Jan 26 2009
“When Rabbit Howls” by Truddi Chase
When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase is, by far, the most unusual book I have ever read. It was recommended to me by Stephanie of Rocket Scientist as a good book to read if interested in multiple personalities.
I have to say, I haven’t ever read or watched anything about multiple personalities before, so I started this book with a clean slate. Even so, this book blew me away. I don’t even know where to start. I guess the general outline of the book would be as good as any…
Truddi Chase was two years old when her mother left her father, and moved in with her stepfather. This turned out to be a Very Bad Thing in Truddi’s life, because the stepfather was the biggest slimebag to ever walk the earth. He raped Truddi, at age two. The sexual abuse continued unabated until her teenage years, when her mother finally, finally, threw the guy out.
On top of that, Truddi was also subjected to emotional and physical abuse by both her mother and her stepfather. Her mother knew what the stepfather was doing to her daughter, but instead of defending her daughter, she blamed the daughter for all of it, saying that she was a “dirty” person, and that it was all her fault that this was happening to her. There were also step-siblings in the picture who were also being abused, although Truddi doesn’t focus on that very much.
There is much, much more to the emotional, sexual, and physical abuse than what I’m stating above, but it was hard enough to read the first time around - I don’t think I can bring myself to type it out. The bottomline is, the overwhelming pain and degradation was so extreme, Truddi’s mind formed other personalities in order to deal with it all.
There are several things that are fairly common when someone has multiple personalities:
First, the core personality is the one that was present at birth, and that personality is still around and available.
Second, most counselors try to help the personalities reintegrate into one, so that there is only one person left inside of the body.
Neither of those statements are true in Truddi’s case. When she was raped by her stepfather at age two, her core personality died, and her multiple personalities were born. Two core personalities came into being: One that was the child personality, and one that eventually became the adult personality. On top of those two came 90+ other personalities, all of them serving their own functions in support of Truddi. Some personalities died, and only an echo of them was left.
Sound confusing? Oh yeah. This was a mind-bending book. The multiple personalities called themselves as a whole “the Troops,” and it was the Troops who actually wrote the book. If you look at the front cover, it says, “The Troops for Truddi Chase” as the author.
When the counselor talked to Truddi, he could see differences in her as he spoke to her, depending on which personality was controlling her. She was tested, and there were measurable differences in speech pattern, brain wave activity, intelligence level, handwriting, posture, voice, etc, depending on the personality. Even her eye color and cheekbone structure changed.
Get this: Some of the personalities had allergies, so during allergy season, they couldn’t come out front and be in control, because then Truddie would have been miserable. Oh, and when one personality was in control, Truddi tested positive for pregnancy. As soon as another personality took over, the pregnancy disappeared.
It was a mind-blowing book. I had absolutely no idea any of this existed. And because the book was written by the Troops, you got to see all of this from their perspective - talking to each other, talking to the counselor, doing the day-to-day tasks required to live.
I think one of the hardest things to understand was how utterly difficult this was for the woman. The Troops created a personality that knew nothing of any abuse, so she could be the front to the world. This personality did not think by itself, or have any desires by itself - it only did what the other personalities directed it to, which isn’t something you (or this personality) find out until late in the book. That part just made my head hurt.
After the book was released, Truddi went on tour - she appeared on Oprah and the Phil Donohue Show. I tried to find clips online from those appearances, but came up empty handed. I did find out that a reporter from the Washington Post searched for Truddi’s family, and from there, found out that all of the step-brothers and sisters supported Truddi’s story, and even said that Truddi didn’t reveal all in her book: They said that on top of sexual abuse from the stepfather, she also suffered from sexual abuse from the mother too.
That was never once even hinted at in Rabbit Howls, so I’m guessing Truddi’s personalities suppressed that information very, very deep. On the other hand (not surprisingly) the stepfather denied everything. Wow, who saw that coming?
I tried to find follow-up information on Truddi - where is she now, how is she doing, are all of the personalities still there, etc, but came up with zip. It’s as if she fell off the face of the planet. If anyone has any information on what happened to her after the finish of the book, I’d love to hear about it.
I don’t know how to rate this book. As with everything to do with it, I’m at a loss. So I’m going to do something I’ve never done before: I’m not going to rate it. I just don’t see how to attach a number to this book.
I will put this out there: Please, please, do not give this to your children or teenagers to read. This is an extremely difficult book to read in terms of descriptions of different abuse that happened; if it were a movie, it would be rated X. If language and sexuality bother you, absolutely do not pick this book up.
On the other hand, if you’re wanting to learn more about the multiple personality world, and are not easily offended, you’ll definitely want to read this. As far as I know, this is the only multiple personality book written by the personalities themselves. It is a rare glimpse into that world - not a pretty one, not an easy one, but one worth finding out about nonetheless. It was hard enough for me to read this book - I cannot imagine living it.
Hava
PS If you’re interested in an in-depth look at When Rabbit Howls and multiple personality disorder in general, be sure to check out Trauma, Testimony, and Fictions of Truth: Narrative in When Rabbit Howls. It was an interesting (but long!) article that I thought did justice to the book.
I remembered some of the intense situations but not the violence. I actually read this in high school. And, clearly, I should have read it again before sicking you on it. I have a copy but, as probably won’t surprise you, it is a hard book to read more than once. I have, but I have to prepare myself for it.
Your reaction to her stepfather was clearly the same as mine.
I found her voluntarily giving up her daughter and divorcing her husband when she found that abused children often abuse their own particularly telling about her personality(ies). Just in case, she separated herself.
I was also struck with what a remarkable person she might have been, so talented, so intelligent, if her mind hadn’t been misused the way it was.
(By the way, although it was once the absolute norm to bring personalities back together, it isn’t always done today. I know two who weren’t nor was the attempt made. Best not to ask how I happened upon meeting more than one. I’m a little prescient and I hadn’t met them when I did my research.)
Sorry I hadn’t warned you (or even thought to warn you) about the sexual violence.
Stephanie >> I am surprised you read this in high school! I was reading some Amazon reviews, and one gal was saying that her mother gave her the book when she was just 11 years old. I cannot even fathom that. I mean, just the whole cow scene alone is enough to make me say no, absolutely not for anyone under the age of 18.
The thing is, as hard as it was for me to read it, it would be a million times harder for someone to actually live through it. All I had to do was read a book for a couple of hours - this is something this lady had to live through. And, may still be living through (I couldn’t find out if she was still alive or not. I really wish there was more follow-up information on her, because quite frankly, I’m more than a little worried about her).
Will I read this book again? No, I can’t imagine doing it. It would probably make a lot more sense the second time around, because I would understand better what was going on, but I just don’t think I could do it, mentally.
Don’t feel bad about warning me - I read A Child Called It in high school, and although there was no sexual abuse in there, there was plenty of physical and emotional abuse. It isn’t as if I haven’t ever been exposed to this kind of book before. It was mentally difficult to process, but I do have to say that I am grateful that I didn’t read this book and “see me” in it. Nowhere in it did I think, “Wow, this is just like my childhood!” No one’s childhood is perfect, but in comparison to this lady’s past, I’d say mine was pretty darn close.
Thanks for the recommend - it was good for me to stretch my boundaries some.
Hava
Hava, I got it from the library, I believe. My parents rarely looked over my shoulder on what I read and, honestly, I try to keep tabs on what my daughter reads, but what she hears about and talks about with her friends at school trumps anything she’s brought home.
I literally didn’t recall many of the details, I think, since I probably didn’t understand them all or didn’t process them entirely. I know I read it again in college and absorbed more.
But I wouldn’t want to read it in a vulnerable state and, like some other books I own on real-life nasties, I often read them in bits and pieces. Too much to stomach otherwise.
Callista >> I read some reviews of When Rabbit Howls on Amazon, and a lot of people said the same thing: Don’t read this book if you’re struggling mentally yourself, because it is too hard to read and will cause you to backslide in your therapy. I also read one reviewer who warned that if you suffered from sexual abuse as a child, that this would be a very, very difficult book to read. So that’s something to definitely keep in mind.
I have read A Child Called It, and one thing about it is the fact that it is all mental and physical abuse - no sexual abuse. So if sexual abuse is something hard to read about, A Child Called It might be a little better fit. On the other hand, that book goes in depth a lot more on the torture, instead of just having it in spurts or flashbacks like it was in Rabbit, so it’s extremely intense to read.
Stephanie >> I tried to read It by Stephen King in the 6th grade - one of my friends had the book and lent it to me. My mother found it in my backpack and asked me (in a very horrified voice) where I had gotten it from. I told her that my friend asked me to hold it for her. Not exactly a great cover story. My mom forbade me to read it, but it was okay - I was already scared out of my wits by the three pages I had read, and didn’t want to read the rest of it. That clown was scary!!!
I don’t know why I told you that, other than you reminded me of it.
Anyway, I can see not really understanding Rabbit well as a child - I did the same thing with Gone with the Wind (my favorite book in 6th grade. I was a strange child). There is a world of difference between being able to read the words on the page, and actually comprehending everything that you’re reading. If I read Gone with the Wind again now, I’d get 100 times more out of it than I did as a kid, just because I’d understand American history and slavery so much better than I did back then.
In 6th grade, I tested at a 12th grade reading level. Although I think I understood a lot of what I was reading, I certainly didn’t have the maturity level to really get a lot of the underlying ideas out of them. I have been rereading a lot of the books I read back then, and enjoying the heck out of them now.
Havs
It was the only book that ever really scared me. And I didn’t read it ’til college.
I read When Rabbit Howls years ago - it was recommended to me by a friend and we both felt like we’d been gut-punched after reading it. I’m not sure how I’d feel about my kids reading it, and they’re all in their teens and older. I honestly wouldn’t hand it to my 19 year old daughter, who has a hard time dealing with romance novels, even.
Stephanie >> It is a very freaky book! I cannot believe I was trying to read it in elementary. No wonder my mother was so upset.
ChameleonsDream >> Gut-punched. That’s a good way to put it. That’s how I felt too. Like my whole world had been flipped upside down, and I was told to continue acting like nothing had happened. I just had no idea that things like that really existed.
Hava
That’s pretty intense, it’s nuts how our minds will do those types of things in order to protect us. It speaks to how complex the psyche really is.