What Comedians Get Right About Mental Health Trauma

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On October 14th, the Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy.

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That family wasn't real.

Alok Kanojia (0:13)

You sure about that?

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I had a father called Vision.

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How is this possible?

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Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest.

Nothing bonds a family together quite like mortal jeopardy. Streaming October 14th. Only on Disney+.

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Alok Kanojia (1:03)

Hey chat, welcome to the Healthy GamerGG podcast. I'm Dr. Ollo Konoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in.

Hey, y'all, I'm Dr. Ollo Konoja, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist. And today we're going to watch some comedians joking about mental illness. Hopefully we'll laugh. But what I really want to do is explain the mechanisms behind the joke. So let's dive in.

SPEAKER_6 (1:41)

Self-diagnosed with a dissociative identity disorder.

SPEAKER_7 (1:44)

Dissociative identity disorder.

Alok Kanojia (1:46)

It's dissociative.

SPEAKER_7 (1:47)

It wasn't me cheating on you.

Alok Kanojia (1:51)

Self-diagnosed. Important.

SPEAKER_7 (1:53)

What does that mean, though?

SPEAKER_6 (1:55)

That's what used to be known as multiple personality disorder. It's a controversial diagnosis. I'm not getting into it.

SPEAKER_7 (2:03)

You can, just so you know. You can't totally...

SPEAKER_6 (2:06)

You get to walk off stage after this. I got to meet these people in the parking lot.

SPEAKER_7 (2:11)

When you say these people, do you just mean one?

Alok Kanojia (2:16)

Okay, so let's get into multiple personality disorders and why it's a controversial diagnosis. So I once asked one of my mentors, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, hey, are multiple personalities real? And he said, I believe in multiple personalities in the same way that I believe in aliens, which is like statistically, yes, there is probably something out there called multiple personalities, or people do really have multiple personalities, but I never believe anyone who says that they've seen one.

SPEAKER_6 (2:43)

You know, it happened within literally 24 hours, and it was like, here's my two other personalities and their names. I was like...

SPEAKER_7 (2:51)

Can I ask, and I don't mean to be rude, but remember, this is all fake.

Alok Kanojia (2:56)

We'll talk, okay, so is it fake? We'll get to the fakeness later. We'll talk about is it fake.

SPEAKER_7 (3:04)

Can I ask... We'll explain what it is. Can you, like, tell me, like, when they introduced the other people, was it like...

Alok Kanojia (3:14)

Actually, yes.

SPEAKER_7 (3:15)

Or was it... Or was it like, they're back here, I'll tell you what they're saying?

Alok Kanojia (3:21)

Both. Okay, so this is really interesting. Let's understand what multiple personalities are, first of all. So normally, you have your mind, right? And your mind is connected, and you adopt different roles. So like, if I'm, you know, deeply in love with someone in a secure relationship, I may start talking to them in like a baby voice. Oh, baby, I love you so much. Oh my god, you're so amazing. I love you.

And then when I'm like, when I go into work, right, I may adopt a different personality. So I've worked with patients, for example, who are executives at high powered companies. And one of the really interesting things about media, which is somewhat correct, is sometimes people who are in any very dominant positions will engage in like submissive sexual fetishization, okay? So we have all these different hats that we put on in our personality. But the thing is, our personality is all connected. So I want you guys to think about like your personality is a crystal that has lots of different facets. What happens in multiple personality disorder is that there's a psychological trauma that basically, imagine taking a hammer to the crystal, and then all the pieces shatter. So in multiple personality disorder, there's a great text about it where they talk about how trauma causes the personality to shatter along fault lines. So in the way that there's like a weakness in like a certain, like let's say piece of stone or a tectonic plate, and then it cracks along those lines, that's what happens in multiple personalities. So whereas all of the different hats that you put on are all still connected, when someone has dissociative identity disorder, their hats are no longer connected. So I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but all the hats that they put on aren't just hats, they sort of become different people. And this is where things get kind of interesting because they're all still connected though, right? Because it's like one brain. So sometimes they do have different mannerisms. Sometimes they have amnesia from each other because one alter won't let another alter know what's going on. And then the other thing is also true where since they're all connected by one physical organ, which is the brain, they can actually communicate with each other as well. So when you're doing psychotherapy with some of these patients, what you can do is ask them, hey, can you let so and so come forward? And then I know there's that move and stuff like that, so what's really interesting is you'll see changes in tone of voice, you'll see changes in like accent, mannerisms, even body language, posture, stuff like that.