“My brother’s girlfriend has an ‘alter’ of my child.”

I’m 34m, wife is 32f, brother is 27m and brother’s girlfriend is 26f. I’m looking for advice here because this is completely over my head and my initial reaction to this is probably way off. My brother has been dating his gf for about a year now. She’s a nice girl but at times her behavior is odd and erratic

She asked over and over again to babysit for my kids (girl and boy, 3 and 5). My wife and I have always said no. This weekend we had a barbecue and she was acting EXTREMELY strangely-only speaking in a baby voice, not talking to any of the adults, running around with the kids.

My wife pulled me aside at one point extremely upset. She has found her in our 3 year old’s room, in her playpen/ball pit area, sucking her thumb covered in our daughter’s blankets with all of her stuffed animals.My wife was completely confused as to what was going on and when she asked my brothers girlfriend what she was doing she responded in a baby voice that she was “tired” and needed “nappies”My wife came immediately to get me and we both confronted my brother to ask him what the hell was going on.

My brother got extremely embarrassed. He said that his girlfriend has “Dissociative Identity Disorder” and one of her “alters” is a 3 year old girl.My wife and I don’t know anything about this disorder so we didn’t really say anything, just told him to please go get her and keep her out of our kids room. He went to get her but within 15 minutes he still wasn’t out. I went to go see what was going on and his girlfriend was extremely upset, insisting that he calls her Avalyn, our daughters name.That was the last straw for my wife. She told her to leave, brothers girlfriend started straight up sobbing using her baby voice saying she’s confused and doesn’t understand why everyone is “being mean to her” and calling her the wrong name.That night my brother called and admitted that not only is one of her “alters” a three year old, it’s very specifically OUR three year old. He said he can’t talk to her about this because when she’s not her “Avalyn” alter she doesn’t remember anything and when she is her Avalyn alter she isn’t “rational”.My wife and I told my brother she’s not allowed at family functions anymore, and she’s not allowed around our kids. My wife was extremely upset and told my brother that his girlfriend was “psychotic” and that she wouldn’t understand why he was still with someone like that.

My brother is upset that my wife said those things about her and said he understands we would be upset about her having an alter of our daughter but she can’t help it and we should be more understanding because it’s a disorder due to “childhood trauma”.Did my wife and I handle this the right way? We know nothing about this disorder, and doing research into it, the medical definition doesn’t seem to match the way my brothers girlfriend is acting.

OP added:

She doesn’t have an official diagnosis. (putting that in bold because people keep asking). Apparently it was rude of my wife and I to ask if she was getting treatment or had a diagnosis because “therapy isn’t available to everyone” and “self diagnosis is valid.” She comes from a very affluent family and definitely has the resources to get therapy and a proper diagnosis.

Here were the top rated comments from readers:

wakingdreamland

The moment DID was mentioned, I knew exactly where this was going. Nightmare fuel.

yellowcrayon1

Nahhh… Her boyfriend is enabling her rather than getting her the correct help she needs. She has asked to babysit and being told no multiple times. She has used the kids name. She sounds obsessed with he kid.

ColeDelRio

The fact the girlfriend was in the daughter’s room, was pretending to be her truly makes me think she was gonna harm and try to replace her.

Pale_Willingness1882

We had a woman come into one of my college classes to talk about DID with us. She explained how it happened, what triggered it etc. She never “switched” or anything like that and was overall a “normal” person. I believe she’s an author. But she even said it’s nothing like the movies.

drunkardunicorn

Either the GF has DID and is a threat to the 3yo as what’s going to happen when DID 3yo meets the real version? Nothing good that’s what, maybe just a lot of shouting, but maybe things get violent “she’s not me, I’m me”, and when an adult sized person gets violent towards a small kid, very bad.

Or, GF is faking, is dangerously obsessed with 3yo and bad things will happen. Either way the brother did a shit job of protecting his niece by not warning family about the situation.

Why wouldn’t he prioritize his niece’s safety? If GF does have DID sometimes you have to make hard choices like skipping family gatherings thatcould trigger of the alter, instead he chooses to take her to the home of her alter like that would end well.

Three days later, OP returned with an update:

So to start things off, my wife and I have done a lot of research into Dissociative Identity Disorder. Right off the bat, I’ll be blunt here. I don’t believe in the “fad” DID, or anything that goes along with it.

I don’t think people are “programmed” to be systems. I don’t think people make “fictives” over characters from TV or movies. I definitely don’t think it’s possible to make an “alter” of a specific three year old girl. I think that’s all attention seeking BS.

I don’t know about the validity of actual DID, if it does exist, because at this point it is being faked so much it’s impossible to figure out if it’s an actual disorder or not.

I definitely don’t think if someone did actually have DID they would be on Reddit casually talking and making videos about “meeting the alters” and BS like that. I do think if you really are convinced you have DID you probably do have some sort of disorder that you should get checked out with an actual, reputable doctor.

Now that’s out of the way, my wife and I have heard from my brother after the party. He still thinks we owe his girlfriend an apology. We told him that he owes us an apology for not telling us about his girlfriends erratic and psychotic behavior. (I’m not using the term psychotic to be insulting. I really do think she’s experiencing some sort of psychosis.

My wife told him that due to his extraordinary lack of judgment in bringing her around our family, and our kids, when he knew about this, we didn’t really feel comfortable having him around our children without one of us directly there eithe

We encouraged him to get her to see an actual doctor and get checked out. We told him we’d be willing to help her look for doctors in the area if she needed support and didn’t want to involve her family in this for whatever reason.

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But we also told him under no circumstances will she be allowed around our children again unless she goes through intensive therapy, realizes what she did was wrong and apologizes for it. Thanks to everyone for pushing us in the right direction as to what to do. We really appreciated all of your input and comments.

To clarify: I’m not saying DID isn’t real, I don’t know. I think you all know what DID “fad” I’m taking about. I don’t believe in the social media DID. THE “meet the alters” and “watch me switch!” BS. and yes- she does have a TT account where she does pretend to be my daughter.

Here were the top rated comments from readers after this latest update:

CuriousTsukihime

Protect your children. This is disturbing behavior and the fact he tried to hide and then excuse her issues when they directly impact your home is such a breach of trust. I’m proud of you and your wife securing your border. If no one else has said it, cameras cameras cameras near the egress and ingress points of your home.

scarletnightingale

He hid it and didn’t bother to mention it when his girlfriend kept begging to babysit the children over and over. She had developed an unhealthy fixation on the 3 year old, was trying to get her under her care unattended, and he still said nothing and continued to bring her around until it was impossible for him to hide it from them.

Honestly, who know what might have happened if this woman had gotten ahold of the daughter and the brother wouldn’t have done a darn thing to stop it.

throwRAdzc OP:

Thank you. We already have cameras installed, but we are looking into getting two more near the entrance of our driveway and at the edge of our property in the backyard.

ImaginaryCard

You are 100% correct. She is faking this. Either she has a mental illness (other than DID) or, most likely, she’s faking for attention/because it’s the latest fad. Probably spends way too much time on TikTok. Your brother is enabling this. What’s worse is he is in a romantic/sexual relationship with a woman who pretends to be his 3 year old niece. His. 3 year old. Niece.

He sees his girlfriend pretending to be his baby niece, and is OK being intimate with her. Even if he doesn’t do it while she’s faking, he’s still seen her acting as this little girl, and continues to be intimate with her. If he doesn’t see that as a problem, that’s a massive red flag in itself. Honestly, keep your kids away from her, and possibly him too while he’s with her.

Shelly_895

What was your brother’s reaction after you told him all this?

throwRAdzc OP:

The exact bull$#*t you’d imagine. We don’t understand anything, we don’t know anything about DID, we’re insensitive, he called us “ableist” at one point.

Four days later, the OP returned with a “final update”:

This is probably going to be my last update because we have since cut off all contact with her and my brother, and are in contact with the police. She refused to get inpatient psychiatric help willingly, but her family put her under a 5150.

Long story short, she approached our child while she was at the park with the nanny. Luckily, the nanny knows about the situation and removed our daughter immediately, contacted the police, and then contacted us.

She tried to tell our nanny that we had told her to pick up our daughter and take her to her grandmothers house. She waited until it was close to the end of our nanny’s shift to make it more believable. Luckily the nanny didn’t even engage with her.

She just picked up our daughter and walked away, recording the entire incident to have proof. She ran after the nanny, telling our daughter “Go ahead Avalyn, tell her you know me! We’re going to go to grandmas!”

Her family told us that there has never been any abuse in the family. She has never claimed to them that she has DID, though they have long suspected she has histrionic personality disorder. My brother has not contacted us since this happened but my wife doesn’t want contact with him anyway, and I agree with her.

Again, thanks for all of your advice and well wishes. Though she’s never allowed around my family again, I’m incredibly happy she’s getting the help she needs and hope her recovery and treatment go well for her, and I wish her the best.

ETA We have cameras and have installed more after the first incident on the perimeter of our property as well as outside of our children’s rooms. We’re in the process of getting a restraining order. We have given our nanny a large raise. We are beyond thankful for her quick and rational thinking.

Here were the top rated commented after this final update:

StyraxCarillon

The girlfriend has a TikTok account where she pretends she’s the 3 year old, even though she claims to have no memory of being the 3 year old. That means the 3 year old “alter” is supposedly setting up the camera and shooting the TikTok video, and her adult self just happens to find the videos and upload them. Or is the toddler also uploading them? Nothing sketchy about that scenario.

robotnique

Conveniently everybody who believes in this particular manifestation of DID and wishes it was the whole “split personality” bullshit from TV shows of yore are stupid enough that glaring “plot holes” and missing details like this don’t appear to bother them whatsoever.

Odd-Comfortable-6134

Well that wasn’t the “alter” I was anticipating, and it’s somehow more disturbing than my initial thought.

InvectiveDetective

I’m less interested in debating whether DID is real and far more interested in understanding why after the brother realized his gf was fixating on his niece, he did nothing at all to protect that little girl.

maulidon

Are we just gonna gloss over her having a tiktok where she shows off the alter in question?? And yet the brother claimed he couldn’t talk to her about it???

Kozeyekan_

…I have no words.

But, from the last bit… Is the brother staying with her?

So, does this sound like a dangerous situation? What should the OP do? Do they confront her or go no contact? Do you think the brother should stay with this girlfriend?

“My brother’s girlfriend has an ‘alter’ of my child.”