Sybil
by Flora Rheta Schreiber
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Book Summary Information
Author: Flora Rheta SchreiberEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-01
ISBN: 0446550124
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Book Reviews of Sybil
Book Review: Disturbing, horrific, compelling and uplifting all in one...a psychological classic.
Summary: 5 Stars
Child abuse, in any form, is one of the worst crimes that a person can commit. For me, it makes my blood boil. Knowing what the subject matter was behind Sybil, I knew that this was not going to be an easy and particularly joyful read. Yet, I knew that it would shed some light on a subject matter that has long since fascinated me: Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Reading the various blurbs on the book jacket, I deduced that the woman known as Sybil ultimately survived her internal imprisonment via integration. One of the blurbs read as such: "Fascinating...highly readable and illuminating...High marks all around and most especially to Sybil herself for her endurance and courage and insistence on survival in the face of what must have seemed like overwhelming odds." Knowing that, I believed that the end of the book would have some degree of a positive outcome, and as a reader, that was most sustaining. It propelled me forward even during some of the more disturbing chapters, and there are many. The book alone is very well written, lucent, restrained and unemotional. The chronology of Sybil's upbringing is stretched throughout the whole book-from childhood to adulthood-as are the physical, sexual and psychological consequences, which are minutely detailed in each chapter. The ramifications of the abuse are expressed from the beginning to the bitter end.
The background of the story, without giving too much away, is about a young graduate student at Columbia University whose interest is in art and art history. She seems like a normal and accomplished woman, but she suffers from severe black-outs and often winds up in locations that she does not remember every traveling to. Also, people confess things to her about actions, comments and day-to-day stuff that she was supposedly involved with and in. Yet, for the life of her, she can't remember. All her life long, this has been a consistent pattern. Deep down, however, she knows that something is not quite right with her, and she is extremely terrified to explore her psychological self, to reflect and contemplate. She is in a perpetual fog and is afraid to gain clarity of that which is drifting along in her sub-conscience. For instance, why is she afraid of dish-towels, vases, glass, knives, light bulbs, the repressed hatred for her mother, et cetera? It is after an episode of lost time that ultimately brings Sybil back to the psychiatrist Dr. Cornelia Wilbur whose acquaintance she had previously made while in Nebraska. Through a battery of examinations, Dr. Wilbur suspects that Sybil's anxiety and episodes of lost time is the byproduct of deeply repressed traumas, that she is a woman who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). She gets confirmation when one of Sybil's selves emerges to the forefront with hidden information regarding Sybil's past; as trust is developed with the doctor, a portrait emerges regarding Sybil and the horrific actions (too terrible to relate here) perpetrated against her by her most unstable and vile mother. Her father turned a blind eye against the obvious, only saying that she was a pillar of the community. And she was, as people attested. She was a good actress, which is apparently a common trait with abusers. Over time, sixteen selves emerge, little pieces of Sybil that her mother was unable to destroy. Additionally, the social constraints of the times as well as the fanaticism of her Seventh Day Adventist upbringing only compounded the intensity of her guilt and silence. But in the bigger picture of things, they were smaller ingredients when compared to the ritualistic and secret atrocities committed against her by her unpredictable mother.
Sybil is a forceful read, because you can't help but see people and yourself in a new light; the ramifications of abuse are long lasting. You can't just check it at the door and leave it behind. The story of Sybil attests to that truth and to those who are unfortunately like her. It is even so for those who were not as severely abused as she was. Even if it happens just once, the residual is there, and the victim is never ever the same because of it. Sybil was a spellbinding read, and the reader is with her on her journey of terrifying self-discovery. But the light at the end of the tunnel is her eventual wholeness. And that is a wonderful reward. Lastly, this is a book that should be widely read, especially for perpetrators and people like Sybil's father who knowingly turned a blind eye and glossed over the obvious. It would behoove them. Victims have a right to own their anger, because they certainly did not own their innocence.
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