Authors: Kim Noble
As I gradually learnt, however, there were many, many more candidates. All of them are instinctively kind and protective towards Aimee – Dr Laine never had any concerns there – but could they do the school run? Pay a gas bill? I suppose it was an honour to have been selected by the body but when I began to hear more about the others my pride was tempered. Yes – some of the other personalities seemed naturally fun, maternal and rounded. Others, I have to say, from what I know about them are like creations from a novel or a film. I just think,
Where on Earth did they come from? Someone must have invented them.
When we go to see Dr Laine, it’s for normal therapy. We don’t go to discuss DID. So, before I was a believer, if you like, I went to discuss the issues affecting me: blackouts, people accusing me of things, why I had been locked up in institutions for half my life. These were the issues that needed resolving in my brain. Dr Laine took us on as separate patients, as individuals. There was a certain amount of trying to nudge us towards acceptance of DID. But that wasn’t her primary goal in every session. We were sufferers, we were all victims of something, and she was there to help.
Having said that, part of her wider remit was to the body of Kim Noble – and to that body’s daughter. She knew that the priority had to be to maintain as close to a ‘normal’ life as possible in order to avoid the attention – and intervention – of the authorities.
That meant taking on the more extreme personalities and finding ways to help them as well as serving the greater good – protecting Aimee.
I don’t know Susan’s history. I don’t know how old she is, what she’s been through or what she hopes to achieve from life. But I do know she has a problem. Whenever she came out, she would hit herself. She was like a member of Opus Dei from
The Da Vinci Code -
punishing herself for some unknown indiscretion. She can’t sit for a minute without slapping herself on the head.
As far as the body was concerned, there was a risk of bruising or other injuries. I probably wouldn’t notice unless my head hurt – mirrors and DID aren’t natural bedfellows – although I would probably have blamed it on a drunken stumble. Worse than anything that could happen to us, however, was the effect on Aimee. There was never a concern that Susan might hit our daughter. Dr Laine would have acted had that been the case. The threats were more psychological: imagine if you saw your mother smacking herself. What would you do?
So, with Aimee present, Dr Laine spoke to Susan and as soon as she appeared smashing at her head, grabbed her hands. It wasn’t violent or restrictive, she just took her hands like someone listening intently might. She felt twitches but Susan didn’t fight it. She obviously doesn’t want to be hitting herself. It must be some kind of reflex, some form of obsessive compulsive disorder.
That was all the coaching Aimee required. The next time Susan appeared she took her hands and the situation calmed. After that they chatted normally – not about mother-and-daughter things because obviously Susan doesn’t know who Aimee is. I’ve actually been around when Aimee has asked to see Susan. She wouldn’t do that if she was scared of her. That comforts me as I feel myself being replaced.
Susan doesn’t come out much any more, but I know Aimee misses her. She misses all of the alters who are around a lot and disappear. Hayley and Bonny are the main ones, but there are plenty of others.
Another extreme personality is Salome. She’s a Catholic and believes with all her heart that she was put on God’s Earth to do His work. She comes out ranting and raving, cursing ‘that wicked woman’ and bemoaning the unjust fate of ‘a good woman – a good woman who died’. Aimee just sits there speechless when she appears because there’s not much you can say in the face of religious zealots like that. I know Salome always smiles at Aimee between speeches so I don’t worry and at least her appearances are short and sweet – well, short. No one would describe them as sweet, especially Hayley, who seems to be on the receiving end of them.
After years of playing detective Dr Laine has pieced together the story. When our mother was in the hospital after her final stroke she suffered a loss of blood and became anaemic. They plugged her into a new supply but it was the wrong blood type and her body rejected it in the most extreme way it could: it died.
Emergency procedures went into overdrive and doctors managed to get her back but she was in a lot of pain as they transferred her to a ward. The consultant realised the end was near and prescribed morphine, the biggest painkiller hospitals have.
Hayley was at Mum’s bedside throughout – which is why I missed all of it – watching her scream and writhe in agony. All she could do was watch the clock and wait for the next dose of drugs to come.
When a junior doctor came along he fiddled around with his medication cart so much that Hayley became nervous.
‘She needs her morphine.’
The doctor looked shocked. ‘I think Ibuprofen will do it, thank you.’
Hayley flew at him. ‘Morphine!’ she screamed. ‘She needs morphine!’
At that moment there was a switch and Salome came out. She saw her mother lying in bed, ailing. And then she heard the doctor’s words: ‘I’m not giving her morphine, that would kill her!’
That was enough for Salome. As far as she was concerned, when Mum died on Boxing Day a short while later, it was this other woman’s fault. Hayley had poisoned her with morphine. Hayley had killed Salome’s mother, a ‘good woman’.
Lorraine corroborated everything. She had been at the bedside at the time, too upset to pick up on the different personalities coming into play before her.
After years of hearing about her, I was glad to hear that Salome was filmed for our
Oprah
show. That was a revelation. It was just as Aimee and Dr Laine had described. A whirlwind of harmless anxiety and then, before you knew it, she’d stormed out the door and switched again.
Switches can be random or they can be defensive – for example, when Ken tries to take the body into the men’s toilet – or they can be triggered by other visual stimuli. Salome will always come out in the presence of a church. She can smell them. We visited one on holiday once. No sooner had we stepped through the door than Salome came out. Aimee said it was lovely. There was no shouting, no accusations, just pure, quiet, respectful worship.
Speaking of triggers and, I suppose, of the body protecting us, there is another personality who only comes out in the presence of water. It’s only since I began to understand DID that I realised something quite staggering: I’ve never had a bath.
I am fifty and I have never had a bath!
I’ve never had a shower, been swimming or dipped my toe in the sea. I’ve run a bath – I’ve run hundreds of them – but when I think about it, I’ve never actually stepped in. I know about bathing and washing and swimming and hygiene and I know I’ve always intended to bathe and, more importantly, I know I’m always clean! So it’s amazing that I’ve never experienced it and, what’s more, the body had managed to block my mind for so long from ever questioning it. But it did. All aqua time belongs to someone who calls herself the Spirit of the Water!
A few years ago, when I was just emerging as the dominant personality, Dr Laine saw how seriously I was taking my responsibilities. I felt very uncomfortable letting Aimee out of my sight. As a consequence, we didn’t stray too far from home. By that time, after so many years, Dr Laine was like a therapy grandma as much as my therapist. She said, ‘When the other children at school say what they did in the holidays, what does Aimee say?’
Not much, I realised. We never went anywhere.
So Dr Laine decided we would have a break. Initially she was upset on our behalf that while some places would take Aimee for a break or some would take me, nowhere wanted to help us together. She was also worried that in protecting Aimee from being outside in a strange place with ‘me’ not there, I might just spend the holiday in a hotel room. Ever inventive and supportive, Dr Laine booked a weekend on the south coast for not only me and Aimee, but also herself and her husband.
I don’t know what Dr Laine was expecting but I’m sure it wasn’t to be running around like old mother hen. The second I saw the sea there was a switch. Out came Spirit of the Water and she just made a beeline for the shore. Shoes off, socks off – thank God she stopped there. As soon as she found her swimming costume, that was it, there was no keeping her out.
The problem was, of course, from Dr Laine’s point of view: not all of the personalities can swim. What if one of the children appeared?
I don’t think that would happen. The body wouldn’t let itself drown. Spirit of the Water wouldn’t let that happen. What we couldn’t guarantee, however, was that Spirit of the Water would look after Aimee, so poor Dr Laine spent the weekend watching us like a hawk. Afterwards she said she was the one who needed a holiday!
There’s always a swimming pool or ocean at the heart of any break so I can predict that Spirit will put in a few appearances then. I joined a gym recently and while I go along to use the running machine, Spirit likes to take Aimee swimming. One sniff of chlorine and she’s off with Aimee in tow.
I don’t know how old Spirit is but as soon as she’s near water she’s like a child. I can always tell when she’s had a bath with Aimee because of the mess on the floor. Aimes says she always jumps in, starts splashing and sings, ‘I’m Spirit – Spirit of the Water’.
Occasionally it’s more than the bathroom that gets a soaking. Dr Laine’s surgery is in north London so I decided once to drive there via Regent’s Park. By the time I reached Dr Laine’s I was dripping wet.
‘What on Earth happened to you?’
I switched back at that second, as nonplussed as her. A few minutes later, however, Spirit of the Water came forward. She’d seen the fountain in the park, pulled the car over onto the verge, then dived in. I’m sure she must have had a blast but the thought of all those people seeing my body doing that makes me cringe. I won’t be going back there for a while!
I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the root of Spirit of the Water’s story, but she seems playful and cavalier. By contrast, many of the child personalities are anything but carefree, despite their age. It makes me so sad to think of them and their tragic, tormented lives. The worst thing is knowing they will be looking for their Mummy and Daddy. Imagine enduring what they’ve gone through and not being able to have your parents wrap a comforting arm round your shoulders. I wish there was something we could do for them. I suppose the less they come out the better.
Mum dying is a problem for lots of them, not just Salome. Judy is stuck at fifteen – which the body would have been back in 1976 when Mum was alive and well. So even now, decades later, she’s always looking for her mother. She knows she can’t have gone far. It’s just a case of being patient.
She’ll come home soon.
This explains why she’s always so rude about me. Judy thinks I’m a terrible mother because as far as she’s concerned I’m always abandoning Aimee with her. When you realise Judy would give everything to see her mother again you can see how this must twist the knife.
Another child in pain stands out. For a start, his name is Diabalus – we can make our own assumptions from even that. I remember asking Dr Laine what she knew about him.
‘I know he can’t speak English.’
‘Really? How does he communicate then?’
‘Through letters – written in Latin!’
I hadn’t seen that coming.
‘But I don’t know any Latin. I’ve never had a single lesson.’
‘Well, Diabalus has learnt it from somewhere.’
Dr Laine doesn’t speak more than basic Latin either but she does have some French and fortunately the young boy spoke that. She seemed rather relieved by that. I, on the other hand, was paralysed with wonder.
How can he learn two other languages without my knowing a single word?
Is it really possible the body attended Latin and French classes without my knowing anything about it?
Stranger things have happened.
*
Coming to terms with the personalities was awkward but fairly straightforward. Empathising with them was a different proposition. It was like being told stories about people I didn’t know. Or reading about strangers in the paper. Some of them sounded interesting, some of them seemed like people I’d like to meet. Others less so. Either way, it was all theoretical, conversational and, as hard as I tried to get involved, very little to do with me. I just wasn’t connecting as much as I, or Dr Laine, hoped. And then, quite by accident, I discovered a new way to meet them all.
Painting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I am not Kim Noble
Perfect,
Bonny thought as she finished wrapping the large box.
I can’t wait to see her face when she gets this.
Mothers like nothing more than spoiling their children but on birthdays you can really go all out. Aimee had been asking for a pink typewriter for ages and Bonny had always said, ‘No, we can’t afford it.’ Aimee knew they weren’t the richest of families but, even so. A lot of her school friends had one. Why did she have to be the odd one out?
Of course, what Aimee didn’t know is that Bonny had rushed out immediately and bought it for her daughter’s sixth birthday. Just a few days now until the big surprise.