Multiple personality disorder has been a mind disease…or not, that no one can has been able to fully understand. When we think about it, it sounds very bizzare and would be scary to be around a person so unstable, as you never know what might happen. Even though it has been categorised as a mental disorder, medical professionals are not that sure it exists for real.
Some say that it might be another form of schizophrenia manifestation. Another theory, states that this mental illness its not real and those who claim to have it, are just putting on a serious acting show. Read below some of the most famous and creepy at the same time multiple personality disorder cases.
Judy Castelli
Judy Castelly grew up in New York, and went trough physical and sexual abuse, after which she suffered from depression. Only a month after she had started college, the school psychiatric sent her home. During the next years of her life, Castelli, had serious issues with the voices inside her head which kept encouraging her to cut and burn herself.
Because of this, she had almost desfigurated herself completely, was close to losing an eye, and she was one step away from not being able to use her hands anymore. She was put in a hospital plenty of times, for trying to take her own life. Every time she was being medicaly invetsigated, the doctors gave her different chronic schizophrenia diagnosis.
In the ‘80s, she started to sing in pubs and clubs from Greenwich Village. At one point she succeded in finding a job and she was a very good artist and was talented at sculpting and creating stained glass.
Then, in 1994, during a therapy session with the same doctor she had been seeing more than 10 years, she showed 7 different personalities and as the therapy went on, she arrived at 44 personalities. After she found out she had multiple personality disorder, she became a campaigner for the mental illness. Castelli is still working as an artist and is an art professor for persons with mental illness.
Louis Vivet
One of the first known cases of multiple personalities, belonged to Louis Vivet, of French origin. He was born on the 12th of February 1863 from a mother who was working as a prostitute. He had been a child of extreme neglect. When he was eight years old, he had committed a murder, and was locked in a treatment house until he became a teenager.
One day, when he was 17, he was working on a grape plantation and a poisonous snake curled around his arm. The snake didn’t bite him, but he got so frightened and terrified that he started having a seizure and he became paralysed from the waist down after that psychological breakdown. The period he had been paralyzed he was put in an asylum, but after a year, he was able to walk again. At this time, Vivet appeared to be an entirely different human being. He couldn’t recognise any of the persons at the asylum, his mood was way gloomier and he had a difefrent appetite for food.
Over the next years, Vivet kept going in and out of hospitals. During his stay in a hospital from, he was given the diagnosis of multiple personalities. While in therapy, a doctor used hypnosis and metal therapy, and discovered that Vivet had 10 different personalities, and all were entirely different and had their own separate background. Further reviews of the case, didnt agree that Vivet had ten personalities but only three.
Robert Oxnam
Robert Oxnam is a renowned American intellectual who has spent his life with the study of the Chinese culture. He used to be a college professor and presently works as private consultant for matters concerning China. Even though he is a highly educated and accomplished person, Oxnam has been dealing with serious mental illness.
In 1989, during a therapy session, the doctor told him he was an alcoholic. In another session, Oxnam addressed the therapist, as a young and angry boy, called Tommy, whos home was in a castle. Further medical sessions have revealed that Oxnam had 11 different personalities.
After a long lasting treatment, Oxnam and his therapist managed to drop down the personalities to only three. Those were, Robert, Bob who was the main personality and Bobby who was the youngest and was apositive spirited person who loved to rollerblade.
Trial of Mark Peterson
On June 11, 1990, Mark Peterson, who was 29 years old, living in Oshkosh, Wisconsin took out for a drink awoman of 26 years old, whose identify has remained unknown. The two had meet two days earlier, and while they were on their date, the woman showed Peterson she had 21 personalities. When leaving the restaurant, Peterson, told her they should have sex in his car, and she said ok.
But, after a few days, Peterson had been detained by the police, under the accusation of sexual assault. It appeared that two of the woman’s personalities didn’t agree to have sex with the man. One of them was 20 years old, and bursted while they were having sex, and another one who was a child of six years old, watched the sexual act.
The man was convicted for second-degree sexual assault as it is against the law to have sexual relationships with a person who is mentally ill and is unable to give permission.
A month later, the verdict was reversed, and prosecutors didn’t find it appropriate to put the woman trough the stress of a new trial. During the time that had past from the incident in June and the trial in November, the woman’s personalities had went up to 46. Peterson was never re-sentenced for the crime.
Kim Noble
Kim Noble was born in 1960 in the UK, and has stated that both of her parents were working in a facotry and their marriage was unhappy. She was physically abused from a very incipient age, after which, in her teen years, she started suffering from several mental problems. She overdosed several times and she was put in a mental institution.
Years later, when she was in her 20s, the other personalities started to make their way in, and were acting very destructive. Kim had a job as a van driver, and one time, one of her personalities called Julie, took control of the wheel and drove the van into some cars that were parked.. Also, she somehow managed to interfere in a pedophile investigation. She went to give her evidence to the police, and after that, she started to receive anonymous threats. After which, someone spilt acid on her face and set her house on fire. She had no recollection of what happened.
Since 1995, when she was told she had dissociative identity disorder, she has been receiving psychiatric treatment. Presently she works as an artist, but she doesn’t know the exact number of her personalities, however she assumes there are around 100. On a daily basis, her body is shared by 4 to 5 different personalities, Patricia being the most present.
Patricia has presented herself as woman who is confident and calm. One other of her personalities is Hayley, the one who dealt with the pedophile investigation.
In 2010, Noble, together with her daughter, appeared as Patricia on Oprah.
Truddi Chase
Truddi Chase, stated that, when she was 2 years old, her stepfather abused her sexually and physically, and her mother had put her trough emotional abuse for 12 years. At one point of her adult life, Chase felt the stress level had become unbearable, and decided to go to a therapist. She found out she had 92 different personalities.
The youngest out them all, was a little girl, of 5-6 years, going by the name of Lamb Chop. Another person, was Ean, who was an Irish philosopher. In this case, none of the personalities had nothing against each other, and they appeared to be aware of the existence of one another.
She called her personalities “The Troops.” She also had a very touching appearance on Oprah in 1990. Truddi Chase died in 2010.
Shirley Manson
Shirley Manson was born in Dodge Center, Minnesota, in 1923. Apparently she had a rough childhood. Manson claimed that her mother was a true barbarian. One of her sadistic forms of abuse, was to give Manson enemas. At one stage of her life, Mason, asked for help to deal with her mental problems, and starting with 1954 she went to sessions with Doctor Cornelia Wilbur.
Mason confessed to her therapist, about some strange happenings, where she found herself staying in hotels from different cities, without having a clue how she arrived there. Also, she would go into stores and would destroy the goods, after which she had no idea about what she had done. At a short period after she confessed, her multiple personalities started exploding during therapy.
The story about her mental disorder and her terrifying childhood, was made into a book, Sybil, which became a best seller. The book, was turned into a very famous TV series, with the same name. Shirley or Sybil Mason has become one of the most popular cases of multiple personalities disorder, but many claimed that she had invented the entire story and disease. It was assumed that Mason was indeed mentally sick, and she was addcited to her therapist who was the one inflicting the multiple personalities idea in her head.
Apparently, Mason, has admitted the story was made up, in 1958, when she confessed to Dr. Wilbur, but the doctor assured her that her mind was trying to play tricks on her in order to convince her she was not ill. Mason continuedto see her therapist and 16 personalities showed up, over the years.
In the TV series, Sybil, lives a happy life, but the reality was that Mason became hooked on medication and coulndt handle her life wihtout her therapist who was giving her money and handled her bills. She died of breast cancer in 1998.
Chris Costner Sizemore
Chris Costner Sizemore claimed that she had a recolection about her first personality split when she was just a toddler. She saw a man being taken out of a canal, and she believed he was dead. While witnessing this horrible event, she saw another small girl who was watching. The thing is, Sizemore lived in a loving environment and didn’t suffer any kind of abuse during her childhood, things that heppened to most of the people suffering from multiple personality disorder.
However, after seeing that horrible event, and another bloody accident later on, she claimed she started having a werid behaviour, thing which was noticed by her family as well. She would be accused for things she didn’t remember doing. After giving birth for the first time, Sizemore asked for professional help. One day, “Eve Black”, one of her personalities tried to kill her baby, but she was stopped by “Eve White”.
The therapist she started to see, gave her the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder. During the sessions, she showed a third personality, called Jane. For the following 25 years she worked with eight different therapists, an during this period she developed 22 personalities. Her personalities had nothing in commmon with one another. After 4 years of therapy with Doctor Tony Tsitos, all the personalities vanished and she was left with only one.
The first doctor of Sizemore, Thigpen together with another doctor wrote a book about her case, named The Three Faces of Eve. It was turned into a movie, in 1957, and the movie received the Oscar for best actress, Joanne Woodward was the one who played the part of Sizemore.
Billy Milligan
In Ocotber, 1977, three women in the Ohio State University area, were abducted and taken to an isolated area where they were robbed and raped. One of the women, stated that the attacker addressed her with a German accent and another one of the women said that even though he had sexually assaulted her, the men seemed a nice person. The man accused of the crimes was Billy Milligan of 22 years old.
After he was arrested, Milligan went to see a specialist and was diagnosed with multiple personalities disorder. His body was inhabited by 24 personalities. So, in his defence, his lawyer stated that when the attack happened, it wasn’t Billy doing those things. At the time of the crimes, there were two different personalities in control of his body, Ragen a man from Yugoslaviaa lesbian called Adalana. The jury found him not guilty and this was the first case ever in America, for a person suffering of multiple personalities to not be prosecuted for the crimes.
He was put in a mental hospital until 1988, and was released after the medical experts agreed that his personalities have vanished.
A movie based on his story is being filmed and will be called The Crowded Room, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Milligan died of cancer in 2018, at the age of 59.
Juanita Maxwell
In 1979, when Juanita Maxwell, she was working as a cleaning lady in a hotel in Fort Myers, Florida. That same year, in March, a 72 years old woman, who was staying at the hotel, was found brutally murdered. Her body had bite marks on it, it had been beaten and the cause of death appeared to be asphyxiation. Maxwell was arrested for the violent murder, as she was found with blood traces on her footwear and she had a scratch on her face. She said she didn’t know what had happened.
Before the trial, she went to see a medical specialist and during the trial she pleaded not guilty, because she claiemd she was suffering from multiple personalities and had six other personalities. The most dominant one, Wanda, was the one who committed the heinous murder. At the trial, the defense lawyer managed to make Wanda to come out to confess.
The judge couldnt believe the transofrmation he was witnessing. Juanita was a person who was calm and talked softly, while Wanda had an aggresice language, was flirty and had a passion for violence. While she was admitting to having hit the old woman, she was laughing. It seems they had a quarrel over a pen. After her confession, the judge was completely convinced that either she was indeed suffering from multiple personalities disorder or she was a brilliant actress.
Maxwell was hospitalized into a psychiatric institution, were she claimed she didn’t received appropriate treatment, as she had been mainly given sedatives. After she left the hospital, she was arrested once again for bank robbery. Like the first time, she claimed that Wanda had been the criminal. She was sentenced to prison, and after doing her time, she was released.
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