Hello once again and welcome to the final portion of this editorial series. Thank you to all of the people who commented on each of the scenarios, it was very interesting to see the range of opinions everyone had. There’s no scenario this time but I hope you enjoy seeing what others had to say.
I can’t even begin to imagine the frustration someone with this condition would feel. I don’t think I could ever get used to being in the middle of doing something and then suddenly “waking up” hours later in another place; I already feel like there isn’t enough time in the day. Perhaps I would have a different outlook on it all if I had grown up experiencing it and being able to communicate with these other people via a diary might even be fun, but thinking of all the things you simply wouldn’t be able to do is a little frightening. As the “dominant” personality I would think that I would have the final say on anything involving my body, though I also feel that it would be important to take the opinions of my other personalities into account.
As for the cyanide pills…sitting here, comfortable in my computer chair and not having harmed anyone it’s very easy to say that I find suicide abhorrent and there’s always a better way, but put in a situation where I am out of control and harming others I can’t quite say what the guilt would do to me. In the scenario I would effectively be an individual without a full life to call my own, so that may make me even more likely to take the pills.
As others have said, whether I take the magical DID-curing pills or not very much depends on the temperaments of my other personalities. In the situation described in the scenario I would most likely take the pills, though I would wait until after I had discussed it with my other selves, to allow them to put their affairs in order if you will. I would feel ridiculously guilty taking their lives away from them but the idea of restraints doesn’t work 24/7 and this violent personality needs to be removed. If the violent personality wasn’t present and I got along well with me other selves then I probably wouldn’t take the pills.
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And here’s the comments from last week!
123:
…assuming for the moment that they’re nice people.
My dad points revolvers at random strangers all the time, so it’s A-OK!
First part:
…Ok sarcasm aside now 
. No, I don’t think I would care about my alternate personalities, if I only had a very little amount of information. With more information about them, maybe my opinion would change. Ignoring your dad obviously being… rather distressed, I think waking up outside in the mud would not raise my opinion of my other self. If I found out they were the picture of saintliness, maybe I would be more tolerant. Or maybe just hell jealous . I think I would also take into account people’s attitudes towards the alternate me(s), and also how much trouble it was causing my family (lots, it seems).
Second part:
No, I would not take the pills. It would have gone through my head, but I don’t think I have the strength of will to kill myself, even if I was causing all sorts of trouble and felt really bad. And tbh, I value my own life more than anyone else’s at the moment. Instead, I would either run away (not very likely), or ask to be restrained (much more likely).
Third part:
Without the diary, yes. Given nothing good has come from the other personality, I wouldn’t hesitate to take these and regain control over my own life. With the diary, I would give more thought but it would probably end up with me taking them. Even if some of the alter-egos were nice people, getting rid of the bad one would take priority over keeping the nice ones. I think it would be the lesser of two evils to take the pills and get rid of the psycho me.
Other stuff:
A big problem with this kind of disorder would be gaps in my memory. My grandmother has dementia and it’s really obvious to see how hard it is for her because of her severe short term memeory loss. Now if you had alternate personalities where you couldn’t remember anything, that would result in huge gaps in your memory, which would be very annoying, among a multitude of other problems. That would be a factor in pushing me towards having control of my personalities.
Lifesongsoa:
I assume I’m not aware of the other personalities without the journal? If I’m not this choice is really easy for me, I would take that pill. I wouldn’t have a hard time getting rid of a nasty, violent personality I think, not if it were harming people I care about. It would also be a convenient excuse to reclaim whatever time I’m losing to these other personalities. Maybe that is an awful way to think about it, but the choice isn’t really much of a choice if the bad personality can’t be contained otherwise.
If they were all harmless? It would depend on how aware of them I am and how much time I lose to them. If I could still experience everything they do then it would depend entirely on their personalities. If I couldn’t then that would be a pretty major impairment, one I imagine I would be desperate to solve if I could.
If I could remember it all? It would depend on how well they all coexist when I’m not in control I guess. It’s a fairly abstract problem, usually when I think of multiple personalities, I think of personalities that come out when they are needed. Lets say my multiple personalities are all good at something. One of them is creative and artistic, another one is smart and good at critical thinking. If I had the option to force them all out would I? If I grew to depend on them, which is what I think would happen, then I can’t imagine wanting to get rid of them even if other people find it really weird.
Basically it would be easy enough to get rid of abstract personalities, but if I had a bond with them and they weren’t causing violent problems then It would be a different story. Depending on them is implied so I think in this situation the relationship between personalities is going to be extreme no matter what. I would either want to get rid of them or consider them a part of who I am. Otherwise I would just be completely insane in which case I can’t really answer this question at all can I?(even though that might be the most likely scenario)
Stop asking questions that make me reveal how awful of a person I am!(Nah, I jest. These are fun.)
Since I missed out on the second question I’ll answer that now since my answer is simple. No I wouldn’t trust him, anything beyond that would depend entirely on what the variables are.
Rockeedee:
For the first part:
I can’t honestly say whether or not they would be important to me; it’ll have to depend on how we commune with and react to each other -whether or not we cared about each other’s existence. However, they are their own entities who do affect my life, on both extremes apparently, and I affect theirs. We’d experience some different things and have different memories wouldn’t we?
I wouldn’t be overly attached to them, but I of course have to acknowledge that they are there, and we are “part” of each others’ lives.
Second:
I may be the only one who would consider it to the point where I open up the bottle and poor a couple pills into my hand. That one personality is horrible enough to viciously attack my family. It’s at the point where my mother needed to be taken to the hospital and her blood is on the walls (I may be making it seem worse than it is) I would ask to be restrained first, then if it somehow became unbearable to go on living that way, I would consider suicide a FINAL option… FINAL. Otherwise, why did I even bother buying cyanide pills .___. ?
Third:
In this scenario, my answer would be a blunt YES. The diary would fill me with guilt and I did say that they are a part of my life, but because of that one personality I would go through with it. No matter how attached I am to the others I can’t help but think of the consequences of having him around; what if it ends up going far enough to actually make my dad shoot me? What if “he” ends up getting “us” or my family killed?
If he wasn’t the problem,and it was just the fact that we’d all have gaps in our memory (diary aside) or If the other personalities were a little more important to me, then it would take some for me to make that decision.
It is hard to make this kind of decision because you are ending someone else’s life, and it would take some time to think it through, however, if he remains a factor it would always push my decision down that road.
Okami:
Part 1: If it is happening to me for a long time I would be used to it, I would feel like it is part of me, even if they are totally different personalities, I would feel like they are all still me like all of us are one, Like I wouldn’t be complete without them. There wouldn’t be a way for me to know for sure if I am a dominant personality (original personality). As in case of DID usually all personalities think that they are the one dominant personality. (Dominant personality doesn’t necessarily have to be the one that is most of the time in control, Dominant personality is original personality the one that isn’t created by DID but if that person has control of the body Most of the time or not varies from case to case.) So because of those two things (fear of myself not being dominant personality, and the feeling of being Incomplete without other personalities) I probably wouldn’t ask professional help but tried to deal with it myself (Assuming that I would manage to be aware of having DID widouth help, which usually isn’t an easy thing to be aware of). I would feel attached to them (not just by sharing body but emotionally too) regardless of them Being nice people or not.
Part 2: I would try to contact him, make a deal with him, get his attention however I can. If I would manage to do it I would ask him about his motivation and reasons for doing what he does. If I wouldn’t manage to get his attention I would try to understand him by some other means. I would leave the home stated leaving alone so can’t heart my family but I wouldn’t kill myself.
Part 3: I wouldn’t take them because of the same reason that I said I wouldn’t ask for professional help. Especially because of fear that I am not dominant personality, I couldn’t be sure that I am and if it would turn out that I am not I would disappear, and I wouldn’t risk that. (By the way there isn’t pills that can cure DID the only pills that could be given to person with DID Are narcotics for the purpose of calming that person in case that some personalities are violent.In most cases medicine and pills would only make it even worse so even professionals are avoiding To treat persons with DID with them and used them only in cases of violent personalities. Also in reality personalities created by DID usually aren’t violent true they might be overprotective)
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So that’s the end of this editorial series. I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading them despite their ambiguity. Would any of you like to see more of these scenarios? I have no idea what topic I might write them on, but i’d be happy to give it a shot if there was a demand for them.
The Geek Clinic 