THE GOLDBACH CONJECTURE:

noun

1. Number Theory. a famously unsolved mathematical theory proposed in 1742 by Christn Goldbach, who claimed that “every even integer greater than two is the sum of two prime numbers.”

2. Youtube. an online video channel created in 2024 by Eliese Colette Goldbach, who documents the lived experience of a person(s) with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID.

verb

1. the act of breaking down stigma while seeking solutions to big questions about the mysteries of human consciousness and the nature of the self (i.e. “It’s really difficult to fight against discrimination, but I’ll Goldbach-Conjecture my way through it!”)

We are not just one self. We are many.

We are not just one ego. We are a collaboration.

We are not just one identity. We are a system.

Welcome to The Goldbach Conjecture, a multifaceted creative project that attempts to explain and demystify the condition known as Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID.

Until the mid-1990s, DID was referred to by its former name, “Multiple Personality Disorder,” and for a long time now, it has carried with it an immense amount of stigma, not only in the minds and hearts of the general population but also in the biased practices of the medical community.

We have suffered immensely from that stigma, and we are here to tell our story.

What is Dissociative Identity Disorder?

The Basics

Officially speaking, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a mental health condition wherein a person experiences a “disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states [. . .] accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor function” (DSM-V).

But what the heck does that mean?

 There is not a single human being on this earth who makes the transition from “womb” to “world” with a fully-formed personality in place. For the first few years of life, we are all a collection of emotional and behavioral reactions that develop in response to our surrounding environment.

It is not until we reach late childhood—typically between the ages of six and nine—that the vast collection of our experiences, behaviors and memories begin to coalesce, or integrate, into a well-defined Personality.

In other words, your “you-ness” (i.e your Personality) only emerged after you’d been alive and breathing for several years, although there’s a very good chance that it has remained relatively stable ever since.

For those who develop Dissociative Identity Disorder, this is not the case. The process of personality formation was interrupted in childhood, resulting in a plurality of different “identities” that operate as part of one larger whole, which those in the DID community often refer to as a “system of consciousness.”

The Brass Tacks

The Bald-Truth

So. What causes this interruption in personality development?

One word: Trauma.

Those who go on to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder experienced chaotic childhoods marked by abuse, neglect, bullying, parental unpredictability, and many other sources of fear, pain and distress.

Generally speaking, the traumatic experiences that cause DID begin very early in life—usually before the age of six—and the trauma in question is more of a pattern than an event. In other words, children who go on to develop DID exist in a world where neglect, abuse and uncertainty are persistent—and repetitive—features of their surrounding environment.

In order to cope, the brain separates the consciousness into various “identities” to carry and contain the overwhelming amount of trauma that would have otherwise been too distressing to handle.

Not Your Mother’s MPD

Over the years, Dissociative Identity Disorder has been sensationalized in the media by a wide variety of narrow-minded and inaccurate portrayals that treat the condition as either a spectacle or a lazy plot device.

[“OMG, the serial killer has multiple personalities!” ::gasp::]

Of course, the true face of DID isn’t that of a deranged cannibal sautéing a severed head over a glass of Chianti; it’s the face of a child who has endured the unimaginable.

During the short time that we’ve been aware of our DID, we’ve found that fellow “systems” in the community are often kind, creative and empathic in a way that belies the early experiences that formed their DID in the first place.

Those with the condition—ourselves included—aren’t characters, criminals or plot-twists; we are survivors of childhood trauma, and we deserve to be seen for the fullness of who we are, both as individual systems and as a community.

So, we hope you’ll join us on our journey to dispel the myths and stigma surrounding Dissociative Identity Disorder, and we hope you have a little bit of fun in the process!

(If you’re anything like us, you just might come to view this condition as a testament to the magnificence, power and resourcefulness of the human mind, which will go to seemingly-impossible lengths in order to protect and preserve life.)

Meet the Alters