Comment by bboy13 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bboy13 | Hacker News Reader

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The authors of this article seem to interpret this as an imaginative fancy of his that he "created"; rather, this actually seems to be a classic case of a polyfragmented DID system [of identities], also known as complex DID.

Oftentimes, alters are not formed consciously, and this is a severe disorder that is heavily traumagenic in nature. In my personal nonprofessional opinion, it's one of the harder non-neurodegenerative diseases to live with.

Source -- personal experience, I'm on the dissociative spectrum in some way, as best as I know. Expecting to receive a diagnosis shortly as an OSDD-1b system, and potentially DID under the ICD/ANP qualifications. The dissociative spectrum is actually shockingly common as a disorder, appearing in up to 1 in 12 in the general population, but is almost never diagnosed because much like PTSD in the 80's, it's heavily underemphasized and is seemingly not well-popularized in psychological circles today. Rather, the food fight over the legitimacy of DID seems to be taking away from work that could be done to further dissociative treatment modalities/other complex trauma disorders. Sauce on the 1 in 12 stat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579511/

More info on polyfragmented systems here:https://this-is-not-dissociative.tumblr.com/post/18617448707...

I'm inclined to agree with you, that this sounds very much like a presentation of Dissociative Identity Disorder, with the reservation that I don't know the situation or the individuals beyond these simple reports.

It sounds like you've done quite a bit of reading on this and are consulting with a mental health professional towards a diagnosis. While this might not be relevant to you, if you haven't already, you may want to also explore and discuss together the schizophrenia spectrum. It's also much broader than many people realize and has significant overlap with the dissociative spectrum. It doesn't have to involve the kinds of extreme hallucination or delusion stereotypically associated with schizophrenia itself.

For instance someone with Schizoid PD might experience a sense of switching between personas when they are exhibiting covert characteristics. Or a person with Schizotypal PD might experience shifts in identity as a result of sub-psychotic disturbances, or might turn their suspicion inward to ruminate on the nature of their own identity.

You likely have a stronger sense of established alters since you specifically mention OSDD-1b, but for folks experiencing symptoms of depersonalization/derealization, you might be interested in looking into and talking with a mental health professional about the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and the cluster A disorders to see if any of them resonate with you.

At any rate, bboy13, wishing you the best of luck exploring your mental health.

Hi cjhveal,

This is like liquid gold to me. Thank you so much for sharing. It's been a long journey, and I'm of the typical self-studied knowledge base -- fractured, and an inch wide and a mile deep in spurious, seemingly unpredictable places that a "real" practitioner wouldn't waste time on.

There is a strange sense of depersonalization that doesn't fit traditional/vanilla DP/DR, and I'll absolutely have to take a look at the Schizoid PD and the surrounding literature. Any good sources to study to understand? Anything from articles to textbooks works for me.

Clusters B and C have been of more attention recently, as I have some overlap there, but as with everything, it seems like PDs aren't entirely discrete.

Now, you seem to be extremely well-studied on some of the intricacies of some of the PDs. Combinatorially, it could certainly be a very strong part of things. I find myself very social, generally, with interest in people and a variety of activities, but of course at times frozen in a fear response/very reclusive -- moreso than emotions might typically suggest. No traditional "hallucinatory" symptoms, though we both probably have experienced the vast gap between public perception and XYZ in some small areas or another.

Really appreciate you putting together a thoughtful response so much. I don't know whether you're a clinician, or what might have brought you into the PD neighborhood, but having another option to weigh and understand is vastly appreciated, and I was entirely unaware of the Schizoid PD before today -- I'd just thought it was a descriptor (and an odd one at that), so the expanding arena is much appreciated. If you have anything you're interested in that that you're willing to pass along, I sure would be.

Many thanks again,

B

I should have included in my previous post that I'm not a mental health professional. I'm also just an interested individual looking to make the most of the hand I've been dealt, and I too have very large blindspots. I don't mean to provide you specific advice for your situation but simply offer something else to explore.

To be perfectly honest, my own fascination with personality disorders has formed as a result of rumination, spending energy obsessing over perceived symptoms and the their implications to the detriment of taking action toward solving the problems. I think this is one of the dangers of trying to go about making sense of your mental wellbeing alone.

If you're not already working with a mental health professional, and it is at all possible, I would very strongly recommend finding a therapist with a PsyD licensed in your jurisdiction. When you find a good one, they will have the depth to talk with you at a high level and the breadth and experience to help you consider possibilities you wouldn't have known about on your own. I understand if that's out of reach for you given your circumstances, but it can be a huge help.

Ultimately you are right, personality disorders are not discrete, nor are they mutually exclusive categories. They're really just patterns of traits as observed by folks who spend their time studying this kind of thing, and none of them seem have as simple a pathology as something like Wilson's disease where a vast array of symptoms can all be caused simply by an inability to excrete enough copper.

That aside, specifically to your request for more information, I can offer the following:

I was recently introduced to the relation between identity disturbance and the schizophrenia spectrum via this paper[0]. I realized that I had a very narrow view of schizophrenia and started to learn about the concept of schizotypy, the difference between negative/positive schizophrenia symptoms, and how dissociation + depression can start to look a lot like it fits on the schizophrenia spectrum. Here's another paper[1] that goes a bit more into the ways that the two spectrums overlap and contrast. Finally, sometimes the personality disorder subreddits can be useful for both finding a community and exploring what folks are saying about their own diagnoses and experience there.

[0]: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/45/1/... [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5216848/

Feel free to reach out via the email on my website (in HN bio), if you have any other questions.

These were literary personas and treated as such by the author himself, not to be confused with dissociative disorders, where the self loses track of which persona he really is.

Hi pencilcode, here's the passages that led me to my conclusions:

From Pessoa himself: "They are beings with a sort-of-life-of-their-own, with feelings I do not have, and opinions I do not accept. While their writings are not mine, they do also happen to be mine.”

"...heteronyms, a term he eventually chose over pseudonym because it more accurately described their stylistic and intellectual independence from him, their creator, and from each other—for he gave them all complex biographies and they all had their own distinctive styles and philosophies. They sometimes interacted, even criticizing or translating each other’s work. Some of Pessoa’s fictitious writers were mere sketches, some wrote in English and French, but his three main poetic heteronyms—Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos—wrote only in Portuguese, and each produced a very solid body of work."

The first is not only depersonalization, but someone who has come to grips and comfort with his symptoms of depersonalization. This takes a lot of time for many people with DID to accept as a symptom, as holding but accepting strongly opposed inner conflicts is quite a difficult skill that many dissociative personality systems both have to acquire and struggle with.

The second yields consistently in personas, these passages both have the consistent "fingerprint" of someone with DID, from my experiences both in the literature and in interacting with people that are DID/OSDD systems.

It is like talking to an experienced software engineer vs a novice out of college eager to prove his own worth and head knowledge. There is a subtle (or sometimes not so subtle), but obvious difference, and there is a set, or a particular "flavor" of tells that shows someone is an incredibly experienced engineer vs someone who is not. However, explicitly quantifying those tells is a difficult task, so my apologies if I don't do so as clearly here as I might hope to do.

Were it not for the first quote, I might think it would be something like Mark Twain, where it's a little more clearly just a literary act for some reason or another. However, I suppose it is wise to apply some level of skepticism or otherwise to backdiagnosing anything, as with anything. We can only presume beyond a certain point, I believe.

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