A Fractured Mind: My life with Multiple Personality Disorder
By Robert B Oxnam published 2005 by Hyperion
This book is the best personal experience book I've read on DID. I thought it was superior to Sybil and When Rabbit Howls. While it does get very intense it did not drag the reader through enormous amounts of harrowing details of the author's suffering as a child. It also contains an excellent epilogue by Dr. Jeffery Smith - the Psychiatrist who helped Mr. Oxnam become a healthy man with three cooperative alters who live in harmony. This book gave me new things to think about from the point of view of someone who is also diagnosed with DID. It helped me see more clearly what I have done with my mind to help me escape trauma and what needs to happen for my mind to heal.
I appreciate the way these men elevated this topic above the crass sensationalism that often makes people with DID look like exhibits from a circus side-show. It's scholarly elements were insightful and challenging without speaking in cryptic academic terms. It neither spoke down to the reader nor above his head.
I honestly recommend this book as an encouraging read for anyone diagnosed with DID or as an intelligently readable way to educate a friend or family member about what it is like to be multiple personalitied - a survivor, not a victim.
L. Davidson (9.29.08)