DSM-5-TikTok
What happens when social media makes certain mental illnesses go viral?
Back when I was an attending psychiatrist on the Trauma and Dissociative Unit at McLean Hospital, we worked with individuals with complex PTSD, some of whom had dissociative experiences. A handful of these extremely traumatized individuals fit the diagnostic criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which used to be called “multiple personality disorder.” None of them remotely resembled how DID has been portrayed as essentially a one-person costume party in shows like the United States of Tara and books like Sybil (which is based on someone who later revealed they were making up most of their story) . It’s also worth emphasizing none of the people I have encountered in my professional life as a psychiatrist wanted to have DID.
When I heard from our IT Director, RJ Smith, that DID was trending on TikTok I scratched my head and began a deep dive into subreddits like r/FakeDisorderCringe to try and get to the bottom of this phenomenon. A recent article …