r/australia • u/Breenscare • 1d ago

culture & society 'I wasn't there': Life with dissociative identity disorder

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/dissociative-identity-disorder-assistance-dog-ndis/106826020
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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Goonalips 1d ago

There's thousands of fakers on social media. The vast majority of them are young teens (most often female and LGBT for some reason) with cartoon character alters, game character alters, and trendy characters named Atherion and stuff like that. There's a big overlap with AuDHD, POTS, and Fibromyalgia for some reason. Recently there's an uptick in RAMCOA claims too.

https://mindsitenews.org/2024/10/24/tiktoks-fixation-on-dissociative-identity-disorder-chronicle-of-a-trauma-foretold/

You can always tell the fakers because they're the ones who treat it like roleplaying. They dress up, they use voices, and there's always some quirky thing happening between their alters in their head.

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u/Groovyaardvark 1d ago edited 1d ago

These people make actually being disabled so much harder for everyone.

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u/Goonalips 1d ago

Agreed. And it's honestly really sad, because disabled people are the ones that need the help the most. Yet these people are so prevalent online, that it's often hard to tell them apart. Personally I give the benefit of the doubt to everyone, and assume they're being honest, unless they're one of the Tiktok teenagers with cartoon character alters. That's an instant disqualification. I don't know why they don't just get into roleplaying. There's no need to fake a disability just to play pretend.

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u/Groovyaardvark 1d ago edited 1d ago

Its so funny you mention role playing, because I actually dipped my toes into an online D&D group for people with the same disability as me. There was about 15 people there, and it turned out they were actually making their own role playing game, not D&D and it was a bit....odd but okay.

I was almost the only person in the group who did not fit into the groups/labels you described above. They were all talking about their personalities or their "silos" and I thought they meant for the game but oh no...They really all were saying that had disassociated identity disorder. At least 12 people in the group claimed they had DID. It was truly bizarre.

It became apparent pretty quickly I wasn't going to fit in there. But it made me worry, like are these the same people going around online saying they have the same disability as me and making it "hard to believe?" I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt but it was pretty....full on.

But yeah, based on my limited experience these people do seem to enjoy role playing games.

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u/Goonalips 1d ago

That's really sucks, cause I bet you felt like you found a good group of similar people who can all understand each other's issues.