SHE’S A FEW WOMEN ROLLED INTO ONE

My girlfriend is the most beautiful woman but also the most complex. On the one hand she can be very prim and proper but sometimes she can be a real party girl and even embarrass me. Then there are times when she’s really butch and swears and shouts and acts like a man. At other times she’s like a little girl and wants to sit on my lap and calls me “Daddy”. It’s confusing.

She’s 26 now and I know she had a difficult childhood. She was sexually abused for an extended time by her father and after her mother left him she was physically abused by her mother’s string of boyfriends too.

She’s an air hostess and is obsessive about her work. She’s always prim and proper at work and the crew love her – I know as I’ve flown with her when she was working.

When I talk to her about her behaviour she tells me I’m joking with her as she has no memory of these different roles she seems to play. She doesn’t seem to realise she’s doing it. What’s going on? How can I help her to see the truth? Louis, email It sounds as if your girlfriend is suffering from dissociative identity disorder, previously referred to as multiple personality disorder. When a person suffers from this disorder, the host personality (the actual personality) has little knowledge of the other personalities. The characteristics of the personalities are often quite different from one another, and can be different ages and have astonishingly different skills (one may be able to drive a car while another can’t).

It’s believed the different personalities are created as a result of trauma to help the person survive by using dissociation as a defence mechanism. The problem can be resolved only through long-term therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist trained to treat people suffering from this disorder.

Therapy consists of uncovering the personalities with great care, fostering a positive relationship with each one then getting the personalities to work together rather than oppose one another.