personality fully integrates," Nin said in her video. "Amnesia walls prevent the personality being able to fully combine."
DID does not exist without dissociation
Another misconception Paytas fuelled is that she must have DID because she takes on parts of other people's personalities and mannerisms. In reality this is just part of interacting with people. As Nin explained in her video, everyone is a product of every person they've interacted with — that's just how personalities grow.
Paytas also said some of her alters dissociate while others don't, but the truth is DID does not exist without dissociation. All alters filter in and out of consciousness.
It is possible to be coconscious, Nin explained, which means having two or more alters being at the front at the same time, sharing thoughts and interacting. But most of the time, alters are independent, and one will not know what the other has been doing because of the amnesia barrier.
Paytas suggested she got certain traits from each of her alters, blaming her failed relationships on her more turbulent ones, for instance. But alters don't really work like that.
One the other DissociaDID alters, Kyle, is strong on his own, but so is Nin. One alter may appear when extra patience, kindness, or resilience is needed, but they exist as their own people, and they do not live for the host.
"Sometimes when you are blendy, or you are coconscious, it is really difficult to tell where one alter stars and the other ends," Nin said. "They were created to keep you safe, to protect you, but they're not necessarily there to serve you. They don't belong to you. They're their own people. So their emotions are their emotions."
It's also unlikely each alter will know who has been there before them, or feel another one coming, because of the amnesia wall.
People with DID are not 'crazy'
Paytas also throws around the term "crazy," which is a deeply insensitive term to describe anyone with a mental illness. Nin said this feeds into the idea that people with DID are seen as evil or characters in horror films, like M. Night Shyamalan's "Split" or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Muller said alters being depicted this way could originate from the fact there is often a juvenile part, who is childish to their approach to the world, and then a "persecutor" who is very aggressive.
"[It's] a part that actually wants to torture themselves in a way, but to the person when they're in the persecutor role, they feel powerful and their cruelty feels powerful to themselves," he said.
This doesn't mean the alter wants to wreak havoc on anyone else, as usually it's a means of punishing themselves. As with some other victims of abuse, people with DID also may have very low self-esteem and self-worth, he said. This misconception also fuels people thinking DID isn't real because it's too fantastical.
"It's one of those conditions that people find spooky, and distressing to talk about, so they don't think it is a real thing, and people just make it up," Muller said.
Nin said hearing doubt like this is deeply hurtful because it's not just denying the disorder, but it's a denial of the childhood trauma too.
"Can you imagine how devastating that is?" she said in her video. "For somebody to look into your eyes as you're expressing this very vulnerable part of yourself, something that has happened to you, because somebody did things to a child that nobody should do ... And say, 'You're nuts, it's not real, you're making it up'?"
Alters do not die
After introducing all her alters, Paytas said it felt like one of them was dying. This is not something that happens. Alters can integrate with each other through therapy if they start to understand the trauma they went through and are guided through memories of the past without getting badly triggered by them. They can also go dormant if their certain protections aren't needed.
We should not doubt Paytas' experience, and it is plausible that she does in fact have DID. But it is important people have the right information and are diagnosed by experts if they spread their words to a large audience. Especially with a disorder like DID which is already so stigmatized, hyperbolized, and misunderstood already.
Read more:
Being schizophrenic doesn't mean you have multiple personalities — here's how to tell the difference
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