Very quick post before I run off to counselling

[laurenthemself]

I acquired a copy of First Person Plural by Cameron West and was wondering if anyone else here had read it. Am I right in saying that by the end of the book, Cam and 'his guys' were still working as a system, rather than having integrated? I found that very interesting, showing that integration wasn't the ultimate answer.

Speaking of which, I think someone here mentioned that 'Sybil' dissociated again after the book was published... is that true, and does anyone have any links etc. to back it up? I'm getting more and more fascinated by these case studies, and want to know more.

Also, I had a fantastic day on Saturday discussing draconity and otherkin and soulbonding and inner worlds with some friends. It's great to know people who are happy to listen and not automatically tell me I'm nuts when I start discussing my bonds.

Comments

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

I've read it a few times. as far as I could tell, he was still a system by the end of the book. I like that book. if nothing else, it's a good story/entertaining.

[gryphons.livejournal.com]

we own a copy.. I believe A lot of the guys were gone/intergrated by the end of the book.. he claimed in tv interviews that there were only 6 or so left I believe. but this was 3+ years ago.. so forgive any inaccuracies.

Need to proabably re-read it, but don't think he stated flatly which side of the intergration debate he viewed as "correct" . I do remember thinking his example of the french bread was a pretty ingenious way of describing the way they communicated..

Glad you had a good day.. wish there were people around here we could talk to like that

[laurenthemself]

I'm very lucky in that I have draconic/otherkin friends, and I think that because they spend a lot of time explaining their draconity to people, they're more open to listen to me talk about soulbonding.

[emploding.livejournal.com]

First Person Plural was the first biography style book we read on DID, and it probably is still listed as the favourite.

[fraisefems.livejournal.com]

We read it but I honestly cant remember because it was so long ago and we lost our copy of it when we moved :/

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

In an article we have about his (then) upcoming new book (a mystery novel, and nothing to do with being multiple), Cru Gordon (his real name) is described as having extinguished all but two or three of his people. The press release is unctuous on the subject of how a person with multiple personalities could have it together enough to write a book (that wasn't about multiple personalities, one presumes, unless the reporter didn't know about Truddi Chase).

Man, we have got to get that review of First Person Plural up on line. We have notes, but they're somewhat incoherent. They were kind of written on the fly.

Again, for newcomers to the community who happen to read this, Cru Gordon is not a psychiatrist. He got a degree in psychology from a small humanistic psychology institute in San Francisco and he did it solely for the purpose of understanding his own multiplicity. He is not a practicing psychotherapist nor does he intend to be to the best of my knowledge. His wife probably wouldn't let him.

[(Anonymous)]

His wife probably wouldn't let him.

Our nominal front person asks me to convey the following:
"d a a a a a a a a m n."

(I've been considering tracking down a copy of FPP. It seems like the correct balance of dreadful writing which is competent enough to be readable, yet frustrating enough to cause the tearing out of hair. Rather like watching Space Mutiny.)

[violetkhirot.livejournal.com]

Oh, for crying out loud, browser; retain your cookies.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Your browser tossed its cookies? And you will too, when you read First Person Plural!

boy, that review is long overdue... we should get on that right away.

[violetkhirot.livejournal.com]

Pitched Shiira; returned to Opera. Opera is brave enough to cope with the like of this fellow.

Please post the review. It sounds as though it would be a beautiful thing, unlike the book.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

'Extinguished'-- did they actually use that word, 'extinguished'? x_x Post it up here if you still have it; I'm morbidly curious...

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt's review of "When Rabbit Howls" in the New York Times repeatedly criticised the 'incoherent' narrative but decided at the end that the very incoherency of it was proof that it probably wasn't a fraud-- apparently, it was amazing to think that multiples could write anything legible at all. (He seemed to miss the whole part about them being a competent real estate broker and all that.)

From how he described her in the book, I'm not sure CW's wife would let him blow his nose without permission.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

The Multiple-Personality Novelist

"Cameron West made his name with a nonfiction bestseller published a couple of years ago by Hyperion, First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple. Now he has added the personality of novelist to the couple of dozen with which he started out, and his agent, Laurie Fox at the West Coast office of Linda Chester Associates, has just sold his thriller The Medici Dagger to Mitchell Ivers at Pocket Books--who doesn't often buy fiction, but was taken with both the book and with West's remarkable story of recovery from his disorder. The advance was a "handsome" six-figure one for North American rights after an auction. The book, which is set for publication in fall 2001, concerns a dagger Leonardo da Vinci is said to have forged, using a mysterious alloy lighter and stronger than anything known then or since; it becomes the object of a race in contemporary times to find the artifact and analyze how it was made. West himself is still in treatment, but improving, with the number of his personalities cut drastically, to eight or so."

Jay: Points off for patronizing twitness and referring to getting rid of people as "recovery" and "improvement".

Andy: I see. In other words, the book would not have been accepted for
publication if West had not been a multiple. Moreover, a multiple in
recovery. Oo, he's only down to eight personalities now! And catch the
ever-so-slightly-patronising tone of the reporter, too. How precieux!

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

The press release is unctuous on the subject of how a person with multiple personalities could have it together enough to write a book (that wasn't about multiple personalities, one presumes, unless the reporter didn't know about Truddi Chase).

And never mind the other multiples who have written their own stories - Jane Phillips, Chris Costner Sizemore and April Daniels, to name a few.

[mysticeden.livejournal.com]

I loved that book. I'ts the first one I/WE ever got and is still one of my favorites. If not my favorite. I don't know about sybil but if you find out let me know cause I'm wondering about that now too. At the end of the book cameron did seem to be not integrated, which is actually something that helped us a lot...

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Sybil information
http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/controversy.html

And for the record, according to our sources, Sybil remained multiple to the end of her days, despite her own and Dr. Wilbur's best efforts to try to integrate her. Reporting that she felt depressed and incomplete without her "family" (her word), she would always re-differentiate sooner or later.

Dr. Wilbur believed integration was The Answer until just before she died. She wanted to look into non-integration alternatives but didn't get a chance to do much research. Co-workers at Wilbur's Open Hospital for Multiple Personality often observed people in households arranging to pretend to be integrated to keep the doctors happy. They'd actually have board meetings right in front of the nurses. "Dr. Wilbur wants to integrate Fred and Bill: Who wants to volunteer to be the new "integrated" Fred and Bill?"

"Frequent stories about providing therapists and society with what they wanted to see, abound. I have never met an integrated multiple. However, some tried to convince themselves that they were -- the whole time that they were switching."

[our-haven.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's heavy stuff. I'm sure that, under similar circumstances, we would have "board meetings" like that. If it meant getting out of intensive psychiatric care? Totally. I laughed at the Fred/Bill quote ^_^

I haven't actually read the pages about Sybil before, though I think we've collectively read just about everything else on your site :)

[shandra.livejournal.com]

They didn't integrate; he was interviewed on Oprah and apparently was switchy (I haven't seen it).

I think that book is a bit of a watershed book both in that he doesn't integrate and in that there isn't a singular all-knowing all-compassionate therapist in it. However I think the best thing about it so far is that Robin Williams optioned it for a film.

(like a game of telephone:)

[our-haven.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it either... But the impression I got, from what I've heard of it, was that it appeared he was having a very hard time not switching during the main part of the show. However, unless I'm quite mistaken, they did have him switch intentionally later on. I hope it wasn't one of those "See the amazing MULTIPLE switch personalities, right before your VERY EYES! Ta-da!" situations. Ick.

I still want to see that episode, out of morbid curiosity.

Re: (like a game of telephone:)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

"I hope it wasn't one of those "See the amazing MULTIPLE switch personalities, right before your VERY EYES! Ta-da!" situations. Ick."

It was. During the actual interview, his presentation was completely wooden -- he gave a very good impression of a marionette, and I now realise that his wife was pulling the strings. The "switching" sequence was taped, and played at I believe the end of the programme. I've got it somewhere, but I'll have to find it.

Re: (like a game of telephone:)

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

I hope it wasn't one of those "See the amazing MULTIPLE switch personalities, right before your VERY EYES! Ta-da!" situations. Ick.

Most talk-show presentations of multiples are like that >_> No matter what, they ALWAYS want to put you through the paces. Personally, we have a very hard time switching at will-- we think it might be partly biochemical with us-- so we'd make a very poor talk-show plural. They always want at least one on-stage switch, one little kid, and different voices (again, we're not too different so we'd be out of luck there-- it's more our speech patterns and word choices that give it away to people who know us).

[poacu.livejournal.com]

It's great to know people who are happy to listen and not automatically tell me I'm nuts when I start discussing my bonds.

That depends on where you bring your stories and discussion. :)

[eridanusus.livejournal.com]

I REALLY like that movie. Dolores is such a demon child, I love it!

oh, and by the way....

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

"I'm getting more and more fascinated by these case studies, and want to know more."

I just caught that. I know what you mean by case studies, but in terms of formal case reports, documentation on Sybil -- indeed, on multiplicity in general -- is scarce at best.

No psychiatric case study on Sybil was ever written. While it's clear that the novel by Schreiber is a fictionalized work, most people have assumed that Dr Wilbur wrote up her session notes and presented at least one article on Sybil in a peer-reviewed journal. This is standard practise, but Wilbur was not one to go in for standard practise. As I've said elsewhere, she was sloppy. I don't believe she ever even gave a formal lecture on Sybil. She would have faced challenge and questioning, and she did not like to be questioned. Her fame and notoriety in the psychiatric world were based on her formidable personality, not on the quality of her work.

Sources close to Wilbur report that she was an attention-seeker who pushed more than one of her clients to present as multiple when they were not. She was not the kind of person you say no to. She was also fairly unethical in other ways -- including not always keeping records of the medications she prescribed -- and she developed a nasty reputation with her fellow psychiatrists. I'm sure Spiegel and his cronies were only too happy to do her in after her death by discrediting her most famous client. But they picked the wrong one. Shirley was not only multiple, she remained multiple her entire life. Toward the end of her life, she asked Dr. Leah Dickstein to "please tell people that every word of the book is true."

Dr. Wilbur and Shirley were close all of their lives. In fact, when Dr. Wilbur broke her leg, Shirley moved in and took care of her. Two of our correspondents have described them as "much more than friends." Dr. Wilbur was a Lesbian, and it's quite possible that she spotted Shirley as one early on.

Peter Swales announced in about 2000 that he was beginning research toward a nonfiction biography of Shirley and Wilbur. The delay on this work may be due to legalities.

There have also been no psychiatric case studies published on Cru Gordon to the best of my knowledge.

http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/controversy.html#sybil

[laurenthemself]

Yeah, I didn't mean actual psychiatric case study case studies, I meant more sort of individual (ahem... plural) reports on multiples.

I think it's a real shame that there isn't better documentation on multiplicity in all its forms, from actual diagnosed DID to the less formal (but no less valid) undiagnosed multiples (and really, given the way diagnosed multiples seem to be treated, who'd want to be diagnosed?). Which brings me back to something that I mentioned in an earlier post: the members of multiplicity telling their own stories. Sure, it's still not 'official' (as in a psychiatric case study), but it's more about getting the word out there, particularly that integration is not the be all and end all, than about officiality.