Roseanne Says Having 7 Personalities Is Tough

July 12, 2001 -- Loudmouthed comedian Roseanne has had a lot of different personas: waitress, stand-up comic, talk show host, and actress. But that's not what she means when she says she's dealing with multiple personalities.

Roseanne, who first told the world that she has multiple personality disorder in 1994, says it's not easy dealing with switching between "Somebody" and "Nobody."

Those are just two of the names the former sitcom queen has given to her personalities, which she says total seven in all. The rest she calls Baby, Cindy, Susan, Joey, and Heather. In an interview in the August issue of Esquire magazine, Roseanne says that after 10 years of hard work, she's managed to integrate the differing personalities.

The 48-year-old celebrity struggles to contain the condition that she said has afflicted her since she was a child.

"I haven't had any blackouts for quite a while. I used to have them minute by minute," she says. "I was always in conflict about conflicting parts, but I've learned how to get them to listen to each other now. I've learned how to get them to know they're on the same team, that we occupy the same body, which we never knew before," explains Roseanne, who decided in 1994 to go by her first name only.

"It's like living in a maze. It's like that old woman who keeps adding on to her house … But the parts don't get along and some of them have some real strange ideas about how to defend," said the comedian. That could explain some of her odder moments, such as grabbing her crotch after singing the national anthem — or marrying Tom Arnold.

Roseanne says her "seven different signatures" stayed around for anything ranging from a few seconds to a few years, adding that in one case she had forgotten to call back a friend for seven years.

"I was thinking of calling myself Sarah Tonin," she joked, referring to serotonin, the neurotransmitter that regulates urges and moods.

Reuters contributed to this story.