If one wanted to distinguish schizophrenia from dissociative identity disorder, the best example was John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician. He often saw three people who did not exist in reality: first, his roommate; second, an FBI agent; third, a little girl.
John Nash was not the sort of madman with confused perceptions and poor logical thinking. Having schizophrenia did not mean a patient was schizophrenic every moment of every day. Even during an episode, Nash still believed he was a mathematician working for the American government to crack a Soviet cipher box. Dissociative identity disorder, meanwhile, could sometimes result in "blank" memories, like retired police officer Edward in the movies. Though he had switched personalities, time had continued to pass, and the face he perceived differed from his real one. Nash, however, could still clearly understand who he was.
Personality was like a mask. People who underwent so much plastic surgery that they no longer recognized themselves were prone to body image disorder, which was also a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. One surgery led to another, and they kept going until they were satisfied. In the end, even their biological parents might not recognize the person who emerged. Of course, the children they later had would also look completely different from their surgically altered appearance.
Body image disorder was not the same as body dysmorphic disorder. The most obvious differences were phantom limb syndrome and loss of pain sensation. This was different from Phineas Gage losing his sense of pain due to brain damage; it was a symptom of Freud's conversion hysteria. There was never a shortage of beautiful women on the streets of Los Angeles, but it was hard to tell how many were completely natural.
In 2003, a television series centered on plastic surgery