Mirrors: Very successful 50-year-old professional woman says, “The problem is that whenever I look in the mirror, I see my mother”

As I have previously discussed (search “mirror” and “mirrors”), people with multiple personality may sometimes see alternate personalities when they look in the mirror. I thought of this when recently reading a New York Times advice column:

“I’m a 50-year-old professional woman…I’m very successful…and enjoy good health…The problem is that whenever I look in the mirror, I see my mother. She has been verbally abusive to me throughout my life, and it continues. I’ve gone to counseling, and I keep our relationship very superficial to protect myself. But I look just like her. I don’t see my cute self in the mirror. I see an aging woman who looks strikingly like my mother. I would like to get a face-lift to help give me a more youthful look. My husband doesn’t support this decision. He thinks I look beautiful, and he’s fearful I’ll have complications or not look like myself anymore. What should I do?” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/style/should-i-get-a-facelift.html

Whom does this woman feel she sees when she looks in the mirror: Does she feel, as most readers would assume, that she sees herself, but that her appearance strongly reminds her of her abusive mother? Or does she feel she sees someone else, either “my mother” or a “woman who looks strikingly like my mother”?

If the latter: Does she ever hear the voice of this other person? Has she ever been told (because she, herself, does not recall it) that she sometimes acts like her mother? Or has she ever acted like her mother against her will, as though, somehow, her strings were being pulled? Or has she ever found that something has been done (perhaps something like her mother would do) that nobody else could have done, but she doesn’t recall doing it? In general, have any such puzzling things happened, and has she ever had memory gaps? (Search “memory gaps,” a cardinal symptom of multiple personality.)

In short, I don’t know whether any of that would apply to this particular woman. But when people feel so strongly about what they see in the mirror that they are considering surgery, psychological screening may be warranted, especially if other people do not agree with the person’s perceptions. And multiple personality is one thing to screen for when people feel that they see someone else in the mirror.