Multiple Personality Disorder is a common psychological condition that has found it's way into modern media and thus has become one of the more commonly recognized mental diseases. MPD or more formally known as dissociative identity disorder by definition is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. MPD, however, is far more widespread then anyone is willing to admit. MPD also is not a disorder, it is a facet of the human condition that like anything manifests in a complete range of severities.

Clinically, one of the most common causes of MPD is the need to create another personality to cope with an extreme stress or trauma. This trauma varies case to case, but is almost universal throughout documented cases of MPD. Just like in the extreme cases, we all create slightly altered personas in order to communicate within our universe with both others and our selves.

Outward Identities

The range of differences in each identity of a person varies depending on a person to person basis but we often behave differently from one relationship to another even if on a subconscious level.

Next time you communicate with your friends, take note on your behavior. Consider your mannerisms, communication style, essentially everything you do and how you act outwardly, then compare your observations to how you behave when interacting with a parent, or your grandmother, or a teacher, or your boss.

Often the differences are subtle, other times you will find you adopt a completely different persona. These personas are numerous and often vary greatly while still adopting a fairly consistent enough nature. Very few individuals ultimately are diagnosed with MPD and thus we must conclude the the persona's of most people are all similar enough as to be disregarded by casual observers.

Consider each personality as a unique part of a whole, together they make up your overall personality and without them you would most likely feel incomplete.

Inward Identities

We constantly communicate with ourselves in our own mind's eye, how each person communicates with them self differentiates from person to person. Some communicate in their minds with thoughts and ideas, others use imagery and others yet hold discussions in their mind using words of their native language.

This communication, though, has a common factor, it occurs between slightly different personalities. Often in cartoons when a character has an important decision to make a small devilish version of himself discusses the action with an angelic version. While this is an extremely blunt and extreme example of how we internally communicate it also serves as a direct example of what actually occurs.

The many facets of our being actually communicate and come to a consensus on the issue at hand. This discussion sometimes occurs between the complete collection of our selves and other times it merely passes through a small collection of our own personalities. For this reason, we occasionally behave in ways that we do not always understand.

Thus is becomes important to always try to pass idea through as many of our internal personalities as possible before acting. Placing an important decision in the control of only a small facet of our being often leads to a decision that we regret as it does not reflect the entire spectrum of our being.

Defining Ourselves

As many youths grow into adults, they feel a tremendous weight to define themselves, many eventually come to a vague definition to satisfy this search, others dwell upon it for years. The mistake we all make is that we forget about our multiple personalities, and search for a single definition when one does not exist.

The definition of another or ourselves is constantly changing as our many identities shift their dominance. They rarely come in complete agreement and thus we go through phases where a certain identity is more dominant then another. This dominance can be brought fourth by a plethora of events in our life. The most obvious of these events are biological cycles such as puberty or menstruation but it is the more subtle causes of these shifts that we must observe and be prepared for.

Understanding of these shifts and the ability to predict and control them helps us both identify a more encompassing encyclopedia of our many personalities as well as prevent radical shifts in our behavior that have the potential to sabotage our personal relationships.

Building Your Encyclopedia

Cataloging your own personalities is actually quite easy as all it requires is observation of intimate details of your behavior in different situations and at different times. Remembering all your personalities, however, is the easy part.

Understanding when certain personalities will arise as dominant and when others will descend to the recesses of your mind is the most important part to changing a mere catalogue of personalities to your own personal encyclopedia.

For example, under stressful situations an extreme version of our self often presents as the dominant persona, be prepared for this. Realize that under stressful situations that you need to take stock of your actions more often. That you need to halt what you are doing and evaluate which personalities are actually in control as poor behavior in stressful situation almost always reflects very poorly upon you.

Finally, identify the personalities that have behavior models that best reflect how you would like to behave most often and discover what brings them fourth and do what you can to promote their dominance as often as possible.

Ideally over time, you will want to try to abolish individual identities in order to prevent them from taking control. To do this, discover what brings them out and place yourself in situations that would commonly cause them to arise and focus on preventing them from gaining dominance. Eventually the personalities will cease to exist as they no longer have a reason for existence.

By doing this, you are able to rid yourself of the negative behavior models that you feel you cannot control in adverse situations and thus are able to construct a tool set of positive personalities to help you throughout your life.

So... who is actually in charge?

If you have this collaboration of personalities, who actually controls your body? Who makes the decisions to abolish some personalities and keep others?

Ultimately almost everyone has a significant dominant persona that is in control most of the time and merely accepts suggestions from the other personas. This personality is a reflection of yourself, at it's most pure form, it could be called your soul.

Always realize that you have to let another persona take hold and that you are essentially putting your body on auto pilot when you do. Having the help of your other personalities can be a great asset but always be weary to stay in control, do not let another identity overwhelm you and put itself in control.

Remember, you are always in control of you, absolving yourself of this choice essentially hands your freedom of will to random chance. Never roll the dice on your behavior as in modern society, even a single minor social mishap can spell doom for a personal image you have spent years perfecting.






















































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