About Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is when someone has more than one existence of identity. The body is the host or system, while the identities are known as alters. DID can be identified by the changes in behaviour, memory, and thinking, as well as clothing, how they speak, and body language. Most people diagnosed with DID suffered some trauma when they were little. Some of the most common alter identities that someone can have are: the host, protector, child (littles), opposite gender, persecutor, and internal self-helper. 

I’m not an expert on DID, but I’ve been trying to learn more and more about the disorder and how it works. One of the best examples of this would be DissociaDID on YouTube; they are a channel that gives explanations on what DID is and introduces the different alters in the system.

About Split

Split is about Kevin (played by James McAvoy), who has been diagnosed with DID—since a childhood trauma—and has 23 different alters. The alters that show up more are Barry, Dennis, Patricia, and Hedwig. One of the identities, Dennis, kidnaps three teenage girls and holds them hostage. The three young girls (played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula) must try to find a way out before Kevin’s violently powerful 24th alter, known as “the Beast”, comes to life. 

Why Split is a bad representation of DID

Split has villainized those who happen to live with multiple personalities. It portrays people with DID to be harmful and violent to others, which is not the case at all. People with DID are the victims of trauma and abuse; they are not abusers. They are more likely to harm themselves rather than others around them. While Split briefly addresses childhood trauma and how the alters help the system cope, it has failed to represent DID correctly. 

On the website Business Insider, there is an article called Dissociative identity disorder is nothing like how it’s portrayed in ‘Split’, according to people who have it. The article mentions four people who have multiple personalities and how their system works. Each person talks about how all the alters have a purpose in keeping the system healthy and safe, and they all have a different job within the system. 

On the Business Insider website, the same people talk about what they want the readers to know about DID. Split shows that someone diagnosed with DID has one or more evil alters, but the majority of people with DID don’t have identities that have those evil desires.

Besides Split representing people with DID as evil and dangerous, the movie also portrays the switches all wrong too. The shifts from alter to alter are over the top and apparent, and real switches are not as obvious. In the film, each alter had a full wardrobe, and you can easily distinguish when a switch between identities happens. In real life, people with DID try to blend in with other people and not have a whole wardrobe for every identity. And their switches are smaller than what the movie shows, so you wouldn’t be able to distinguish what identity took over the system.

I also want to point out that after the movie came out, James McAvoy tried to talk to somebody with DID. But because the movie badly represented the disorder, nobody wanted to talk to him. That should speak for itself.

My Thoughts

People with DID are just that, people. They’re not evil, dangerous, or ‘beasts’. Movies like this hurt them because they’re being shown as monsters. I read some stories told by people with DID, and it made my heart hurt that they have to go through life and witness uneducated people make a movie about their disorder. It’s not right.

Educate Yourselves.

Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.