By the way, many clinicians comment on DID patient’s blatant indifference (“la belle indifférence”) to their own other identities. It is true that some patients exhibit their lack of curiosity about even the fact that other identities are there, although they accept their condition of DID. Here is what I think is the reason.
Typically in DID individuals, each identity is attentive to and curious about some other identities, while emotionally distant and indifferent to many others. Identities often describe how they are located in their internal space in which their closeness to other identities is compared to their literal special distance in their internal world. To go back to the microbus model, the structure of the vehicle that they are riding together is, fact, much more complicated than the drawing that I showed (figure ###). Many patients describe a large dorm-like space where there are many separated small rooms in which each individual is located. Doors of many of these rooms are closed and residents do not see each other. There is only one driver’s seat upfront and some identities usually take turns in conducting the task of driving, while others in the back are nonchalant about the bus’s destination, or simply asleep. In that situation, lack of concerns and curiosity among identities is more a rule rather than an exception.
Same applies to finding someone else’s entries in one’s diary. Many individuals with DID noticed it a long time ago, but they remain indifferent until their clinicians bring it to their attention. It is like several riders on a microbus sharing a whiteboard to jot down their schedule. People do not pay much attention to other member’s memo on the whiteboard and mind their business, unless that other member is particularly close, disturbing or annoying.
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