Whenever I bring my car to the garage for service I have to ‘play it right' to get a courtesy car. I can't just go and be sure to have one given to me. The usual answer is "...sorry madam, there are no cars left." I have to put myself into the shoes of the car people to get a courtesy car. For example, I walk around their cars for sale and let drop in passing that I am starting to look for a new car. I usually also mention that "...this is my third car I bought from you people". More often than not, that'll get me a courtesy car.

Have you even driven one? It takes a bit of time getting used to. Often the gear-shifts are different, the lights are on the other side of the steering wheel, so is the wiper, and the horn ... where is the bleeding horn? And has that ever happened to you, that you turn the key to start the car and the radio is ‘shouting' at you on the most ear-drum-damaging volume tuned to the most horrible music channel? Nothing is how you like it. For the first 5 to 10 minutes you have to get to know the car and its workings until it feels a bit familiar.

The greatest thing about courtesy cars is, however, that you don't have to take care of them. You just pick them up, hop in, and drop them back to the yard when you don't use them anymore. You don't have to fill them up with gas, wash and wax them, or check the air in the tires. These are not your responsibilities, because it's not your car. It's just a courtesy car. The car is taken care of by these invisible garage people.

Many multiples I have spoken to would have a similar experience with the body they are living in. The body feels really strange and it often takes a while to get used to it. I can't count the many conversations I had that went like this: "I feel really uncomfortable in my body. This is not my arm. It feels like not being attached to me." Multiples look in the mirror and what they see may be very different to how they see themselves in their mind. Everything feels strange, unfamiliar, or even wrong: the gender, the shape, the size, the age.

The problem is deeper than just finding yourself in a body that feels like driving the courtesy car. Of course, our body and how we ‘fit' with it, how we appreciate it, and how we look after it, has a lot to do with our sense of identity. People express through their bodies who they are. The way they hold themselves, dress themselves, the hair-style they use, and the make-up they put on are all ways of expressing who they are.

Of course, it's understandable that people dissociate from their bodies when they experience horrible abuse. That is a very normal reaction. Everyone goes ‘numb' in times of shock, stress, or fatigue. It's a protective coping strategy ... and it works well when it's originally applied. For recovery it just doesn't work very well to have a courtesy car. People have to take ownership of their body and that is a hard journey to be on.

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