When Rabbit Howls

  Praise for

  WHEN RABBIT HOWLS

  “An extraordinary story. [When Rabbit Howls] is the reconstruction, through therapy, of the lost life of a woman so . . . abused by her stepfather that her only defense down the years was to shatter into the Troops . . . no fewer than ninety-two different and autonomous personalities.”

  —The London Guardian

  “Remarkable . . . alarmingly real and courageous.”

  —Toronto Sun

  “Fascinating, provocative reading.”

  —Library Journal

  “The first book authored by a multiple personality . . . When Rabbit Howls is a document that breaks the silence . . . a searing indictment of the crime of child sexual abuse . . . a truly moving and thought-provoking work . . . an uplifting, inspiring story of a survivor.

  —Sojourner: The Women’s Forum

  Most Berkley Books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. Special books, or book excerpts, can also be created to fit specific needs.

  For details, write: Special Markets, The Berkley Publishing Group, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  A Berkley Book

  Published by The Berkley Publishing Group

  A division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 1987 by Truddi Chase.

  Introduction and epilogue copyright © 1987 by Robert A. Phillips, Jr.

  Cover design by Erika Fusari.

  Cover art by Franco Accornero.

  Published by arrangement with E. P. Dutton, a division of Penguin USA.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  E. P. Dutton edition / June 1987

  Jove mass-market edition / April 1990

  Berkley trade paperback edition / February 2002

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Chase, Truddi.

  When Rabbit howls/The Troops for Truddi Chase; introduction and epilogue by Robert A. Phillips, Jr.—Berkley trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-66662-3

  1. Chase, Truddi—Mental health. 2. Multiple personality—Patients—United States—Biography. 3. Incest victims—United States—Biography. 4. Adult child abuse victims—United States—Biography. 5. Adult child sexual abuse victims—United States—Biography. 6. Child sexual abuse—Case studies. I. Phillips, Robert A. II. Title.

  RC569.5.M8 C48 2002

  616.85’236’0092—dc21

  [B] 2001052448

  Version_2

  This book is dedicated to Robert A. Phillips, Jr., Ph.D., for enduring “Stanley” and making the battleground safe; Lois B. Valladares, M.S., for exposing the location of the other bomb; Joan Uri of A Woman’s Place, for the sense of urgency; our agent Rebecca McCormick and Mr. McCormick, for giving the Irishman his due; Leezie Dameron, Dennis V. Kosineski and Boo, Suzanne Turner McBride, Dottie Reich, Alice Randall, Ernie Fears, Sandra R. Gregg, Karen Chenoweth, and Pat Martin, for the light in the window; Sergeant York and the women and men of the Montgomery County Police Youth Division; to “Mr.” Stone, who will remember and do; Mike and Ken and the entire Men’s Group—and Terry and Apple Blossoms for their guts and a beautiful reflection; to Mervie, Arthur, and the grandfather in fond memory—most especially to our daughter, Kari Kathleen Cupcake with love beyond time—and to our Daniel Davis for whom the eight horses ride.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for When Rabbit Howls

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  INTRODUCTION

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  INTRODUCTION

  THIS volume is a direct window into the experience we call multiple personalities. Not the report of a professional journalist or even an interpretive study by a psychotherapist, it is instead an autobiography constructed by the various personalities themselves. In these pages we see through the eyes of Truddi Chase, who was sexually abused by her stepfather from the age of two until the age of sixteen and who manifests at least ninety personalities—personalities that developed to enable her to cope, for more than forty years, with the emotional and physical trauma of that abuse. We are able to see the developing awareness of her reality as it unfolded in psychotherapy and in the writing of this manuscript.

  A number of books have been written by survivors of child sexual abuse, and a few about multiple personalities; the most notable are The Three Faces of Eve, Sybil, and The Minds of Billy Milligan. The Three Faces of Eve was written by the therapists involved in the process of psychotherapy. Sybil was written by a professional writer who attempted to re-create a total early life experience and a lengthy period of psychotherapy. The Minds of Billy Milligan is the result of interviews done by a professional writer. When Rabbit Howls is the only book I am aware of that has been written by a victim of child sexual abuse who developed multiple personalities. What makes this book especially fascinating is that while it initially appears to be written about and by Truddi Chase, it is in actuality the story and creation of the many persons who cluster within her.

  You will not find here the story of one clearly identifiable person in one body. In fact, according to our most current information, Truddi Chase—the “first-born”—has not been present since she was two years old. She lived in a small recess, “asleep,” and her place was taken by a succession of persons. This in itself creates a dilemma: how to refer to the person or persons whom we meet in these pages? At the least, we expect to read about one unified person who presents herself to the world most of the time, but who “fades out” for brief periods when others take over. Yet here we have many persons speaking and writing the story (the original manuscript shows distinctively different handwritings), and gradually we learn that the woman whom we see much of the time is in truth a façade who initially knew nothing about the others. I shall deal with this dilemma in this introduction by simply using the name “Truddi Chase.” However, the reader should remember that the original Truddi Chase “sleeps” and that I use the name to refer to the cluster of personalities who present themselves through her body.

  The persons who speak and write refer to themselves collectively as “the Troops.” It is they who created the book as part of the sorting-out process that we call psychotherapy, and the book has been a critical element in the therapeutic process. Since it was written in the midst of the discovery through psychotherapy it is
also a unique means of examining the process of psychotherapy itself through the eyes of the persons experiencing it. The book then is an opportunity for the reader to see inside the painful experience of sexual abuse. We are able to follow Truddi from the beginning of her psychotherapy, when she was unable to recall any of her experiences, through her realization of what had happened to her and of the way she developed multiple personalities as a creative means of coping with that experience. The book explores how she, and I as her therapist, became aware of the presence of multiple personalities.

  For many this book will seem both unbelievable and frightening. It challenges much of what is commonly believed about human personality, and is far beyond most people’s experience. It may even seem to have the flavor of science fiction. Certainly Truddi (and the Troop members themselves) had to overcome her own initial disbelief concerning her condition. Yet it is a true account of processes that researchers are only beginning to describe and report in depth.

  Among professionals there has been a great deal of controversy over the years as to whether the condition of multiple personalities actually exists. Cases have been reported since the seventeenth century and a significant number of examples have been discussed and noted over the past one hundred years. There is now a growing body of empirical data demonstrating the validity of the existence of multiple personalities. In fact, in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1980), which describes the established clinical categories recognized by mental health professionals, the condition of multiple personalities has been listed as a clinical and diagnostic category. The definition reads:

  The essential feature is the existence within the individual of two or more distinct personalities, each of which is dominant at a particular time. Each personality is a fully integrated and complex unit with unique memories, behavior patterns, and social relationships that determine the nature of the individual’s acts when that personality is dominant. Transition from one personality to another is sudden and often associated with psychosocial stress. . . . Usually the original personality has no knowledge or awareness of the existence of any of the other personalities (subpersonalities). (p. 257)

  The entry goes on to discuss the individual’s time loss, amnesia, and internal conversations, and notes differences among the personalities found by psychological and physiological testing.

  The work of Frank Putnam, M.D., a psychiatrist who has been conducting basic research on multiple personalities at the National Institutes of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., and Richard Kluft, M.D., a Philadelphia psychiatrist who has worked with over two hundred cases of multiple personalities, provides empirically tested and clinically described data that establish the validity of the diagnosis of multiple personality and differentiates it from other diagnostic categories with which it has been confused. Dr. Putnam has discovered that there are significant differences in brain wave patterns, voice tone and inflection, eye responses to stimuli, and other responses to both physical and psychological stimuli among the personalities, even though they are found in the same body. My own clinical observation has noted differences in handwriting, syntax, voice, accent, facial appearance, and body stance.

  Multiple personalities are quite different from those people who have been diagnosed as schizophrenic or manic-depressive. Multiple personality, for example, does not respond to chemotherapy (the use of psychoactive drugs). The growing body of data indicates that the personalities (or “persons,” as some multiples prefer to call them) are quite different and in fact are unique individuals. Voices speak, yet they are not merely internal voices but can be heard by others. Medical conditions have been observed when the body is under the control of one personality that are not present when the body is under control of another. In clients with whom I am familiar, medical conditions such as allergy-induced skin rashes, tumors, cysts, severe headaches, and even the signs of pregnancy have been noted when one personality has taken over but have disappeared when other personalities control the body.

  Multiple personality is also not merely the mood swings that most of us experience. Since each personality is significantly different from the others (and Dr. Putnam has demonstrated that the differences are measurable), what we see are the reactions and actions of different people. Often in a matter of minutes a client will seem to express a range of emotions, which on closer examination may be the crying of a small child, the bewilderment of a young woman, the terror of a child, the rage of a man, and the carefree laughter of an adult woman. Professional actors have been asked to express these differences under controlled clinical conditions. The results of such tests indicate that one person cannot simulate these differences in as distinct a manner as can the multiple. As incredible as these findings may seem, they indicate that many persons can exist in one body.

  Multiple personality may differ in its expression from one case to another. Sybil, Eve, and Billy Milligan all have one primary person who has existed since birth and continues to be present and act in everyday life. But the person who was originally born as Truddi, the “first-born,” has not been present since the age of two. The person known as “the woman” is not truly Truddi, but a person who came into being later. As the book demonstrates, the complex structure differs in form and expression from the other cases with which the public may be familiar.

  The majority of reported cases of multiple personality occur in men and women who have experienced severe and repeated sexual and physical abuse over a significant period of time. My colleague Lois Valladares and I have seen clients who were sexually abused in sadistic ways by fathers, stepfathers, mothers, stepmothers, grandparents, adolescent siblings and cousins of both sexes, live-in partners, and babysitters. Brutal beatings and emotional torment were part of the abuse. A child victim may cope with the emotionally overloading experience of severe and repeated abuse through the process of dissociation. Thus multiple personality becomes a very functional means to survive. Instead of committing suicide or becoming psychotic, Truddi Chase survived by being able to “go away in her mind,” to create others to cope with the trauma; and, in effect, she became many persons housed in one body. Multiple personality, as complicated and frightening as it is to many, both among professionals and the general public, is the response of a creative mind seeking to escape the saturation of childhood terror and pain.

  It is time for us all to realize that child sexual abuse is not an isolated problem affecting only a small number of people. Both the community of professionals and the general public are painfully becoming aware that child sexual abuse occurs among all socioeconomic sectors of our society. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 20 percent of all persons have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of an older caretaking person. That translates into millions of people, men and women, boys and girls, who have experienced or are experiencing inappropriate sexual touching, fondling, and/or intercourse. This estimate of sexual abuse is staggering, especially since a small percentage of abuse is actually reported.

  The results of the national tragedy of child sexual abuse, virtually ignored until recently, are seen in the millions of scarred lives of those adults who were sexually abused as children. The impact on human lives can be seen in the offices of mental health professionals. In my clinical practice alone, which includes a cross section of our society, I have been amazed at the number of people who have come to me to reveal that they had been sexually abused as children. Many of these have been students from university classes I have taught on the topic. The students often tell me that I am the first person to whom they have revealed their experience of abuse. Many of their abusers are professional men and businessmen, and their families on the surface appear to be no different from nonabusing families. And these people—students, professional men and women, men who have molested their own children, people who come experiencing personal and relationship problems, people who often appear to be
coping well—tell me of their fears and anxieties, their inability to trust, their difficulties in marriages or intimate relationships, and their severe sexual problems. They come with profound guilt, confusion, and conflict. And some come with what we know as multiple personalities.

  It is important to understand that sexual abuse also includes components of both physical and emotional abuse. Some victims tend to minimize the physically abusing aspects of sexual abuse, especially when the abusing person limits his behavior to erotic touching or fondling of genitals. Yet such touching or fondling is a physical invasion and has emotionally damaging effects. There is no such thing as “harmless” abuse of a child or an adolescent. I have interviewed younger and older women and men who have experienced fondling, those who have experienced sexual intercourse, and those who have experienced more violent rape, and all bear emotional scars from their experiences. In all, trust has been betrayed and young bodies have been violated and misused. An adult has taken advantage of a young child’s natural curiosity, innocence, and desire to please. In a significant number of cases such victims report nonsexual physical abuse as well, which also has significant emotional consequences. Such abuse may be accompanied by emotional abuse—abuse that may be perpetrated by not only the sexually abusing parent but also the nonoffending parent.

  Truddi Chase was born more than fifty years ago in Rochester, New York. We cannot be sure of the date of her birth because there are large gaps (at this time) in her memory. The amnesia characteristic of individuals with multiple personalities leaves large blank spots in personal histories. Details of family life are not remembered. In addition Truddi was so fearful that her parents might be able to trace her that she has worked diligently over the years to cover her past. Important papers have been lost, and much of the basic personal data that we take so much for granted are not available.

  We have pieced together a number of facts. The parents of the “primary person” (or the “first-born child”) known to us as Truddi separated when the child was two years of age, and her mother went to live with a man on a farm near a small town in the vicinity of Rochester. This man is the one whom we come to know in the book as “the stepfather,” the perpetrator of the heinous acts against Truddi (and the evolving Troop members). When only two years old the first-born child, Truddi, suffered the act of penile penetration. The stepfather’s abuse of Truddi (in truth, as we know it now, of various other Troop members who came to take her place) continued for fourteen years, during which time he warned her against disclosure. At the same time the mother punished the child, without admitting she was aware of the continuing sexual abuse. There were three other children born of this union, and it appears that two of them also were physically and sexually abused. When Truddi was sixteen the stepfather was forced to leave the home. Two years later Truddi herself left to begin years of work, relationships, and study, years about which we know very little. Eventually she came to the Washington, D.C., area where she worked as a commercial artist. She married and had one child, but after eight years found herself unable to cope with the marriage and was divorced. During her marriage she had tried unsuccessfully to discover a medical reason for her temper tantrums, periodic blackouts, and a feeling of continual “dizziness.” Custody of her daughter was given to her husband, although Truddi has continued to maintain contact. She became a real estate agent and then a broker, and in September 1980, when she began therapy with me, she had her own firm. During and up to this time she had no awareness that she was experiencing multiple personalities. She only knew that she was afraid much of the time.