Afraid of You, Multiple Personality Hides, But Leaves Clues

One kind of clue is out-of-character behavior and puzzling inconsistency.

Another clue is a memory gap, which occurs when one personality does not recall what happened during the period of time that another personality was in control. For example, an emergency room patient may know why she is there, because she sees the bandage on her wrist, but if asked if she actually recalls cutting her wrist, she may not. If the time of a memory gap includes travel, it is called a “dissociative fugue,” like the famous, real-life experience of Agatha Christie.

Another clue may be pseudonyms: multiple names, nicknames, and spellings of names that are privately meaningful. Novelist Ernest Hemingway had about twenty (search Hemingway). Pseudonyms may be names of alternate personalities, but you may not realize it until the personalities feel their cover has been blown and they actually admit, in conversation with you, their separate senses of personhood.

Persons with multiple personality may see alternate personalities when they look in a mirror. Such mirror experiences and the secrecy of the names of alternate personalities may be the basis of fairy tales like Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin. Occupations that call for multiple identities include spies, acting, fiction writing, and confidence men (search posts on acting and novels involving those occupations).

Multiples (persons with multiple personality) may hear voices of alternate personalities in their head, and may even argue with them.

Multiples may get a reputation as liars, because different personalities may believe and remember different things.

Multiples may have episodes of childlike (not simply childish) behavior, due to child-aged alternate personalities.

In short, multiple personality is obvious once you learn the names of alternate personalities and can call them out to speak with you, but prior to that, you need to recognize clues.