Dissociative Identity Disorder and TikTok

[Anonymous]

My 14 y/o DD showed me a TikTok of a person with DID doing a “round Robin” taste test where all the different personalities try a new food. She asked me a few questions about DID which I didn’t know the answer to and told me that there are a lot of tweens/teens who have it and there’s a community on TikTok.

Sure enough, I did some exploring and there are dozens and dozens of young people and also adults who are “systems” and claim to have DID, with upwards of 50 different identities, from childhood trauma and I find the whole thing really disturbing. It is very clearly fake/exaggerated for most of these people. I do not know how to talk to my daughter about faking real but rare mental health conditions without being invalidating or insensitive to any of these people, whether they really have a DID diagnosis or not.

Has anyone run into anything like this? I’m at a loss.

[Anonymous]

I don't make it specific to a certain illness. DS knows that there are people who fake things for attention, followers, etc. They may fake something big like an illness or trauma, or something small like a breakup or crazy story. If he wants to follow someone he usually does a quick search to see if they seem legit or not. He only donates money to causes if he can do a thorough check. He follows some pretty interesting people with various illnesses, but he's also.pointed out to me ones who were clearly doing it for followers.

[Anonymous]

“Some people have this condition but it’s quite rare and this is not what the symptoms are like. Unfortunately some people either fake things for money or attention or have a different type of illness where they may not even realize they are fabricating symptoms. In any case, it’s pretty sad either way snd I don’t want you looking at that type of tiktok.

[Anonymous]

The one with the round robin taste test (the A system) is real. His wife has posted medical diagnoses and treatment codes and bills from therapy. A friend in texas knows the wife through work and says it's all real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The one with the round robin taste test (the A system) is real. His wife has posted medical diagnoses and treatment codes and bills from therapy. A friend in texas knows the wife through work and says it's all real.

I remain extremely skeptical of the validity of that diagnosis if they’re doing YouTube taste tests, regardless of whether they got down some “care provider” to code for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The one with the round robin taste test (the A system) is real. His wife has posted medical diagnoses and treatment codes and bills from therapy. A friend in texas knows the wife through work and says it's all real.

I remain extremely skeptical of the validity of that diagnosis if they’re doing YouTube taste tests, regardless of whether they got down some “care provider” to code for that.

I don't know what to tell you. Wife had been open about it at work predating the tiktok creation.

[Anonymous]

Imagine the stuff she's watching on TikTok that she's not telling you about, that you'll never get to talk to her about.

[Anonymous]

Explain to her what DID really is. Do some googling to find good sources. Explain to her that people who truly have DID don't usually switch from personality to personality at will. Find the stats that will show her that it's extremely unlikely that these people actually have the disorder.

It's not your job to validate these strangers on the internet.

This would annoy me, and this is how I'd handle it. Kids need to develop a BS meter and this is a great opportunity to strengthen it.

[Anonymous]

There are a ton of "munchies" on tiktok (and social media in gernal) there is actually a reddit calling them all out. Basically just wanting attention for being "sick". Most of the "illnesses" are things that are very hard to actually diagnose like heds, did, etc. It's actually pretty sad.

[Anonymous]

Remind your kid that Tik Tok is for entertainment purposes only and everything should be taken with a grain a salt and with the intention of being for fun only.

[Anonymous]

There is soooo much misinformation about psychiatric disorders on tiktok!! And Instagram. Everything is trauma, everything is ADHD, everything is disassociation, etc. Perhaps you could have your child check out a tiktok account by somebody named Dr. Inna. She has no patience for fake psychology content.

[Anonymous]

Here is a link to one of her videos. She is really fun!

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdjQbxNg/

[Anonymous]

This completely sickened me too. I deleted tiktok from her phone (among other issues that went alongside some of her newly learned behaviors) but dd thought DID looked cool.

DID is horrifying and only from the most extreme trauma. As if all the personalities would even want to be videotaped or participate at all, it's just awful to me that it's such a joke now on tiktok.

It is so shocking to me how much this influences kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 14 y/o DD showed me a TikTok of a person with DID doing a “round Robin” taste test where all the different personalities try a new food. She asked me a few questions about DID which I didn’t know the answer to and told me that there are a lot of tweens/teens who have it and there’s a community on TikTok.

Sure enough, I did some exploring and there are dozens and dozens of young people and also adults who are “systems” and claim to have DID, with upwards of 50 different identities, from childhood trauma and I find the whole thing really disturbing. It is very clearly fake/exaggerated for most of these people. I do not know how to talk to my daughter about faking real but rare mental health conditions without being invalidating or insensitive to any of these people, whether they really have a DID diagnosis or not.

Has anyone run into anything like this? I’m at a loss.

I wouldn’t worry about being insensitive or invalidating people you don’t know for something like this. It’s the Internet. Everything on the Internet is bullshit. Especially a platform built around people performing.

[Anonymous]

Too many people watched Mr. Robot, I guess.

I tried to show one of these videos to DD and she said it looked so obviously fake and stupid.

So many attention seekers nowadays.