Is It Me or My Alter Ego?

The concept of "the other side of a person" was coined in the 1730s by Anton Mesmer through experiments assessing how a person's personality is in a conscious state and when hypnotized. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, "alter ego" means the part of someone's personality that isn't usually seen by other people. An alter ego is a character that is consciously created from what a person has long desired to cover up the original personality that he does not want to be shown to others. Split personalities are clearly different; the alter ego is fully realized by the individual, whereas split personalities are a complex psychological disorder condition that the sufferer cannot control.

If the alter ego is intentionally created and useful for someone, then it is different from a split personality. Dissociative identity disorder (DID) or multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a disorder that occurs when a person has more than one identity in his or her body. Therefore, people with multiple personalities often experience a total change in character. This can be from the way of speaking, memory, name, age, or even gender. Personality can change and be different. Well, when the identity returns to the main identity, then he can no longer remember what happened when another personality took over. This is obviously not the same as an alter ego, because identity changes in people with alter egos occur in a conscious state and are still under their own control.In other words, the owner of this alter ego does not forget the process of changing his character. Not only that, the original identity also still has full authority over exchanging identities and full awareness. In fact, a person living with DID may have as few as two alters or as many as 100. The average number is about 10.

 

In my opinion, everyone has their alter ego, and it is normal because everyone wants to have an ideal self-image. And I'm pretty sure that not everyone realizes that they actually have an alter ego. Even if the alter ego is fully realized by the sufferer, it will be difficult to distinguish between the original nature and the alter ego. Because the understanding of this phenomenon is still different, such as for someone who has an alter ego in the form of a voice or personality in his head that shows up when needed or in the form of an interlocutor in times of loneliness (monologue).

 

Someone who has an alter ego is usually characterized by unstable emotions, forgetting what has been done, and having a different behavior or character. Creating an alter ego can have a positive impact, one of which is guidance and motivation. For example, a coward wants to motivate himself and make himself a brave person, so he imagines and creates a brave self in his mind, which he then manifests in the real world. But don't let it control you to the point where you don't realize it's your alter ego.If it dominates you, you may lose your sense of self-control.

 

It should be emphasized once more that alter ego is not the same as split personality. Although the two are slightly different, they both have distinctive differences. If we are releasing our alter ego, we can still remember past events, even though they are vague, because we still have control over ourselves. Where as in multiple personalities, we may not be able to remember the incident because we are controlled by our other personalities.