Questionable DID

Hello everyone! I need some help regarding a person in a group I am in. I am a member (I guess you could say one of the moderators) for an online seizure group. We webcam together daily and also have a youtube channel. We recently got a new member who claims to have DID, Asperger's, and Seizures. Last week or so, she went into status seizures (seizures that do not stop) and the group called 911 for her. Her parents were unaware that she had seizures (she lives with them), and she continued to say that she was in the hospital when we knew she had left (She had her webcam turned off, but we could still hear the background noise of her house and her internet was turned off the same time as it is when she was at home). Also, at one point, she claimed she "doesn't lie because she has Asperger's". Anyway, I know this is a DID forum not Asperger's syndrome or seizure forum so I will get to the DID part.
Some people in the group addressed her about her fake seizures and she admitted that she was faking them and has Munchausen's. (I'm not exactly sure exactly how this conversation took place as I was not there). Now, I am told that one of her alters fakes seizures (thus Munchausen's), 3 of her alters have epilepsy, and some of her alters have conversion disorder.
She has about 37 alters which range from 4 months of age to 28 years old. She claims that she was raped multiple times (I can't remember the number somewhere around 15 or 20) and had cut her self many times (she knew the exact number, something like 247 or so) and had been cutting since age 4. Here are an example of some of her alters and their personalities:
Carline - Helpful, nice
Charlotte - Defensive, violent (Likes blood)
Abigayl - Shy
Ben - Playful
Alexander Turino - Talkative
Tabbi - Suspicious, Paranoid, Anxious
Alice - Suicidal
Elizabeth - Mothering
Phillip - Agressive (Believes everyone he talks to killed his sister)
Alfie and Tyler - Suicidal, Manic

This is part of a long list that her alter, Carline, wrote up about her other alters which includes much more detailed information such as alter codes (DID-001 etc.), triggers, personalities, age, title, and appearances.
There are two people in the group who constantly watch her pretty much 24/7 (they do it in shifts) as they are afraid of her hurting herself or becoming suicidal.
I am needing some help regarding the truth of this. She is very attention-seeking and I am just suspicious based on her history... We have known her for about 3 weeks.

Please let me know if you think this situation is legit, and also, if there are any pointers you would give for identifying if it is truly a real case of DID. I have done a lot of reading on it since she joined the group in blogs and articles... I read that DID is actually not rare and that it has received a bad stigma from movies and such. I also read that it is very difficult to fake DID. I wasn't sure that, if this is only over the internet, if it would be easier to fake, also since we have only known her for a few weeks.

Thank you very much for your time (and patience) with the long post....I just felt a little about her history would help. Since I am not very familiar with DID (except for my recent research) and since I have never met anyone else with DID, that it would be beneficial to get the opinion and advice from someone who is more familiar with it.

I don't understand how anyone would expect us to verify a stranger's DID etc, when we can barely verify and believe our own. Nobody here can diagnose another person, only professionals who are trained in dissociative disorders can.
A person with Munchhausen can and does fake all kinds of things and they go to great lengths to do so. On the other hand it could also be this alter's denial about the actual DID, a way to make herself believe that she is faking the DID. In other words, there is no way for us to deny or confirm this woman's DID.

Since you meet this person online I can't really recommend anything that you could do to find out whether she is real or not.

I will not speak to the question of whether or not this person has DID as claimed. For sure she needs professional attention. DID in teenagers is highly treatable.

DID is not rare. Many DID systems do report living a lot of complicated fantasies. Some of us have very elaborate internal worlds and self identifications that can be described objectively as fantasy.

Seizures are a common symptom in DID. These are not epileptic seizures however, and many of us who experience them are accused of faking them, by persons who are not well informed about the very common problem of misdiagnosis of non-epileptic seizures.

Wikipedia: Non-epileptic seizure
Wikipedia: Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures

I agree with The Collective. As easy as it is to judge to say that someone does or does not have a certain disorder, over the Internet there is truly no adequate way to tell if someone is telling the truth or spinning a fantastic yarn for a seemingly sympathetic audience. As it is, be sympathetic if you wish but don't let her take advantage of your kindness and use it to your detriment. Similarly so for the kind souls keeping guard day in and out.

~~~

Hello and welcome!

These threads might be helpful to you.

-- This thread contains DID resource websites along with organized threads from this site that discuss discovery experiences, communication with alters, doubt/denial issues, common questions, symptoms, dissociative experiences, and much more:
- DDNOS/DID Resources: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic100829.html


-- This thread focuses more on the "causes" of DID, the development of DID, switching/co-consciousness/co-hosting, doubt/denial issues, and has a couple threads on communicating/accepting/understanding/working with alters:
- For all who question how they have DID/think their's is odd: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic104081.html


Other than that, without being professionals or actually seeing/being with this person, we can't really make a judgement call on whether or not she's "for real", but maybe learning more about DID will be able to help you make that judgement call or something.

Best of luck with this situation.


~A mixture of us(?)

About the seizures, see our thread: Differential diagnosis: dissociative vs epileptic seizures

Lunalegro, first of all it's very kind of you to do research and take the time to come here and seek out ideas to help her. Based on all the details you gave, my intuition suggests you proceed as if she may well have DID but that her safety and stability remain the immediate goals. She needs professional help, but someone who knows what they're doing, someone familiar with dissociative disorders, if possible. Alters with seizures, Asperger syndrome or Munchausen are not rare at all. I have one alter who has been an expert liar, including when it wasn't needed, out of habit or for some excitement maybe? I know someone who probably has DID and Münchausen syndrome by proxy. As a child I was lied to and manipulated often, so I don't find it so odd that I came to use those as defenses myself.

I don't have DID, but let me come at this from the Munchausen's perspective. For background I don't have full-blown Munchausen's - but I do have factitious disorder. (Munchausen's is the most severe form of factitious disorder - very chronic and unremitting.) Which means I have now and then faked illnessses, mostly to doctors, but a few times on the internet.

OK, so the thing is - even if it is Munchausen's (and if she's faking, I'd guess it's full-blown) - you still have a pretty sick kid on your hands. Yes Munchausen's is "attention seeking," which sounds annoying and manipulative but not dangerous. But in fact Munchausen's is almost always comorbid with serious psychiatric pathology - severe personality disorders most typically, but also bipolar, depression, etc. And what most people don't know is that as psychiatric disorders go, the prognosis for Munchausen's is usually poor. Lots of suicide, mental illness, disability, and so forth. So either way you're right to be very concerned.

The other thing is, yes, people with factitious disorder are conscious of the fact on some level that they're faking or exaggerating. By definition. But my experience is most people with factitious disorder also get very confused about what's "real" and what's "not real." Part of it is that we tend to deceive ourselves. But part of it is that Factitious disorder often hovers at the border of psychosomatic disorders - like psychogenic seizures or conversion disorder. In fact the unconscious motivations are often similar if not identical.

So it may be possible or even likely for her to be aware she's faking some things, and completely unaware she's "faking" (or psychologically generating) others. It's also possible to be conscious of faking a given symptom at one moment, but be confused later on about whether it was real or not.

All of this amounts to a single point: what difference does it make if it's Munchausen's or DID? It will matter to her psychiatrist (if she - hopefully - ends up going to one). But for your purposes it makes absolutely no difference. You should be cautious and compassionate how you approach her either way - if for no other reason than this is a clearly disturbed kid you're dealing with. And even if it's Munchausen's I would be very surprised if she were fully conscious of everything that she's doing. She certainly is not aware of why she's doing it.

But whether it's DID or Munchausen's you can't continue like you're going. You cannot keep watch on a teenager 24/7 hoping they don't kill themselves. She needs professional help - probably urgently - and maybe you can or maybe you can't do something to help her get that. But you can't "adopt" her into your internet group. And you are never going to rescue her from her serious emotional problems. And whatever her diagnosis it's basically a guarantee she's going to cause chaos for you guys.

I very much agree with you, angelina4.

angelina4 wrote:But my experience is most people with factitious disorder also get very confused about what's "real" and what's "not real." Part of it is that we tend to deceive ourselves. But part of it is that Factitious disorder often hovers at the border of psychosomatic disorders - like psychogenic seizures or conversion disorder. In fact the unconscious motivations are often similar if not identical.

And this may very well be why DID may feel like a factitious disorder for some - because denial does exact the same thing. So, if she ever says it's all faked, you just can't be sure whether it's indeed fake or she is in denial.