The Return of ‘Sybil’

Posted by Clifford Thurlow. info@cliffordthurlow.com
The problem with Dissociative Identity Disorder is that it is so rare, so destructive, so demeaning and so difficult to cure, even the medical and psychiatric professions would prefer not to think about it rather than deal with it.

Sufferers of DID are virtually always victims of childhood abuse - a messy business people would rather not think about. One of the ways the victims are able to live their lives is my disconnecting themselves from the abuse - while it is going on, they remove themselves and watch as if independent of what is happening. This results in the personality itself splitting and the onset of DID.

Does DID really exist? I am a London journalist and author of several books, including one from the front line in Iraq. I check my sources. I am cynical. It's hard for anyone to pull the wool over my eyes. I am now working with Helen Ibbotson, a 39 year old woman from England who suffered seven years of horrific abuse. She has DID and there are numerous personalities living in her mind, several of whom appear frequently. We are writing a book together called 'Tormented' for Pan-MacMillan, a major international publishers who, like me, have checked their sources and know that in Helen we not only have a reliable witness, we have an astonishing tale of how one woman has fallen victim of DID and how she has learned and is still learning to cope with it. We hope when 'Tormented' is published next year it will add a valuable case study to the DID debate. Clifford Thurlow. London.

I am not only a childhood abuse survivor who has Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is the correct term for the disorder, I am also director of a national non-profit dedicated to educating the public and professional community about DID. Our mission is to show the positive side of DID in an effort to dispel the myths and stigmas wrongfully attached to this disorder. Your views on the quality of the movie are your opinions and have little impact on our mission. What I was disappointed to see was a reputable magazine such as Newsweek would put out something so negative towards the disorder itself with little or no researched information included. I would have expected more from a journalistic organization then a cheap shot at the DID community by saying (still under debate.) By who? ~ Jaime: An Infinite Mind