They got U!
Best-selling book “True Story” Of Sybilis about a girl with 16 separate personalities that developed as a result of horrendous childhood abuses. The book sold seven million copies, was made it two feature films, and even spawned a recognised syndrome, “multiple personality disorder.”
According to a new book Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case, there’s proof that it was all a heaping pile of bull!
According to the author, Debbie Nathan, the memoir was cooked up by three individuals hungry for fame and fortune: Shirley Mason, her therapist Cornelia Wilbur and journalist Flora Schreiber.
Apparently Mason’s therapist told her patient that if she told people she had sixteen different personalities — one that’s a baby and two that are boys — she would pay for med school! Honor for higher education? Sounds like a perfect trade!
Nathan says she discovered a letter written by Mason that explains it all. She wrote:
“I am all of them. I have essentially been lying├óΓé¼┬ª as trying to show you I felt I needed help.”
Speeking on the success of the book Mason added:
“Quite thrilling. Got me a lot of attention.”
Nathan’s book claims that Schreiber and Wilbur together drew the astonishing tales, out of willing collaborator Mason.
This discovery has sparked a debate not just over the legitimacy of Sybil but of multiple personality disorder itself! Some say that if the first record of the disorder is fake, it’s possible all cases have been exaggerated.
[image via Amazon.com]
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