Indigo's Journey
The first and most popular misconception is that MPD and schizophrenia are the same illness. They are, in fact, two completely different illnesses that have different causes, different prognosis, different treatment methods, and behavioural manifestations.
Schizophrenia is an organic brain disease that typically stems from a prolonged overproduction of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This condition often causes hallucinations and disorganized thought. While genetics can certainly play an important role in the development of this illness, nurture and social family structural factors do not. Certain medicines can reduce the disabling effects of schizophrenia.
Multiple Personality Disorder, on the other hand, is always caused by repeated, sustained emotional, physical, or sexual abuse over a long period of time - sometimes years or decades. People with MPD tend to experience blackouts rather than hallucinations. MPD patients do not have a neurotransmitter balance that triggers the illness. There is no medicine that cures MPD. Cognitive therapy and psychoanalysis can be of great help.
When a schizophrenic hears "voices" (auditory hallucinations), they are usually psychotic voices, not dissociative voices. There is an important distinction between the two. Psychotic voices are often perceived as coming from outside the subject's body, and the voice in question usually just issues commands. The subject cannot have a two-way conversation with a psychotic voice. A dissociative voice is usually perceived as originating from inside the subjects own head. Dissociative voices are often rational. The subject can have a two-way conversation with a dissociative voice.
Personally, I'm not sure if it's really fair to classify the dissociative voices that an MPD person hears as auditory hallucinations. The subject is, in fact, hearing part of his/her own mind, and is hearing a very real component of the subject's psyche. But it is classified as auditory hallucination nevertheless.
I'm not a psychiatrist, so I don't know the exact details of how the test is measured (although I've certainly participated in enough diagnostics), but there is a test that gauges the subject's ability to accurately view reality. Schizophrenics tend to score lower on the reality diagnostic than MPD patients do. While a Schizophrenic's thoughts are disorganized and/or jumbled by a measurable organic brain illness, the dissociative components of an MPD mind are often surprisingly rational. This is partly due to the fact that there isn't anything physiologically wrong with an MPD patient's brain. His/her psyche is arranged in an unusual (and sometimes dysfunctional) manner, but there's nothing physiologically wrong with the subject. Because of this important distinction, psychotropic medication has only limited benefit to an MPD patient, while it can be an absolutely life-saving, life-changing benefit to a schizophrenic patient. Likewise, a properly trained counsellor can be of great benefit to an MPD patient, but of only limited utility to a schizophrenic patient.
Psychotropic medicine can be an aid in treating some of the secondary problems that MPD patients often manifest, such as depression and anxiety. In my own treatment history, anti-depressant medication was a literal life-saving drug for me. During my years in therapy, these drugs allowed me to not drown in despair, and allows the Indigo and Thistle Alters to remain strong enough to not be overcome by Halo. Now that I am integrated, I only need anti-depressant medicine during the winter months; Thistle is weaker in the prolonged absence of sunlight.
Another diagnostic feature of MPD is that the subject's handwriting will change when the active persona changes. Schizophrenics do not manifest this phenomenon. Now that I am integrated, I can write normally with my right hand and also write mirror-image with my left hand. The Indigo personality has lousy handwriting. Thistle has good handwriting. Halo's handwriting is very angular.
Forget everything you've ever seen on TV about MPD. Hollywood purposefully incorrectly portrays people with MPD as psychotic murderers that always have a "good" outward personality and a hidden "evil" personality that lives for killing. This could not be further from the truth. While the suicide rate for Multiples is significantly higher than average, their homicide rate is not. Most people with MPD can hold down meaningful jobs and make meaningful contributions to society. People with MPD may sometimes be a danger to themselves, but rarely to others.
The other Hollywood myth they perpetrate is that MPD subjects sort of "know" everything. For instance, an Alter who believes he is a soldier is portrayed as suddenly knowing everything about military procedures and firearms. Or an Alter believing she is a doctor would somehow know everything about medicine and surgical procedures. In fact, Alters only have access to the knowledge that the host body has been exposed to. That doesn't mean that one Alter can't have knowledge that another Alter doesn't. This just means that one Alter was conscious for a particular piece of learning, while another Alter was unconscious.
Hollywood also portrays MPD counsellors as striving to kill off the Alters. I can tell you firsthand that no counsellor worth his diploma would ever desire this to happen. Integration does not involve killing the Alters. Integration is all about creating a fully-functional human being out of a collection of broken pieces. If you shatter a vase into seven or eight pieces and then glue it back together, but wind up with a vase that is functional as a vase, but is also still composed of the original pieces. My experience with integration is that I am somehow a single entity and a multiple at the same time. The Alters still exist, and they lend strength to the integrated super-personality that is outwardly visible to others.
A third myth is that multiples are just "making it up". Actually, dissociation is the very last defence the mind has against complete collapse. If a person has MPD, there is always a cause. Dissociation is a very clever defence mechanism that allows a victim of abuse to expose only one part of his/her psyche to abuse at any particular time. The downside is that these divisions are lasting ones.