Multiple personalities in a single person

Ever tried to notice the way you behave or act in different groups or different situations as if you have multiple personalities within you. Do you think or are you confident enough to admit that you have been the same person throughout the year, be it with your friends, colleagues, parents, grand parents, teachers, siblings, the shopkeeper, the bus conductor, the beggar on street, a stranger or in any other circumstance wherein there wasn't even the slightest change in your behavior, action or reaction? No? Then perhaps you have a "Split Personality" or in psychiatry terms "Dissociative Identity Disorder(DID)", a mild form of it maybe. Would that mean most of us out here suffer from a disease? I am more confused and shocked than you are to apprehend the condition being called a "Disorder". Psychology is way out of my perception, even after reading Sigmund Freud, though Freud is quite true to some extent. Anyways, I have scared you enough...no need to get anxious, I haven't got into the details of this "Split Personality" thing yet, the further you read down, the more you'll be relieved to know about this strange yet appealing condition and marvel at the World of Psychiatry.

The movie buffs among you must have seen the funny flick "Me, Myself & Irene", with Jim Carrey playing Charlie, the trooper who develops a nasty split personality named 'Hank' out of his anger and personal problems, that overcomes his real self every time he faces a 'situation'. Quite often a fraction of you might have come across such individuals in your life or thought he/she did behave as if having a split personality. At times I have illusions of having a split personality within me, but I guess it doesn't really come out or has any control over me to quite an extreme level like Charlie/Hank, behaving in an erratic way in public or 'situations'. Having a split personality like Charlie/Hank in real life doesn't really tickle any one's senses to a great extent until you hear of some one with 3, 5 or more than 10 distinct personalities. If anyone of you has seen the more serious movie 'Sybil' (i haven't watched this one, heard it's a good one) based on the real life of Shirley Mason who suffered from DID leading to 16 different personalities in her, you would know the gravity of it. Truly unbelievable to consider someone like Shirley Mason could have really existed.

Now coming to the details of 'DID', I'll copy paste a classic case of 'DID' below to give a clear picture. I have added some more details I managed to gather from other sources to the copy paste below:

Case:-
The patient is a man named William S. Milligan, who after having committed several felonies and armed robberies was arrested on a charge of rape in Ohio at 1977. While Milligan pleaded insanity claiming that 2 personalities in him committed the crime without others being aware of it,the police and the psychologists later were astonished to find an unbelievable fact that he indeed had multiple personalities. He was the first person to be diagnosed.Here are the ten personalities reported by Milligan.

1. The first personality is the main personality, Billy, twenty-seven years old, blue eyes, brown hair.

2. The second personality is Arthur,a proper Englishman. This personality and the next one are the keeper of the "Spot", where they can have the control of the body, or become themselves open to the outer world through the body of Billy.

3. The third personality is Ragen Vadascovinich, twenty-three years old, Yugoslav, who knows how to fight and can use gun and other dangerous stuff, controls the hate and committed robberies in Robin Hood style.

4. Fourth personality is Allen a con artist, eighteen years old, talkative, only one who smoke and right handed.

5. Fifth personality is Tommy, sixteen years old, knows how to unlock chains or handcuffs, and the specialist of the electricity.

6. Sixth personality is Danny, fourteen years old, always scared to something especially man, blond hair, blue eyes.

7. Seventh personality is David, eight years old, controls pain, red-brown hair blue eyes.

8. Eighth personality is Christine, three years old, cannot talk, blond hair, female.

9. Ninth personality is Christopher, thirteen years old, brother of Christine.

10. For the last tenth personality, Adalana, 19 year old, quiet, lesbian, female who allegedly committed the rapes.

These were the main ten personalities of the William S. Milligan. As if you wonder how they know their outlooks, William Milligan, Billy has a hobby of painting, or some of the personalities do. Therefore, they draw each other on the painting and that is how they get to know their outlooks.

While DID is quite a controversial diagnosis in the Americas, I fail to understand all the fuss about DID either being a real 'disorder' or just a fad. I mean...as a skeptic being, I had say people showing symptoms of 'multiple personality disorder' as they call it, may be displaying their inner emotions, feelings or resentments that they have cultivated in return for the social stigmas or some kind of trauma in the past, not able to control them inside. I believe most of us have 'multiple personalities' (I would rather call them alter egos) in us which do not necessarily exhibit themselves distinctively. Except as in the strange cases of Willian Milligan and Shirley Mason which are quite intriguing ones. DID definitely needs a proper, valid and distinct classification if it does really exist before declaring it a 'disorder', jumbling it up with already existing ones as schizophrenia, epilepsy or other such disorders.

Apart from these, I have also been an eye witness to a number of cases of people being 'possessed' by some external spirits (particularly in religious functions or rituals) while they perform some unbelievable acts that would put any Scientologist's belief to questioning. And it amazes me cos I just can't get any real answers to my questions, even when Science has progressed to such a great extent in terms of psychology and can't find any valid theory or term to construe the mystery. Should I call it "An extreme display of hidden personalities" when 2 'possessed' individuals dancing to the tunes of drums, continue to fight with razor sharp swords after having almost sliced each other's arm undeterred by the pain? [This happened during a ritual called "Ghode Modni" at my native place and I was stunned watching it, luckily they were separated soon after..and the individuals weren't under any influence of drugs or anything]. May be it is so!! Of course one can say "It's all about mind control ...mind over body.. bla bla bla"...but it still doesn't clear the air.  Perhaps I should write a special post about these amazing 'super natural' or 'paranormal' activities that I have been a witness to while I try and understand the mysteries behind them. Till then I better stop thinking about this, as I said psychology confuses me to hell as there are too many mysteries yet to be revealed about the human mind.


P.S.:- The reason why I came up with this post is due to my belief that I actually came across such a "split personality" individual, but I don't believe it is a disorder in any form.