Trisha Paytas defends self-diagnosing herself with dissociative identity disorder

16 March 2020, 14:22

By Jazmin Duribe

Trisha Paytas clashed with YouTuber Anthony Padilla over her Dissociative Identity Disorder announcement.

Trisha Paytas has defended herself after receiving backlash for claiming to have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a mental health condition previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. According to the NHS, many people with DID have had a traumatic event during childhood.

The YouTuber, who claimed to have "retired" from YouTube in March, uploaded a video titled "MEET MY ALTERS" on March 12 in which she introduced her subscribers to her alternate personalties – T, Trixie, Tyson, Tierney and Tobolter. 

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In the 20-minute video, she said: "Honestly, I've never been diagnosed with anything. The closest thing that I have is self-diagnosed myself with, I guess, is multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder." She then explained that she believes she lives with both disorders, however, DID and MPD are the same condition.

Trisha explained that she "never really formed her own personality" and she would often adopt traits of the people around her as a result of past trauma. For example, Trisha said that after a trip to the UK, she started speaking with a English accent. She said: "I was never able to develop my personality, but that's okay because I have others."

Trisha then went on to break down specific traits of each of her alters. T is "non-human, a protector and not of this world" and Trixie is Trisha's "twin" that has been with her since she was seven. Tyson is Trisha's "sensitive and emotional" alter and Tyson's twin Tierney is "catty, slutty and lies a lot, but only for attention – not ill-willed". Tierney is also her only alter with a defined sexuality – asexual.

Trisha said she believed Tobolter was her "invisible friend" at first but she discovered he's actually her alter and they have an eating disorder. She went on to call Chloe Wilkinson – who runs YouTube channel DissociaDID, which aims to erase the stigma surrounding the disorder –"crazy".

Watch Trisha's video here.

MEET MY ALTERS | Dissociative Identity Disorder

Trisha's video currently has 74,000 dislikes compared to 6,000 likes on YouTube and people have called for it to be removed from the platform. Soon after sharing the video, Trisha's name was trending on Twitter.

Many were offended that Trisha had self-diagnosed herself and accused her of spreading misinformation and damaging the DID community by using outdated stereotypes.

YouTuber Anthony Padilla, who recently shared a video where he interviewed people with DID, responded to Trisha's video on his Instagram Story by posting a video of himself moving Trisha's clip to his computer's "trash" folder. "Claiming you have dissociative identity disorder is not a cool excuse to mock people in the community and call them crazy," he captioned the video. 

Trisha responded to Anthony in another YouTube video titled "Dear Anthony Padilla..." where she slammed him for "pretending to be some sort of mental health advocate" yet invalidating her experiences. This spilled onto social media where Trisha continued to fight off the backlash. She also shared an Instagram Story going into the self-diagnosis.

"I was in a fucking mental hospital last year for fuck sake," she explained. "Every single person tells me the same thing. They [doctors] don't write the prescription and say, 'This is exactly what you have.' They tell me I have traits. I have traits of borderline personality disorder, I have traits of DID, I have had traits of schizophrenia. I have symptoms of all these things. They don't write it down on a piece of paper and say: 'This is what you've got.' It's just so fucking disgusting to be like, 'Well get diagnosed first.' Fuck off.

"I don't need to give anyone concrete proof evidence. I don't need to tell you about the conversations I've had with doctors."

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