A 25-year-old woman living with five different identities has opened up about her male alter egos that can emerge at any time.
Jessica Mayer, from South Wales in the UK, was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder – a rare condition where her personalities take control of her body.
She has five alter egos – all living in her body and four of them are male – Jake, a Hollywood actor; Jamie, a doctor; Ed, a hairdresser; and 14-year-old schoolboy Ollie.
Each identity has its own distinctive trait – Jake has an American accent, Jamie wears prescription glasses and Ed is left-handed.
Appearing on Australian program Sunday Night, Jessica opened up about how her mind would regularly switch from one character to another without warning – and the moment she told her now-husband Gaz about her disorder.
Jessica Mayer (pictured), from South Wales in the UK, was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder – a rare condition where her personalities take control of her body
Here, she describes each of her alter egos. She revealed the family tree: Jake and Jamie are brothers. Jamie and Ed are partners who share son Ollie.
Speaking to Melissa Doyle, she said Jake is ‘good looking slim, lean and muscular’ who has has ‘brilliant Hollywood white smile’.
‘Jamie has an upper-class British accent. He is very intelligent, very charming. Ollie is a bit of a moody teenager. He wanted to grow up to be a dinosaur,’ she said.
‘Ed is very artsy, he’s very creative and he does all of this left-handed.’
Despite her male alter egos, the happily married woman leads a ‘girlie’ lifestyle as she juggles full-time work and university.
She has five alter egos – all living in the same body and four are male – Jake, Jamie, Ed and Ollie
Speaking to Melissa Doyle, the 25-year-old opened up about how her mind would regularly switch from one character to another without warning
Opening up about how she manages to share her body with four other identities, she said they follow a ‘structure’ on a daily basis.
‘One of us, whoever it may be, is up in the morning,’ she said.
Generally, Jake usually starts the morning because he likes to take the dog out for a walk or go out for a bit of a jog.
Ed usually prepares lunchboxes and set everything up for the week while Jessica would go to her 9-5 job as usual.
‘Allowing them to have their own space and their own time is incredibly beneficial to our overall mental health,’ she said.
Growing up, Jessica said would find herself at a different location, not knowing how she ended up there.
‘I remember one day, I was in a dress with the highest of heels on, blisters all over my feet, it was raining and I had no idea where I was or how I got there,’ she recalled.
Jake is a 25-year-old Hollywood actor who is ‘good looking slim, lean and muscular’ and has has ‘brilliant Hollywood white smile’
Ed is a 29-year-old hairdresser who is ‘very artsy, creative and he does all of this left-handed’
She explained how some of her male alter egos sometimes feel uncomfortable being inside a female body.
‘Jake is very self-conscious of the fact he doesn’t appear male to the outside world,’ she said.
‘Jamie is very good at taking care of me, he’s very good at that. I think it’s because he’s very detached from the body really as is Ed and Ollie.
‘I think they don’t really feel that this body belongs to them.’
The young woman developed her male identities to ‘protect’ herself after suffering a traumatic event during her childhood – an ordeal she declines to speak about.
‘I think having males around all day everyday in my brain really help me desensitize myself to being afraid of men,’ she said.
‘I thought, if I was a boy, what happened to me wouldn’t have happened.’
Ollie is a 14-year-old schoolboy a ‘moody teen and he wanted to grow up to be a dinosaur’
Jamie is a 27-year-old doctor with an ‘upper-class British accent’ and he’s ‘very charming’
Recalling the moment they got together, her now-husband Gaz Mayer had initially asked her to be his girlfriend three times until she finally accepted.
‘I was so frightened of him seeing that side of me but he was insistent,’ she said.
Gaz said Jessica explained to him that she had ‘people living inside of her her head’ – but he said he didn’t seem fazed by her disorder.
The couple also revealed how her personalities can unpredictably appear at any time – even when she’s getting intimate with her husband.
‘If I notice that she’s switching when we are being intimate in any manner, then everything gets stopped and pulled back because I don’t know if Jake’s going to come out, I don’t know if Ollie’s going to come out, so everything gets pulled back,’ Gaz said.
Australian TV presenter Melissa Doyle met with Jessica for an interview to be aired on Sunday (pictured one of her identities – 14-year-old Ollie who loves dinosaurs)
After meeting with a psychotherapist, she was able to take back control of her body after learning how to manage her identities.
‘Hopefully I would be taken seriously and people will recognise this isn’t something made up… this is something real life that I have to suffer with daily,’ she said.
She also hit back at the stigma surrounding the condition because of the way people with the disorder have been portrayed in movies.
‘Alters are very unlikely to harm you and the likelihood of people with mental health issues are more likely to be victims than perpetrators,’ she said.