Ellen Rose had been a patient of mine for years before I realized that she had this life-long learning disability. Like other people with DID, she can follow a route in pieces, but it never becomes part of a larger spatial understanding.That's because she does not have a larger spatial understanding of her environment.
I asked her to draw a diagram of the second floor of the house she shares with her daughter and son-in-law. It was a difficult task for her (she lives on the first floor but is very familiar with the second). She described her effort not as a bird looking down from above, but as a spider crawling across the paper tracing a route from one room to the next.
Ellen has always wondered what was wrong with her. She knew that when others ascribed her problems to simply not paying attention , they were mistaken. She worried that her problems in traveling might be a sign of something more serious than just getting lost easily, but had no idea what that might be.
Finding out that she had DID was a relief. Knowing that something has a name can be a liberating experience.All of a sudden it is a thing, a concept with defining characteristics.It is in a way, a kind of map.
It can be learned that people with DTD?