the totally insane true story behind the 1970s film and book Sybil

One day I will fight aero for title of biggest Amy Grant fan on ilx, and then when we are all scuffled and mussed we'll call a truce and agree never to fight again and seal the deal with a duet of "Sharayah."

Have I posted this recently?

Dating a split personality

I had an ex who had some trauma previously in her life, blamed herself for a death, heard her asking forgiveness (of the deceased person) all the time. Sometimes would sleepwalk and try to leave the room, wake up screaming, crying, etc.

Anyway, at some point I found out that this girl had multiple personalities. One would usually wake up about ten minutes before the other (normal) girlfriend. Problems were thus...

Early riser knew who I was, which is why it took me a little bit to catch on

Early riser was a genuinely happy person, who I honestly liked better than my actual gf.

Early riser was always horny.

These were problems because, my actual girlfriend, waking up in the middle of... stuff, was none to happy to discover it happening. Luckily, she apparently knew about this, so it didn't take much explaining to get the situation sorted out. From then on she just let me know that I should make absolutely sure she was awake.

Early riser started showing up more often. Eventually I became rather good at differentiating between the two by just looking at their smile. My SO's smile was usually fake, it hurt me to see. Early riser was always happy. However, I learned that early riser didn't take no for an answer when it came to morning time intimacy, which was obviously a problem. I figured out that by pretending to go along with it, and brushing her hair behind her ear as if I was about to kiss her, I could wake my gf up. For some reason behind her ear was like a wake up button. I employ this technique effectively for a while.

I'd like you to understand that all of this so far has been the build up, what comes next is what gives me an adrenaline rush to this day. Up until this point I didn't actually know that early riser was a separate individual, I had just assumed it was my girlfriend being half-asleep and carefree in the morning.

One day early riser wakes me up trying to get some sexy times. I roll over smiling and begin to brush her hair back. She grabs my wrist... really hard. I stop. "What's wrong?"

"I don't wan't you to touch behind my ear"

slightly freaked out "Why not?"

"Because then you go away"

Cue realization crashing down around me. I got less adrenaline bungee jumping, I kid you not. I fumbled around stalling for time until my girlfriend woke up.

Every time early riser would show up after that she would grab my wrist if I tried to go near her ear. Usually managed to find away to sneak my hand back there anyway. One day she didn't try to grab my wrist. I touched behind her ear... nothing. She smiled at me like she knew, I felt like my heart had stopped. I panicked a little bit and just shook my gf awake at that point. Didn't see as much of her (early riser) after that.

(I copied and pasted that from somewhere. Not my testimony.)

wtf is that

from where?

I do not vouch for its veracity.

http://nitsuj001.xanga.com/765671367/dating-a-split-personality/

the shoemaker was a crazy book. especially when he starts making orthopedic shoes for mice...

dang
i gotta read that

Michelle Remembers
Satan's Silence
The Shoemaker

^^ i might totally fritz out if i read these three books in a row, y/n?

Just split 'em up between your multiples.

the closest i ever came to a famous split personality case. family down the street from my house. they had an exorcism and everything. and there was a murder involved. though i guess satanic posession is a bit different than multiple personalities.

http://www.kosmokratoras.com/images/the_devil_in_connecticut_book.jpg

kinda looked like the front door to our house too on the cover of that book. which freaked me out at the time.

Early riser was always horny

is like the first line of a limerick

Is that the same as the 'haunting in CT' family?

spent a couple of hours trying to find downloadable pdfs of gerald brittle books recently...

you can watch the whole t.v. movie on youtube. kevin bacon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow3srA2TuLE

i knew the kids involved after the fact and they were remarkably normal considering, uh, events in their lives.

Scott that is a great story!

my layperson's guess is that MPD is real but much rarer than people think it is and pretty different in how it manifests than has been represented in movies/tv

From the book description of Sybil, Exposed

Before Sybil was published, there had been fewer than 200 known cases of MPD; within just a few years after, more than 40,000 people would be diagnosed with it. Set across the twentieth century and rooted in a time when few professional roles were available to women, this is a story of corrosive sexism, unchecked ambition, and shaky theories of psychoanalysis exuberantly and drastically practiced. It is the story of how one modest young woman’s life turned psychiatry on its head and radically changed the course of therapy, and our culture, as well.

Seeing "The Demonologist" on Scott's book cover of course brings to mind Ed and Lorraine Warren.

oh and i think the big deal about my hometown thing was it was the first time anyone had used demonic posession as a defense in a murder case. or something like that.

andy griffith plays ed warren in the demon murder case movie!

will watch!

WILL WATCH!

it's really amusing to me that i (we) grew up in a climate so thick with this super bizarro stuff. are these paranoid delusions from damage done in the diabolically grim 1970s? fallout from acid damage in the 60s? i really don't know.

fun facts - before Sybil, LLC,
-- Dr C Wilbur wrote a book about how to cure homosexuality and treated Roddy Mcdowell.
-- Flora Schreiber wrote pioneering "it happened to me!" articles for women's magazines
-- Shirley Mason was living in the city and going to school.
-- One of them tried to invent a special foot soap (i forget which one?), but it tanked.

IMO general climate of fear following on from the 60s in a 'we have opened pandoras box omg what will be the price' style.

argh it's killing me that I can't remember the name of this metal 'zine that had a whole issue devoted to Satanic Panic, including a cross-referenced map of the San Diego area with alleged "incidents" ... very funny issue I kept around for a long time.

ah found it

http://www.geneticdisorder.net/04.BuyZines/Covers.Buy/14.jpg

MO general climate of fear following on from the 60s in a 'we have opened pandoras box omg what will be the price' style

Yes--bad fallout all over the place, from Manson to There's a Riot Goin' On and everything in between. You could spend all day listing examples, and 1973 Nervous Breakdown does.

When Rabbit Howls, anyone? I know I read that one, probably on summer vacation.

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1207881551l/1275374.jpg

I'll wishlist the 1973 book too.

oops
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1207881551l/1275374.jpg

The Troops for Truddi Chase

loved that book. so great.

watch this whole thing....if you dare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTgdbT5hBDc&feature=channel&list=UL

haha we were just talking about when rabbit howls at dinner at my friend's place on saturday!

too bad the movie isn't on youtube. shelley long!

whoa
i watched 54 sec and had to pause
that lady is too much!

shelley duvall was in the movie?! this is all coming back to me! i feel like...like i am releasing repressed childhood memories. DEMONS.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/524152_10151718561067137_543168408_n.jpg

oh RIGHT!!

i share a bday with shelley long, now i know why!

i was thinking about dream casting shelley duvall as shirley mason.

'with tom conti'

that is a GREAT poster

ad, whatever

One of them tried to invent a special foot soap (i forget which one?), but it tanked.

the doc - don't think it was a foot soap, just some kind of special industrial soap

oh man I worked at a library when When Rabbit Howls came out - I worked at the County Regional HQ shipping out books to the branches. I was so stoked that it was credited to "The Troops for Truddi Chase," such a masterstroke

i recently picked this up... haven't read into it but holy hell it is gloriously bad and trashy

http://whoyoucallingaskeptic.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/michelle-remembers-1980.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Remembers

Michelle Remembers is a book published in 1980 co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his psychiatric patient (and eventual wife) Michelle Smith. A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of Satanic ritual abuse and is an important part of the controversies beginning in the 1980s regarding satanic ritual abuse and repressed memory. The book has been discredited by several investigations which found no corroboration of the book's events, while others have pointed out that the events described in the book were extremely unlikely and in some cases impossible.

Love the Trudy personality that's wearing sunglasses.

that's the same michelle remembers mentioned above, only with the more recent cover?

So what was the deal with Three or 3 Faces of Eve? Any investigative reporting on that case? Much more harrowing: sorting out truth and BS in child-abuse scandals. The once-notorious panic bubble in Jordan, Minnesota, with any truth obscured by a seemingly whack District Attorney, for inst. Then again, that amazingly zig-zag documentary about the guy who ran an after-school computer class, in the 70s I think.

the truddi in the middle is my favorite, "struggling truddi"

Joanne Woodward as Eve and Dr Wilbur is a casting masterstroke.