Is Dissociative Identity Disorder real?
Dissociative Identity Disorder is a real condition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). However, because DID is inherently connected to the subject of identity, it mostly occurs as a result of having seen it represented in media and thinking it’s cool.
That’s the central understanding that’s being reached by a growing number of psychiatrists.
Here we’ll look at the bizarre phenomenon of “fake disorder cringe,” where impressionable teens on TikTok have found themselves reaching for a new uniqueness identifier — performative disability.
As we’ll see, the allure of social value is powerful enough to transmit anything from Dissociative Identity Disorder to Tourette’s Syndrome. We’ll look at the phenomenon through the case of DID TikToker The Wonderland System, among others.
What is The Wonderland System?
The Wonderland System is a TikTok user who claims to have Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly called “Multiple Personalities Disorder”), Tourette’s Syndrome, and other neurological conditions. The account received widespread backlash for falsely representing their disabilities.
Usually on TikTok these disabilities are self-diagnosed. Having decided what’s afflicting them, users then turn to churning out content around their disorder as a way to survive within the app’s niche-or-die algorithm. The only problem being, of course, that they don’t actually have it.
Faking a disability for social media views sounds pretty awful, but the phenomenon isn’t always done with malicious intent. It can come from a place of confusion, the cobbled-together output of anxious kids that grew up on steady diets of celebrity worship, auto-filtered social media beauty standards, and bootleg weed vape pens. That internal confusion is the true malady of the moment.
Realistically, it’s not the kids’ fault — corporations and social media platforms spend enormous sums of money capturing our attention, and encouraging us to do whatever it takes to capture someone else’s. As we enter new paradigms across culture, identity, and mental health, we should approach these conversations with care and consideration.
Personally, as someone who has struggled with Tourette’s Syndrome since an early age, I felt a call to weigh in. Here are some thoughts on The Wonderland System, identity, disability, and the phenomenon known as “fake disorder cringe.”
- Is The Wonderland System Faking DID?
- Should We Bully The Wonderland System?
- How Does This Feel to Someone with Tourette’s?
- Is Dissociative Identity Disorder Real?
Is The Wonderland System Faking DID?
It’s understood that the representations of Dissociative Identity Disorder in The Wonderland System’s videos are not accurate or realistic. However, as explained below, it’s not certain that they are intentionally “faking it” with malicious intent.
The Wonderland System claims to experience over 200 “alters,” short for “alter ego.” Naturally, viewers and professionals have pointed out numerous holes in The Wonderland System’s narrative; diagnoses, symptoms, and medical histories that don’t add up (this is all on top of mounting controversy in the psychology community over whether Dissociative Identity Disorder even exists…more on that below).
Of course, alter egos are also not known to possess the collaborative capacity for group TikToks.
The video that propelled The Wonderland System to infamy is a rapid-fire self-introduction from several alters (top of this page). Some have English accents, while others speak with impossibly prevalent stutters — but all of them are indeed ready to work together to film content. The audio went viral, with other TikTok users re-purposing it tens of thousands of times.
The Wonderland System’s videos are, to put it lightly, very suspicious. Since the beginning, TikTok viewers and the psychology community have viewed them with a large degree of skepticism, for reasons which I hope are rather obvious.
But there’s something deeper going on. There’s something familiar in these videos, something recognizable, and not from those long childhood trips to my experimental neurologist in Houston.
Woven into these videos is the palpable, human desire to feel seen.
This isn’t something new in the age of TikTok, where anyone can be rewarded for being the most niche, eye-catching, unique, or inflammatory person in the room. The currency on TikTok is the attention of others, but it functions as one big Ponzi scheme that feeds the owners of the app — the house always wins.
In a constantly-changing tableau of celebrities, entertainment, and news, it becomes difficult for people to know who they are as individuals. Adrift in the digital blur, they will reach for something by which to identify themselves — things like art, fashion, music, or subculture. I’m into punk, says the guy with the leather studded bracelet.
But as we find ourselves at new rates of spin, hurtling through a crash course in post-industrial downfalls, those identifiers are becoming further removed from personal experience, with wide-eyed tweens picking from a veritable smorgasbord of representative aspects.
A growing trend of performative disability fueled by self-diagnosis seems to be the new frontier.
Should We Bully The Wonderland System?
NO!
This person is clearly young and confused. And we’ll dive into this below, but they probably believe their own yarn, to some extent.
It’s time to view this mentally unwell 18-year-old with compassion, not flame them for undermining narratives around disability. Instead, we can train our sights on the phenomenon itself, and consider what this means for others, especially those actually affected by these conditions.
Our species is being driven to new heights of mania and desperation by global currents of confusion, consumption, clout, and fear. We want to change things, but in a world that’s been suddenly lulled into a hypnotic, app-induced sleep over the past eight or so years, we don’t always know how. These teens have, unfortunately, been building their psyches in this environment from day one. Can we really blame them?
Having the power to change your own life is scary because if you fail, it’s on you. By tapping into the “victimhood” offered by these disorders, people are able to offload personal responsibility. It can be quite tempting to stay trapped in the “excuses stage,” rationalizing one’s pain as the result of challenges that are outside of one’s own control. Many people actually prefer to tolerate a comfortable, unhappy life of victimhood, than step into the uncomfortable-but-rewarding strength of responsibility.
Obviously, there are real victims in this world. But I can see how these disorders offer an attractive proposition for someone seeking to relinquish responsibility, and gain attention/sympathy all at once.
The problem here is not just that people are self-diagnosing and “disability claiming” — we all remember a classmate in high school who would explain away their poor behavior via ADD, ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, allergies, mysterious schizophrenic tendencies, and other flavors-of-the-day.
The difference is that The Wonderland System and others on TikTok are actively creating platforms with the specific intent to misinform kids about these conditions.
On a platform like TikTok that’s filled with impressionable kids, we owe it to future generations to discuss mental health clearly, accurately, and openly. People with these disorders deserve actual representation, and this person needs to get help for the real underlying mental health issues they’re experiencing, not a twisted reward in the form of influence among minors who don’t any know better.
I really don’t know what to make of this clip of two children “learning” to have Tourette’s Syndrome. It kind of breaks my heart.
We can separate those two things, initiating nuanced dialogue about mental health without attacking the individual. I’ll say for me personally, knowing that The Wonderland System has switched their TikTok account to private helped me feel safe to write this post without worrying about unintentionally initiating cyberbullying.
The Wonderland System identifies as gender non-binary, and I’ll be using the pronouns they/them in this piece (although some of their alters apparently use such exciting pronouns as it and bones…more on the harmful effects of this below).
How Does This Feel to Someone with Tourette’s?
When I found out about The Wonderland System, I went on a lightning-quick, mini emotional roller coaster.
First, I cringed. Very, very hard. Then I felt kind of an eye roll coming in, exasperation tinged with judgment.
Then I suddenly became angry. Did I do all of that personal growth with my disorder, pushing through years of deep difficulty, just to have some faker tell my story for me?
When that passed, I was left with a calm sense that I needed to speak on the issue, and I wrote this post.
While doing the popular “Questions I Get Asked” trend, The Wonderland System does an impression of a neurological tic. Like many newly-minted Tourette’s Syndrome influencers, their tic is suspiciously on beat. One would probably confuse it for a dance move.
Immediately there’s a very forced-looking moment of pseudo-frustration with one’s plight of disability. A moment later they’re back at it, bopping to the viral, shareable post format.
The whole thing is intensely cringey — so much so that The Wonderland System is a star character on the posts in Reddit’s r/fakedisordercringe subreddit.
There, people gather for the spectacle of this strange social media train wreck, and the sense of community-driven validation that comes from knowing other people feel the same way you do. Many of the users in this subreddit have disabilities or disorders themselves; I can imagine what some of them must be feeling.
I was 14 when I was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome. I had never heard of it before, and what followed was a string of confusing years as I fought against my strange new invisible enemy.
A complete mockery of Tourette’s Syndrome. Makes my blood boil.
I mostly had motor tics, some of them gutteral/vocal. I also had some intense OCD perceptions that accompanied them — I was hugely averse to germs, and if someone coughed or sneezed, I would leave the room, or awkwardly “blow the germ air away” as a way to reconcile my frantic mind.
The tics would cycle through all sorts of variations, peaking during adolescence. At their worst, I found myself with a tic that required me to contract all the muscles in my body and squeeze tight for several seconds. I’d do this hundreds of times a day, then come home from school exhausted, collapsing into bed and falling sleep.
Years later, with tools like meditation, energy work, and thought observation, I was able to get a solid handle on my symptoms. But as a kid, I couldn’t really explain these things to my friends and classmates; I recall the frustrated team captain in my freshman year of wrestling telling me to “just hold it.”
There was only one constant as I tumbled through these periods of self-questioning and problem-solving, and it was that if I mention my Tourette’s to someone, they will bring up Tourette’s Guy.
Tourette’s Guy launched in 2004 at www.tourettesguy.com. The site exploded as part of the first wave of viral videos on YouTube, showing scenes of “Tourette’s Guy” shouting extreme obscenities and experiencing what appear to be severe symptoms.
It’s unclear if the man in the videos, named Danny, actually has Tourette’s. While his website claims that he has been diagnosed with the disorder, it also claimed he died in a 2007 car accident (he appeared in videos again a year later, rather alive, and according to some rumors, fresh out of prison).
What is clear is that when a young Adan tried to explain his neurological disorder to classmates, Tourette’s Guy was their only reference point.
If I’m being honest, it’s still most people’s only reference point.
In fact, while doing research for this piece, I learned of two other famous people with Tourette’s — Billie Eilish and Mozart.
What the hell? You’re telling me that two of the world’s most iconic musical genius wunderkinden are among the available representatives for this disorder, and I grew up being constantly shown Tourette’s Guy?
Of course, the Mozart claim is speculation based on firsthand accounts and documents, since Mozart’s life predated the identification of the syndrome. But look at this quote from the leading paper on the subject, which in a funny coincidence was authored by my own childhood neurologist in Houston who I mentioned earlier:
“Mozart’s biographical accounts often comment on his peculiar behaviour which has been interpreted by some as a manifestation of an underlying neurobehavioural disorder, such as Tourette syndrome (TS)…many notable figures, such as Dr Samuel Johnson, have made extraordinary contributions to the arts and sciences despite, or perhaps because of, their TS. Several reports have drawn attention to the observation that some TS patients possess unique talents and skills, similar to individuals with autism and savant syndrome.”
This representation of Tourette’s Syndrome as adjacent to a wild, uncontrollable force of creative power is badass! We have to be careful not to over-romanticize the reality (lest we return to the original problem on TikTok). But I can tell you, as a kid dealing with these issues, I would have liked to have a real neurodivergent hero like Mozart or Billie Eilish to look up to, instead of this screaming, balding, jester in a neck brace.
I share this not to disparage Tourette’s Guy, actually, or even to draw a comparison between him and The Wonderland System. They are definitely very different.
I’m sharing this to point out the importance of representation. And in order to represent a disability correctly, you should probably, at a bare minimum, have the disability.
In an increasingly identity-driven culture, we should consider the repercussions of who we’re letting tell whose story. It’s a disservice to people who do experience more realistic symptoms of DID to allow the experience to be conveyed by someone who is, at best, confused, and at worst, taking on a mantle of disability for clout.
It’s not the same, but I’m reminded of Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who cosplayed as a black chapter president in the NAACP.
That instance, of course, was totally ridiculous, and was quickly shut down once the truth came to light. But when it comes to such intangibles as mental health and neurological diagnoses, the truth may not always be so clear.
Is Dissociative Identity Disorder real?
Dissociative Identity Disorder is considered “real,” in that it is currently listed in the most recent edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, there is significant controversy over the subject among psychologists, many of whom characterize it as “not real,” and instead as a misdiagnosis of other underlying conditions.
I’ve come to learn that this is a major can of worms in the psychology community.
To be considered a “real” mental disorder, a condition must be listed in the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published in 2013 by a bunch of white American guys. According to that book, people with Dissociative Identity Disorder must meet certain criteria, such as noting two or more distinct personality states, experiencing gaps in memory, and having those things cause problems in one’s daily life.
Are there people diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder who suffer all those symptoms? You bet. But as you may have noticed, these aren’t exactly rigorous, specific, or reliable criteria.
To truly understand the mythos of “multiple personality disorder” in the West, we need to understand Sybil.
Sybil was the book that first introduced Dissociative Identity Disorder, then called Multiple Personality Disorder, to the world. The book documents the treatment of a woman experiencing 16 different personalities. It exploded in popularity, doing an initial print run of 400,000 and shooting to the top of the bestsellers list.
Here’s where the story gets shaky.
In a 2011 book titled Sybil Exposed, journalist Debbie Nathan pokes a series of holes in the Sybil story, ultimately calling the entire project an intentional act of fraud, and a successful attempt by writer Flora Rheta Schreiber, patient Sybil (real name Shirley Ardell Mason), and psychoanalyst Connie B. Wilbur to create a “Sybil, Inc.” business, selling books, T-shirts, and other paraphernalia.
Basically, Shirley Ardell Mason came from a Seventh Day Adventist family. She was highly imaginative, but wasn’t even allowed to read fiction. Understandably, she was experiencing mental health issues by the time she was in college, and started to see Dr. Wilbur.
Dr. Wilbur had a special interest in multiple personality disorder, and recommended Mason read up on it — an enormous red flag.
When Sybil felt she wasn’t getting the attention she wanted from Wilbur, she showed up at the office one day and said in a childlike voice “I’m not Shirley, I’m Peggy.”
Wilbur was thrilled to finally have a multiple personality disorder patient. She knew Shirley could make her famous, locking the patient into a pretty twisted action-reward continuum. After just a few weeks, Shirley agreed to be part of the book.
Wilbur loaded her up with drugs — intravenous barbiturates, sodium pentothal, and the hallucinogen Thorazine, for instance. Full of drugs and under hypnosis, Shirley was guided through the interviews that would be spun by Schreiber into a bestselling book.
Today, most professionals are pretty convinced that Sybil was a load of hooey. At one point in the book, Mason even writes in a letter that she was making up her alter egos for attention and excitement; this is then interpreted as an attempt to avoid difficult therapy sessions.
I do not really have any multiple personalities. … I do not even have a ‘double.’ … I am all of them. I have been lying in my pretense of them. (Shirley Ardell Mason, aka “Sybil”)
Wilbur became deeply emotionally invested in her patient, giving her 14-18 hours of therapy a week, cooking meals at her home, and paying for her living expenses. When Shirley did try to back out, it was too late. They’d already signed a contract, and Wilbur was already halfway through the book. If Shirley stood in the way, she would lose Wilbur, who had become a central feature in her life.
It’s a position of immense pressure for a patient, created by the person who should have been helping her. The final explanation went that it wouldn’t be ethical to publish the book without the subject being completely cured, and lo and behold, Shirley was returned to normal, with complete integrated memory of all her personalities.
In Sybil Exposed, though, Nathan doesn’t characterize Shirley as a “faker.”
“I think a better way to talk about what Shirley was doing,” she says, “was that she was acceding to a demand that she have this problem.”
This is starting to sound pretty familiar. In order to win attention and love, Sybil lost control and blew her experience completely out of proportion. The doctor and patient did this together, step-by-step, in a truly saddening dance that has impacted generations of people suffering from mental health issues.
Eventually, people found out Sybil’s true identity. She left the art teacher job she’d built for herself, and lived out the rest of her days addicted to barbiturates and dependent on Dr. Wilbur.
The all-time top post from r/fakedisordercringe. TikTokers who fake disorders often insist on dragging the LGBTQ+ community down with them, applying their signature “quirky,” out-of-touch approach to gender identity.
Now imagine if, instead of a doctor, the patient were trying to earn attention from the whole world at once on TikTok — “acceding to the demand” of embodying the lies they’ve told, or else losing their friends, followers, and community.
Here’s what’s interesting — shortly after Sybil was published, diagnoses of multiple personality disorder shot way up, from under 200 cases over centuries of Western civilization, to 40,000 cases in the US alone by the late 1980s. Similarly, the disorder doesn’t really seem to appear in cultures where it’s not represented as a part of mainstream media.
Beyond that, argues Nathan, the effects of this shoddy journalism disproportionately impacted women.
“This was a woman’s book, and the diagnosis that developed was a woman’s diagnosis — 90 percent of people who have multiple personality disorder, or get diagnosed with the new name, dissociative identity disorder, are women,” she says.
“To medicalize the sense of splitting and say that you are a woman who’s very, very ill, because you are the ultimate victim, I think didn’t do women any favours. And continues not to do them any favours.”
Eventually, people found out Sybil’s true identity. She left the art teacher job she’d found and went into hiding, living out the rest of her days addicted to barbiturates and dependent on Dr. Wilbur.
Rather unsurprisingly, it seems that a big driving force in many cases of DID is simply finding it interesting. By finding DID interesting, the patient convinces themselves that having DID will make them interesting to others.
That falls into the category of “malingering,” which is when you feign or exaggerate an illness or condition in order to achieve a desired outcome, usually getting off work, but in other cases, as a plea for attention.
While I’m defining medical jargon, I should also mention “iatrogenic.”
An “iatrogenic illnesses” is one that is caused by medical examination or treatment. In the case of Sybil, for instance, hypnosis experts have reviewed audio tapes of the patient’s sessions, ultimately concluding that Wilbur implanted the idea herself.
This would be an example of an iatrogenic disorder, one that wouldn’t have taken shape without a helping hand from a psychologist. By either validating or rejecting certain notions presented by the patient, it would not be hard to lead them to any number of perspectives on their condition, especially for someone already suffering from mental health issues.
And to a confused young person who sees DID as a cool, trendy source of attention, there’s probably already some amount of desire to lead themselves there. Essentially, it can be a combination of malingering and iatrogenic influences.
These two factors combined offer an explanation for the exploding popularity of fake DID TikTokers. Some of them are outright faking it, but worryingly, others may find themselves convinced by their own fake disorder, even to the point of receiving a “professional diagnosis” — a coveted artifact in TikTok’s fake disorder community, and one that can be falsified or obtained through the medical system without much difficulty.
In an article for Psychology Today titled “Why DID or MPD is a Bogus Diagnosis,” co-founder of The Lazarus Institute Clifford N. Lazarus Ph.D. sums it up succinctly:
Hence, the danger for the consumer is that if a therapist unquestioningly buys into the label, the therapist will be likely to find or, worse yet, manufacture evidence that supports the diagnosis. Even more alarming is that some clinicians actually encourage behaviors that seem consistent with the label, which increases the likelihood that the client will act more like the label and begin to “fit” into this diagnostic category.
The net result is that the real, underlying psychological disturbance won’t be properly addressed and the client will fail to derive any true therapeutic benefits from the “treatment.” Even worse, he or she might be harmed due to the common emphasis that DID therapy places on “recovered memories,” which in itself is a tremendously problematic issue.
Now, I am not denying that people can have strange, disconnected, amnesic, and fragmented experiences, nor am I totally decrying the diagnosis of DID. It is possible that some unfortunate people who have suffered through horrendous abuse, neglect, or trauma may indeed suffer from some malady resembling this condition.
***
The human brain is infinitely complex, and we’re far from understanding it. I may have Tourette’s Syndrome, but I’m no neurologist. And if I were, I still wouldn’t really know what’s going on.
All of us are just winging it. We don’t have the answers on a neurological level, much less on the moral level of knowing what to do with an increasingly broken system and the new generations of kids that are being ushered into it.
This isn’t a “line in the sand” type of situation. It’s one that will require empathy and intelligent listening, as well as firmness and principle.
Only with a two-sided approach, one that takes into account the “realities” on both sides, will we be able to address the fundamental forces that are making kids do this, and stop the fake disorder cringe.
I’m not a mental health professional, and these opinions are my own. For more opinions that are also my own, consider adding your email for the Earthshifting newsletter, where I share the best the world has to offer in Culture, Travel, and Conscious content.