“Growing Up Haunted” by Jennifer Finney Boylan (post 3): Had the alternate personality in the mirror gotten the body remade in her own image?

I see two defendable interpretations, a skeptical one and multiple personality.

Skeptical

Since standard medical practice would include an evaluation for multiple personality before going ahead with sex reassignment surgery, the author has already been evaluated for multiple personality and found not to have it. (Of course, the validity of that finding would depend on what questions they asked her and how truthfully she answered them.)

Multiple Personality

The following passage, from near the end of the memoir, could be interpreted to mean that the alternate personality, previously seen in the mirror, and now seen once again, had succeeded in getting the body remade in her own image:

“I looked up, and there she was, just as in days long past. Floating in the mirror was the translucent old woman in the white clothes. I hadn’t seen her reflected there for years and years, but there she was once more, looking at me with that surprised expression I remembered from my childhood. Why, Jenny Boylan. What are you doing here?

“Except that, as I stared at her, I realized that it was no ghost. After all this time, I was only looking at my own reflection.

“Against all odds, I had become solid.

“Was it possible, I thought, as I looked at the woman in the mirror, that it was some future version of myself I’d seen here when I was a child? From the very beginning, had I only been haunting myself?” (1, p. 249).

Conclusion

Although I’m inclined to interpret “ghosts” and strange reflections in the mirror as alternate personalities, I can’t make a definitive diagnosis here.

1. Jennifer Finney Boylan. I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted (A Memoir). New York, Broadway Books, 2008.