NEWS'Uninterested In Shame': AnnaLynne McCord Reveals Dissociative Identity Disorder Diagnosis
April 20 2021, Published 1:45 p.m. ET
AnnaLynne McCord is getting real about her mental health.
The actress revealed she’s been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which was previously known as multiple personality disorder. In a conversation with Dr. Daniel Amen, she discussed her diagnosis and said she was "absolutely uninterested in shame" of the stigma surrounding the disorder.
“There is nothing about my journey that I invite shame into anymore,” McCord said. “And that’s how we get to the point where we can articulate the nature of these pervasive traumas and stuff, as horrible as they are.”
The 33-year-old was diagnosed with DID prior to her visit with Amen Clinics and felt her acting roles brought her diagnosis to light.
"All of my roles were splits, but I didn't even realize I was doing it at all until I did a project 90210," she said of the Beverly Hills, 90210 spinoff, which ran on the CW for five seasons from 2008-2013.
When she filmed the 2012 horror movie Excision during a hiatus from the show, she admitted it triggered something inside her.
"I played a very cerebral, disturbed, strange little girl that was very close to who I feel I am on the inside. It was very exposing, very confronting, probably a bit re-traumatizing without realizing it," she recounted of the role. "The crazy thing about it was that I wrapped that film at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday and had to be happy, crazy Beverly Hills blonde bombshell on Wednesday at noon. I couldn't find her, she was not accessible. I was dark, I was very deep into this character Pauline, and I couldn't get [out]."
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The Nip/Tuck actress says she was "co-conscious" of her true identity and a split personality she called "little Anna" at the age of 13. "She was a balls to the wall, middle fingers to the sky, anarchist from hell who will stab you with the spike ring that she wears, and you'll like it. Then she'll make you lick the blood from it," she said. "She was a nasty little creature, but I have so much gratitude to her because she got me out of the hell that I was in."
According to WebMD, DID is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. Dissociative identity disorder is thought to stem from a combination of factors that may include trauma experienced by the person with the disorder. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism — the person literally shuts off or dissociates themselves from a situation or experience that's too violent, traumatic, or painful to assimilate with their conscious self.
McCord has spoken in the past about being raped as a teenager and the trauma it caused.
"A year ago, I was in treatment for PTSD and memories of child sexual abuse came back for years all the way until I was 11 years," she told PEOPLE in September 2019.
She discussed her memory loss regarding such traumatic events in the recent interview, explaining, "I don't have anything until around 5. Then from 5 to 11, I recount incidents throughout. Then when I was 13, I have a singled-out memory that was one thing, but I don't have the sense of anything else at that time."
