A woman who suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID) has told her experience of sharing her body with 50 different personalities.
Mel Lodge was four-years-old when she first started to experience life with dissociative identity disorder (DID) - a psychiatric condition characterised by the presence of two or more distinct personalities.
Previously it was called multiple personality disorder and is characterised by 'switching' to alternate identities.
The now 30-year-old former ballet teacher says she shares a body with 50 other unique personalities - which she calls 'parts' - who take control of her body between five to 20 times a day.
After taking to TikTok to raise awareness of DID, the Wellington, New Zealand resident has been faced with a barrage of cruel comments accusing her of faking the disorder.
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Mel said: “We do often get a lot of comments from people saying that it’s so rare and that we can’t have it and it’s so frustrating because it isn’t as rare as people think.
“Then also the whole 'we must be violent, scary or commit crimes" because that’s what they’ve seen in the movies.
“It just seems to be really hard for people to understand that it’s not actually like that and it’s not dramatic as they often portray in films.
“Our therapist thinks that DID started when we were around four, as we went through a lot growing up.
“We kind of heard voices throughout our whole life but we didn’t know that they were different parts when we were younger.
“We never really spoke about hearing other voices because we were scared about what that meant.
“Then in 2018 we started to talk about it with a psychologist, who first thought it was psychosis but about three months in they realised it was DID.
“A different part probably takes control of the body around five to 20 times a day. It doesn’t happen often but if I’m talking to a friend and they say something that’s a trigger for another part, or if something else is going on in the background that’s a trigger, then another part can just come out.”
When a new personality takes control of Mel’s body, a brief period of confusion, distress and loss of consciousness can arise.
Due to the loss of consciousness, Mel, and her personalities also suffer from amnesia, forcing them to think of ways to keep all 50 personas up to date on their day to day lives.
She said: “We need everything written up on a board and have all of these folders to be prepared for parts that may come out who don’t know what’s going on.
“When we have appointments, we do try our best to have the right part out, but we can’t control that all the time. So, we feel we need to be prepared by having easy access to information so parts know what appointments to go to and who to call.
“We also need to have a list of positive triggers because they are ways to get certain parts out. So, for instance, Anna usually goes to our dietician appointments, so if another part is out for some reason, they need to know how to get her out.
“It’s kind of like we’re constantly needing to be prepared for everything, and everything is confusing at the same time.
“I could be out in the morning then not be out again until the next day and then try to work out where I am and what day it is. We do try to encourage parts to write down what they’ve done especially if it’s anything important.
“It feels confusing, it feels like it’s a full-time job when you’re trying to function and live normally.”
After discussions with 30 health care professionals, Mel was finally diagnosed with DID in 2018 at the age of 26, and says her therapist has met most of the personalities.
She said: “We know a new part exists because they’ve spoken to our therapist. It was through therapy that we figured out there were 50 parts.
“Having the diagnosis has made such a huge, at first it was scary, Mel kind of stayed in denial for the first year about having it.
“But now we’re working on it and we can see that we’re finally getting the right treatment.”
SYMPTOMS OF DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER
Formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is characterized by 'switching' to alternate identities.
According to the Mayo Clinic, people with the disorder may feel the presence of two of more people talking or living inside their head, and they may feel as though they're possessed by other identities.
Each identity may have a unique name, personal history and characteristics, including differences in voice, gender, mannerisms and even physical qualities such as the need for eyeglasses.
There are also differences in how familiar each identity is with the others.
People with DID typically also have dissociative amnesia and often have dissociative fugue - when people temporarily lose their sense of personal identity and impulsively wander or travel away from their homes or places of work.
Over a 30-year career, Aquarone has worked with hundreds of people with a dissociative disorder.
