forum Help me with my somewhat split-personality boi

Started February 15, 2019 by @LCooper

tune

Pls and thank you

Are you thinking more manic depressive bipolar or more dissociate identity disorder?

Well I suppose dissociate identity. The thing is he's a sci fi character that can literally split into two different people, but that's rare. I want to develop the psychological side of one person being in control of the body while the other is trapped inside.

Ooo spooky, sounds fun
first question, how did this happen, was he born like this or is he some kind of lab rat? because the really nice thing about a SciFi story is you get to make your own rules about technology and it's effects on humans etc, what you could do (and this would probably be way way easier) is explain it more so through your in-universe technology than through our real world psychology and leave any holes to your audience's heightened suspension of disbelief.
I guess just whats a run down on your boys backstory/origin?

So he's not my protag but he's an important character. Basically we first find him when my protag is leaving her colony on Mars for an adventure with friends to earth. He's in a cell, and in bad shape. My protag (Maia) rescues him and takes him with them. Um, I don't have him super developed on how this is possible. He's a shapeshifter. He can look like anyone. His name is Sam. But he has a secret dark side named Sebastian that he's managed to keep locked away for quite a while now. The problem is that his nature tends to be the whole "angel/devil conscience." When Maia turns bad later on, Sebastian splits from him and (after a five year time skip, which is a story in and of itself) we learned that Sam is now trapped inside Sebastian's body. We see him reappear only a couple times, when Maia's mercy wins over her evil self.

Wow that's a really interesting plot
To answer your question though its not too far of a stretch to say Sam has DID, irl the different personalities of a person with DID can know and interact with each other in the world inside the person's mind and can 'watch' the actions of another personality when they have control of the body. I don't think it's a stretch to say one personality would 'fight' with the other for control. DID is pretty complicated and varies a whole lot from person to person so everything you're trying to do are totally believable possibilities.
You can say it's actual DID or, since we're in the future, you can squeeze through a nice little loop hole by coming up with whatever name you want for his condition which gives up a free pass if you need to muck up a few details here and there for plot reasons, because after all we are 'discovering' new mental disorders more and more as time progresses so it makes total since that a few decades or centuries into the future there would be ones we haven't classified now. The last thing you could do is just make Sambastian's condition comorbid with being a shifter.

I think I was kind of leaning towards the last option, where it kinda combines with his shape-shifting. Could you help me to maybe go deeper into the psychological aspects of his fight for control with Seb?

I'd be glad to, or at least glad to try
So I guess imagine it like this, inside Sam's head (actually let me just say 'your boy' for the physical body and then refer to the personalities by name) So inside your boy's head is for lack of a better word a plaza where both Sam and Sebastian live, now this isn't going to be a great metaphor but stick with me, imagine in the middle of it is a control panel that moves your boys body. So Sam and Seb will fight for it and one will eventually win but as they're controlling your boy the other can still 'see' what they're doing and still 'comment' on it. So if Seb has control of the body he can still 'hear' what Sam is saying.
DID has a genetic factor but external causes can be head injuries but usually trauma, especially at a young childhood age- it could abuse or trauma of a near death experience or seeing someone vital to him die. Then as a response to whatever the tragdty is the brain kinda breaks into the different personalities.
Well actually before I get ahead of myself, what specifically are you wondering about?

I just want to get into the two characters' emotions, really

For all intents and purposes your'e pretty much there, essentially you're just going to write two different characters with their own goals, ideals, morals etc and pop them into one body. There is not much more to it honestly

Well- okay then. Thanks for your help