Sybil
On the upside of reading the controversial book "too young"
Hi!
In the spirit of the sometimes-unsettling holiday season, I probed my memory to write about an unsettling and deeply contentious book that shaped me. I want to hear if any books occupied a similar space for you!
Enjoy!!!
Love,
Olivia
I slept in my parent’s bed for the last time when I was nine, having binged Flora Rheta Schreiber’s Sybil. The 1973 book, popularized by the eponymous miniseries starring Sally Field, offers an account of Sybil Dorsett’s life with multiple personality disorder. I can picture the cover clearly: a beautiful brunette woman’s face composed of puzzle pieces, rendered in 1970’s orangey browns. On the first page, my mom’s maiden name - Lin Krippner - scrawled in pencil. I doubt my parents knew I’d been reading the book until I tiptoed into their room in the early hours of the morning, crying because I couldn’t sleep.
My dad decamped to the couch, and I crawled into his spot next to my mom. My heart was racing as she rubbed my back. Sybil’s sixteen personalities made it nearly impossible for her to keep track of time, and even harder for her to keep track of herself. Was it 10PM or 4AM? Where was I? How could I be sure? I sniffed the pillow, which smelled reassuringly of my dad’s Suave-brand hair gel. “You’re okaaaay,” my mom intoned in a sing-songy voice, tethering me back to reality. “Take a deep breath. Try to go to sleep.”
I was too distraught to heed her advice, so the next day, they let me stay home from school. Hooky for reading-induced sleep deprivation? Score, I suppose. But lying on the floor in the sun-drenched living room, a pit swelled in my stomach as I watched Kiss Me Kate on VHS. I still felt like I was inside the story of Sybil’s life, trotting down the dreary sidewalks in Morningside Heights, wondering how long I’d been there and how long I’d be lucid. It was the first time I had considered that the mind might not be a reliable thing, that perception of reality could be skewed by forces inside oneself - but outside of one’s control. The idea scared me more than any literary villain ever had.
Despite Sybil’s severe mental illness, she lives, even before treatment, an interesting and seemingly stable life. To the casual observer interacting with her primary personality, it’d be difficult to tell that anything is wrong. She’s a successful college graduate who works as a teacher and makes visual art on the side. She moves from the Midwest to New York City for a master’s program at Columbia. She’s self-sufficient and friendly, and seems to maintain warm relationships with her family and colleagues.
And yet, Sybil is haunted by a fractured existence. She loses large swaths of time to her other personalities, which emerge to protect her from reliving the agonizing pain of her childhood. There is no easy diagnosis, and there is no straightforward cure. Rather, she spends years suffering in silence, followed by years working with a psychiatrist to unspool the roots of her trauma. It’s only after vast quantities of intensive therapy that Sybil starts to re-integrate her various personalities into a singular whole. Sybil’s disease struck me as a dark cousin of imagination - the ability to fantasize about a different existence, gone too far. Worse, she can’t control it. Her precious mind is constantly betraying her. (I should also mention that in the decades since publication, accounts of the real-life Sybil’s story - a Minnesota named Shirley Mason - have been roundly critiqued by doctors, historians, and feminists. In particular, author Schreiber and psychiatrist Dr. Cornelia Wilbur were accused of sensationalizing Sybil’s symptoms in the book for personal gain. The DSM-5 diagnosis of her disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder, remains divisive.)
Retrospectively, I was probably scared by something in Sybil’s story that felt nebulously familiar. In addition to a history of longevity, my sturdy Midwestern family shares a rich tradition of navigating mental illness in various forms. Grandparents on both sides went through well-documented periods of depression and anxiety, and each of my parents have been on SSRIs throughout their adult lives. On the family record form I fill out when I go to the doctor, I’m mercifully spared from marking heart disease or cancer, but the list of blood relatives who have been felled by a mind on the outs is a long one.
My parents never really hid this background from us, but at age nine, I doubt we’d discussed it explicitly either. It was only through the precocious raiding of my mother’s bookshelf that the topic was brought to the fore. As I remember it, my parents took a reassuring posture in the days that followed: yes, we know and love plenty of people who manage mental illness. Going to therapy and taking medication is normal. No, we don’t think you have multiple personality disorder, but if you did, we’d figure it out together.
When I called my dad to ask what he remembers about this moment, he couldn’t recall specifics (sad!). Instead, we wound up talking about my childhood anxiety in general. Particularly, my obsession with falling asleep at the perfect time (in my mind, 8PM), which often resulted in self-flagellating insomnia. In my dad’s recollection, the Sybil incident was just one of many evenings where my parents got called in for an assist, tasked with soothing the nerves of an uptight third grader. Even so, he was mildly aghast to be reminded that I’d read such a harrowing book at such a young age.
But I think it was for the better. In my memory, my early exposure to Sybil’s controversial story forcibly normalized discussions between me and my parents about our minds: anxiety, fear, and delusion. Maybe I was worse for the wear immediately after, but the trade-off between short-term distress and long-term transparency seems worth it to me now. This is not to say that conversations about mental health were thus totally destigmatized in my family - they weren’t, and they still require intentionality and persistence - but I think this instance made them easier. At least it did for me.
Schreiber’s account of Sybil’s life ends on what feels like an impossibly optimistic note. After years of working with Dr. Wilbur, Sybil starts to achieve a sense of peace with her multiple personalities:
Sybil’s attitude toward these selves, moreover, had completely changed, from initial denial to hostility to acceptance - even to love. Having learned to love these parts of herself, she had in effect replaced self-derogation with self-love. This replacement was an important measure of her integration and restoration. (Schreiber, 1973, p. 436)
Even removed from the context of dissociative identity disorder, it’s a hopeful view. Isn’t what Sybil achieves here what we’re all looking for, sort of? An acceptance of the complicated facets that comprise us; an understanding that even our difficult elements deserve love because they make us who we are. As a reader, it’s satisfying to believe that Sybil gets this kind of actualization. As a realist, it feels implausible that the complications of Sybil’s inner life are healed with the end of the book. More likely, her work continues.
Over the years, I’ve become less inclined to rouse my loved ones because I’m scared of losing agency over my precious mind. But for better or worse, Sybil’s blighted story remains with me, forming my early understanding of mental wellness and lack thereof. I’m always kind of looking for Sybil, but she’s hard to find; so many more of us are navigating unsettled psyches with less-obvious symptoms. For all of the controversy that surrounds her, Sybil made that easier to acknowledge.
One final note…
My favorite people - my partner Jonathan and my sister Sophia - started a podcast wherein they matchmake singles in New York City. I’m biased, but I think it’s great and unique. A genuine platform for fostering human connection. You can listen on Spotify here, and Apple Podcasts here.
Ok that’s all. Byeee!