The woman with more than 2500 personalities

Dissociative identity disorder is one of those conditions which never fails to fascinate each and every psychology enthusiast. Multiple films and series have been made on this particular subject, we may have seen the protagonists having two, three or four alters (the different personalities). Now, how many alters you thought could exist at once?
For me, I never thought it could be more than four to five alters, until I came across the case of a woman named Jeni Haynes with more than 2500 alters, that’s unbelievable right!
But why dissociative identity disorder happens, and why so many alters, is there a purpose, a cause, and are their specific roles for these personalities? We’ll read all on it and try to comprehend what is it all about with the help of Jeni’s Haynes’ case.
Dissociative Identity Disorder, also referred to as the Multiple Personality Disorder, is a dissociative disorder, and it is a response, a way of the brain to avoid, or handle, or tackle with bad memories, particularly trauma. Not just any trauma, trauma which specifically took place in one’s childhood. It is a way of the brain to protect itself, and DID is that shield against the trauma. During the childhood, when the child goes through severe trauma, and finds it unescapable, brain gives a response to that situation by creating the multiple personalities. As with Jeni Haynes, during childhood, she had a monster of a father, she went through physical and sexual abuse, and to cope with that pain, that horror, her brain created these alters to detach her from the pain. In her case, there have been more than 2500 alters reported, each alter, attempting to protect her from trauma memories, either smell, touch, taste, in every way possible.
Jeni Haynes was four years old when her father started his painfully sadistic abuse. She was terrified, in pain, but her father didn’t stop, the abuse happened nearly every day. To save herself from this terrible experience, her brain did the best it could, and so the different personalities were created. The first one was ‘Symphony’, a four year old, who took over Jeni’s body whenever an abuse was to happen. And so, overtime, more alters were formed, each having their own purpose.
Jeni Haynes claims, these alters, the multiple personalities ‘saved her soul’, there would have been no other way. In short, it was all to protect Jeni, it helped her survive the trauma, and the years after from the horrible memories. The abuse left her with permanent injuries and problems with eyesight, dentistry, hearing, her mental health. She has a permanent colostomy bag.
In 2017, Jeni’s was the first case in Australia, to testify in the court with the help of her alters. The main personalities were, Symphony, Muscles, a teenage boy, Ricky, an 8 year old boy, all provided evidence in the court.
Her father, Richard Haynes was sentenced to 45 years in prison. He finally will be paying for all the wrongs he did. All that abuse took a serious toll on Jeni’s life, within every field, physical, mental, emotional, as well as social.