AnnaLynne McCord opens up about her dissociative identity disorder
Apr 24, 2021
Washington [US], April 24 : Hollywood star and activist AnnaLynne McCord during a recent interview recalled how revisiting her past traumas following her dissociative identity disorder diagnosis was both painful and healing.
According to E! News, the '90210' actor during her interview with 'Good Morning America' recalled filming a season 2 scene for The CW series in which a teacher, played by Hal Ozsan, rapes her character, Naomi.
Talking about it, McCord said, "My whole body like just went into panic mode as if I was living out my life on camera. These moments were coming to light through my work. I didn't understand anything about the mind or the brain at the time, I was just trying to do my job and I couldn't."
McCord explained that even though she had an intense emotional reaction around this scene, she didn't have the memories associated with her pain. Eventually, she learned she was a sexual abuse survivor, and that she had "all of the dangerous, toxic, harmful memories" locked away.
The actor had first spoken out about being a sexual assault survivor in 2012 and later talked about the abuse she suffered during childhood in 2014.
Given the great deal of misinformation about dissociative identity disorder, characters in films like 'Split' depict those with the diagnosis as having distinct different personalities and identities, McCord explained what it means for her.
Explaining the disorder, she said, "You have fragments of yourself. There's AnnaLynne, who's talking to you right now, right? And then there's the part of me that this trauma happened to that still, if you can imagine it like trapped in Pandora's box and I just opened Pandora's box."
McCord further talked about DID and continued, "The brain doesn't care about quality of life. It just cares about going on to continue living. I want my quality of life to get better and that's why I stepped into this healing process."
As per E! News, the actor had first spoken about her diagnosis earlier this month in a conversation with Dr. Daniel Amen of the Amen Clinics. She had said that playing her character Pauline in the 2012 film 'Excision' had helped her realize what was happening.
