We often hear, in the literature on identities, of fluid identities – identities that seem to melt and meld into each other and away from each other as we live our daily and yearly lives. It can be a difficult concept to grasp. We prefer to think of roles, characteristics and even personality traits as changing and that who we really are remains pretty stable. Here’s a very concrete though extreme disturbance to that idea. It comes from an interview reported recently in the Guardian:

Kim, 50, has dissociative identity disorder (DID). She is, in effect, scores of different people – the exact number is uncertain – wrapped up in one body. These personalities are all quite distinct, with their own names and ages and quirks of temperament. Some are children. Some are male.

For a journalist, this presents certain problems. Kim Noble herself is merely a name on a birth certificate – a portmanteau of identities. So which version of her do you interview? Do you talk to whomever pops up? Hayley? Judy? Ken?

The story is extreme, it is very sad. It does however, very powerfully point to the possibility of a fluidity as well as a courageous capacity to live with that fluidity.