“The Lotus and the Storm” by Lan Cao (post 2): Vietnamese girl, age 10, living with her family near Saigon, has more symptoms of multiple personality

Previously: In 1967, Mai had been mute following the death of her older sister from a stray bullet. But her alternate personality, Cecile, who was not mute, had been talking to the family’s pet myna bird. Mai, the host personality, had had no awareness of Cecile and no memory for the periods of time that Cecile had taken over; that is, she had memory gaps. Eventually, Mai started to speak again.

Now: In 1968, at age ten, Mai notes the following: “I feel the fleeting burden of two selves separating…A child’s tiny voice whispers in my ear…the truth is I do not remember. I black out…I surface once again into my own consciousness…Shut up, a voice commands me. The voices are back, emanating soundlessly from somewhere within my body…Like a storm, black and raging, a figure from within me shifts her shape until she is enormous and angry and erupts with a roar that swipes everything else aside. A keep quiet is sounded. It is there, speaking in the voice of an angry girl. Who is it? Is someone else here? Cecile. Cecile? Cecile cowers and cries. I sense a little girl’s movement…A voice rumbles within my chest, the stormy appearance of a new scowling being…Everything turns black again…When I come back to myself after lost time, everything is quiet…A part of me is still watching another part. All of us stand there together…” (1, pp. 158-165).

1. Lan Cao. The Lotus and the Storm. New York, Viking, 2014, 386 pages.