“Sometimes I Lie” (post 3) by Alice Feeney: Protagonist fulfills diagnostic criteria for multiple personality, but it is not labeled as such

Since it is a fact that persons with multiple personality may sometimes see some of their alternate personalities when they look in a mirror (1, p. 62):

“I lock the bathroom door and turn to face myself in the mirror. I don’t like what I see, so I close my eyes. I unzip the body of who I used to be and step outside myself; a newborn Russian doll, a little smaller than I was before, wondering how many other versions of me are still hidden inside. I turn on the shower and step beneath it too quickly. The water is freezing cold but I don’t flinch. I let the temperature rise slowly so that I almost don’t feel the water burn my skin when it gets too hot. I don’t know how long I stand like that, I don’t remember. I don’t remember drying myself or wrapping my robe around my body. I don’t remember leaving the bathroom or coming back downstairs. I only remember being back in the lounge, looking in the big mirror above the fireplace and liking the look of the woman who stared back at me” (2, pp. 252-253).

Comment: The two main diagnostic criteria for multiple personality (a.k.a. “dissociative identity disorder”) are 1. the presence of two or more distinct personality states (which Alice Feeney calls “versions”) and 2. memory gaps (when one personality can’t remember what happened during the time that another personality had “come out” (personalities usually remain “inside” except during certain circumstances).

However, since, as in most novels, the multiple personality is not labeled, most readers don’t recognize it as such, and it is not certain that the author did, either. It might reflect the author’s own, creative psychology, which I’ve called their “multiple personality trait.”

1. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

2. Alice Feeney. Sometimes I Lie. New York, Flatiron Books, 2018.