“Kindred” (post 2) by Octavia E. Butler: “Some part of me had smoothed things out”

“…it was as though during my walk I had been getting used to the idea that years had passed for these people since I had seen them last. I had begun to feel—feel, not think—that a great deal of time had passed for me too. It was a vague feeling, but it seemed right and comfortable…Some part of me had apparently given up on time-distorted reality and smoothed things out. Well, that was all right, as long as it didn’t go too far” (1, p. 127).

Comment: When a person with undiagnosed multiple personality feels the impact of an alternate personality, but has not thought of it in those terms, they often think of the alternate personality as a mysterious, unnamed, hidden “part” of themselves.

1. Octavia E. Butler. Kindred [1979]. Boston, Beacon Press, 2003.