Sam Barry

SHIRLEY A. MASON

Born: January 25, 1923 in Dodge Center, Minnesota

Physical Appearance:

Slender

Crisp clothes

Dark hair-trimmed in Dutch-boy bob

Milky skin

Veins that stood blue on her forearms

Alias: Sybil Isabel Dorsett

WALTER MASON

• Shirley’s Father

• Rarely talked

• Gentle and artistic

• Taught her how to use hammers & saws

• Dressed her in little boys’ overalls for warmth and called her Mike

MATTIE MASON• Shirley’s Mother

• Tried to be a good wife, mother, and member of the community

• Did volunteer work for the church

• Collected money for missionary work

• Made house calls to the towns less fortunate

• Yelled greetings to people on the street with an odd laugh

• Eventually slowed down turned worried, snappish, and distant confusing Shirley terribly

• After weeks of playing dolls with her, she would begin to ignore her or call her names even

• Sometimes she would sit motionless in a chair for hours

• Miscarried in 1927

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST

• Mason Family Religion

• Sex was strictly for procreation and only married couples should indulge moderately

• Masturbation was horrible for boys/men and unforgivable for girls/women

• Followed radical, vegetarian diet related to health form movement

• Obsessively feared masturbation/sex was to be blamed on degenerate behavior due to meat, gravy, butter, jam, eggs, pastry, white bread, coffee, pepper, tobacco, tea beer, and liquor

• As part of health reforms during 19th century “internal baths” were used, known today as enemas

CHILDHOOD• Had imaginary friends Sam & Vicky

Pretending was the work of the Devil

• Shirley was very fond of her Grandmother

Took care of her when she was a baby

Had a stroke and was then diagnosed with Cervical Cancer

Died in 1931

Shirley stopped eating, lost weight, and was distracted in class as a third grader

Was dazed

Teachers noticed, but hardly intervened

EARLY YEARS

• Parents enrolled her in public school for unknown reasons

• Shirley complained how Adventism was separating her from her classmates

Kept her from Birthday’s

Couldn’t dance, play checkers, or cards

Had to skip after-school weenie-roasts which was an important social occasions for young towns people

• Kids called her Shirley the “White Jew” due to the “fake” meat she had to eat

• Eventually decided that her faith wasn’t keeping her from her peers that her bad character was

6TH GRADE

• Health took a turn for the worse

• Squinting uncontrollably

• Traced pictures in the air with her fingers

• Intense phobia about certain types of print (patterns)

• Severely worried about germs

ADOLESCENCE (1940)

• Private painting and drawing classes– art was the only thing that made her happy

• Wanted to get away from home to pursue a higher education

• Religion pushed her for marriage, motherhood, and to be a homemaker

Eventually became more acceptable for young women to go to college as long as it was Adventist institution

• Dreamed of being a doctor

Parents thought she was too sickly

Better to be a teacher– an art teacher– and for that they would send her to school

FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE (1941) • Attended Mankato State Teachers College in

Minnesota

• Worked as editor of yearbook and wrote columns for the campus newspaper

• Avoided marriage in youth

• Touted free love

• Only female artist students in Mankato’s art department had ever heard of (that’s how talented she was)

These women worshiped her

• Planned to do graduate work in Psychology, then teach art in a mental hospital

• Relapsed with her “spells”

JANE LANE• Good friend of Shirley’s during her youth

• When interviewed for Sybil Exposed she recalled:

Her Mother’s overprotection and erratic moods

How Shirley had a tendency to be manipulated

How Shirley talked strangely sometimes (Downtown in bars, drinking with men)

One night had walked into Shirley’s room when she began talking in a high, childish voice

Shirley’s blackouts where she could be doing anything, sitting there, pass out, slump over, like faint; then would regain consciousness and remember nothing

Shirley was injected with Luminal, a barbiturate, which was used as a sedative for anxiousness and agitated patients

OVERDOSE

• While Shirley was using Luminal she once overdosed

• The school administration freaked out

School psychiatrist diagnosed her with Hysteria

Recommended that she see a specialist

• The specialist tried to diagnose Shirley by interviewing her father, and without any test, instead of interviewing Shirley directly

Recommended Shirley get fresh air

Agreed with doctor from Shirley’s school that she was Hysteric

JUNIOR YEAR OF COLLEGE (1943)• Kicked out of school for overdosing while being treated with Phenobarbital for her

“spells”

• Returned to college several months later

• Had to leave again because her family was moving to Nebraska

Following Adventist minister who was starting new church there

• Once in Nebraska Shirley was put on bedrest

• Behavior turned bizarre

One day her father ran into a grocery store quickly, leaving Shirley in the car, when he came back she was gone, found her at a park down the road, she had no memory of how she got there

Became so manic she began walking on the furniture in the house

Parents locked her in the house

• Would return to school for a term, the relapse, and the drop out again

DOCTOR CORNELIA WILBUR (1945)

• Shirley had attended another Doctor’s appointment with her mother

Doctor noticed that Shirley had looked ill

Recommended she see Doctor Cornelia Wilbur (also known as Connie) who has repeatedly worked “miracles” with young women who were diagnosed with Hysteria

• Freudian Therapist/Psychiatrist

• 1933 Dr. Robert Dieterle ignited Connie’s passion for hysterics

• Became Shirley’s therapist for 20+ years

AUGUST 1ST, 1945• From late summer to December:

5 sessions with Doctor Wilbur

1, 50 minute session per month

• Taken with Connie

Generally talked about anything without being judged essentially

• With Shirley diagnosed with Hysteria Connie thought she was a prime candidate for Pentothal (a barbiturate)

• Shirley’s religion prohibited such drugs

• Connie prescribed mild sleeping pills for home use

• Connie also gave Shirley similar pep talks to “mind cure” techniques of Christian Scientist

ABANDONMENT • Shirley found out that Connie was leaving for Omaha to become a Psychoanalyst

and she was distraught

• She thought about Connie all the time

Even began yearning for unlimited attention from Connie

Day dreamed about her even

• Began thinking of ways to keep Connie from leaving

MENTAL BREAK• Before going to her appointment one day:

Bruised herself making block prints, hold a sharp knife to etch the linoleum tiles in the process

While cutting herself she found herself “dwelling” on Wilbur’s departure

Knife slipped and cut Shirley’s hand so deeply it hit an arty and a geyser of blood shot out

Ran to her mother’s Doctor’s office down the road

Wound was starched and wrapped with gauze

Proceeded to Dr. Wilbur’s office in same building

• Had panic attack where:

She flew off her chair

Rushed blindly to the office window, and

Pounded on the unbreakable glass with bloody, bandaged hand

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Dr. Wilbur recommended she check herself in at the mental ward at Clarkson Hospital

Shirley was delighted– tried to pack colored pencils and the paper she would use

Parents were awestruck and wanted to send her to an Adventist psychiatric facility

Shirley only wanted what Dr. Wilbur wanted for her

Parents argued from fall through winter

Shirley was never checked into a hospital

NOVEMBER OF 1945• Shirley came down sick with a bronchial infection

Shirley’s mother picked up the phone and pretended to call Dr. Wilbur’s office to reschedule her psychiatric appointment

The appointment was never canceled

Dr. Wilbur later brushed by without as much as a hello to Shirley when she came to say goodbye

• Shirley knew she would have to carry on in life by herself because her doctor really was leaving

• 9 years would pass before Shirley went into therapy again

The second time around would involve Connie’s treatment but it would prove to be disastrous

• In the meantime Shirley moped around Dodge Center for those nine years

TERMINAL,1946

• Mattie, Shirley’s mother, was diagnosed with terminal cancer

• Shirley stayed home with her and nursed her

• Mattie confessed about the cancelation of the appointment and Shirley forgave her

• After a long valent battle, Mattie passed in 1948

Shirley grieved normally

• Eventually her father re-married and stopped supporting Shirley due to his new wife

1949• Graduated from College

First job: Art Therapist for the mentally ill at Porter Hospital and Sanitarium in Denver

Adventist Institution

• Moved to Michigan to follow her father who was building more churches

• Became an English and Public Speaking educator for grade schoolers

• Still physically and mentally fragile

Often found her nose stuffed up, throat hurt, menstrual cramps were excruciating and seriously underweight

Felt lonely and lost at home by herself

Still had difficulty telling which of her thoughts were true and which were imaginary sometimes

BACK TO THERAPY, 1954• Shirley worked on finishing her M.A. degree in Art Education

Planned on getting a Ph.D. in Art Education

Later had a mental shift into medicine

• Re-enrolled in therapy with Dr. Wilbur at the thought she only needed a few sessions

Began wanting more and more

• Connie wrote several prescriptions for Shirley which included:

Seconal to help her sleep

A highly addictive barbiturate (which gave her anxiety, vivid dreams, & hallucinations)

Demerol, an opiate related to heroin, to treat menstrual pains which had come back (side effects: light-headedness, confusion, and blacking out)

Edrisal and Daprisal for monthly pain (proved to be so addictive it was taken off market)

Asprin and Amphetamines, known as speed (caused hallucinations and paranoia)

THE WINTER OF DISASSOCIATION, 1954• Connie planned to move away again for another job opportunity

• Shirley decided to tell Connie about her blackouts to keep her from leaving

• Connie diagnosed her with Fugue states– a person who suffers from condition who would leave home for hours, days, or even weeks, acting like a completely different person

This was caused by disassociation– the splitting of consciousness– which was a very rare form of hysteria

• 10 days after her diagnoses:

Showed up looking different than usual, only in a skirt & knit blouse, with no jacket or accessories

Movements were energetic

Voice loud and childish

“HOW ARE YOU?” CONNIE ASKED.

“I’m fine but Shirley isn’t. She was so sick she couldn’t come. So, I came instead,”

“I’m Peggy!” The patient chirped.

SPLITTING IN DENIAL, 1954

• The next visit Shirley apologized for missing the appointment

• Connie tried to tell her that she was in the office as someone else—but Shirley had dismissed the acknowledgement by changing the subject and moving on

• Another time she showed up as Vicky

Explained she’d been raised in Minnesota but real family lived in Europe and would soon be coming to America

Later she described herself as care taker for Shirley and the other children

• There were two additional personalities: Peggy Ann and Peggy Lou

Both were outgoing, but Peggy Ann was more aggressive

DRUGGED AND UNEMPLOYED, 1955• Shirley was frightened of the mind-bending drugs, but reluctantly agreed to treatment

First Pentothal session occurred in her apartment

• Peggy first appeared at age 7 when playing in a hayloft with a boy named John Greenwald; jumped onto old cash register with a gun, the gun went off, killing John

Caused Shirley to disassociate

• Shirley earned her M.A. degree despite being heavily drugged most of the year

Dropped her earlier plans to get her Ph.D. in Art Education

Decided to pursue becoming a Psychoanalyst

• Shirley enrolled in a chemistry class at the Teachers College

Unemployed at this point

Picked up jobs painting posters for University events

• Connie offered to pay Shirley’s tuition for premed courses

THE DEAL, 1955

• Connie made regular house calls, even during the evenings, and weekends

• She continued to give Shirley shots in her own bedroom with no medical backup if Shirley were to suffer a reaction from the potent barbiturate

Pentothal and other barbiturates would relax her

Benzadrine and Amphetamines would also lift spirits

• Shirley burned with desire for Connie to pat and hug her– every time she did so Shirley happily reported on it in her diary

• Connie also helped Shirley’s financial trouble by acting as her dealer for her art work

• Connie also convinced Shirley to do a book with her about her Multiple Personalities

THE SIDE EFFECTS OF 1956• Shirley had been in therapy for a year and a half

As sick as she had ever been

So depressed she couldn’t finish homework or make it to class

• Connie added a slew of additional prescriptions:

Dexamy (barbiturate-amphetamine)

Equanil (anti-anxiety pill)

Serpatilin (combination of traquilizers)

Ritalin

Thorazine (originally to relieve nausea, was later recognized as a potent antipsychotic with side effects such as: restlessness, confusion, blackouts, and unusual thoughts and behavior)

Phenobarbital (another barbiturate)

• All on top of Pentothal

• Also treated with electro-convulsive therapy due to Shirley becoming suicidality depressed

NON-STOP TREATMENT, 1956

• Due to the amount of drugs and electro-convulsive therapy Shirley was enduring it’s likely:

Her short-term memory was erased

This generated frightening phantasms which caused blackouts

• Shirley complained about getting injections when she didn’t need them since Connie was relentless about Pentothal around the clock

• After Helen, another personality, appeared Connie began a week-long marathon of daily Pentothal injections and shock treatment

Due to the non-stop drug inducing treatment Shirley could not recall the week

Connie said that she had lost over a week due to disassociation

• Within 2 years of starting therapy Shirley turned into a drug addict

INTEGRATED, 1957• Shirley often awoke with no memory of what she’d done or said on Pentothal

• She was constantly depressed and anxious– begging for another injection

• For a few weeks she had stopped splitting into alters

• Connie pronounced Shirley “integrated” – cured of her MPD

• Sprouted additional personalities

• Walter decided to visit his daughter in New York

Never saw any of Shirley’s alters

Agreed to pay for Shirley’s visits after some convincing from Connie

THE FINAL DECISION, 1958• At this point, Shirley was a 35 year old “junkie” who spend most of her time in bed,

checking her mailbox for money from her father, and wandering the streets muttering to herself

• Shirley felt worse and agonized about what to do and in late spring made a decision

• She wrote a letter of confession and gave it to Connie

Began with admitting that she was “none of the things she pretended to be”

“Held out very long when you showed doubts, and an actual desire to believe I was…the fine things you admired”

“I’m not going to tell you there isn’t anything wrong, but it is not what I have led you to believe…I do not have any multiple personalities…I do not even have a ‘double’…I am all of them. I have been essentially lying”

She further confessed, about the day she had cut herself, that she was trying to show she felt that she needed help

THE TRUTH & RESISTANCE, 1958• Shirley was scared to come clean to Connie

• Shirley knew she had a problem, wasn’t “disassociations”, but something extremely worrisome and debilitating

Now very much wanted Connie’s help to identify her real trouble and deal with it honestly

Connie saw this as a “defensive maneuver”

Shirley’s denial was a metaphor: trying to avoid the harder work that laid ahead

Saw this as a progression of treatment

Shirley was ready to go deeper

This was considered “resistance”– an ego’s attempt to trick itself into thinking it didn’t need therapy

THE ULTIMATUM OF 1958• Connie told Shirley:

She could continue being Multiple Personality & keep Connie in her life, or

Reject the diagnosis and lose her beloved doctor’s therapy session—not to mention her friendship

The choice was Shirley’s

• Two additional personalities appeared

• Shirley recalled memories during her drug-induced sessions of:

Her mother torturing her with enemas

Leaving her in a silo of grain to die of suffocation

Threatening to chop her hand in a meat grinder

• Eventually Shirley was hospitalized in Harlem to break her barbiturate addition

EARLY 1960’S•After her recovery she was back in therapy with Connie

15 to 17 hours of being psychoanalyzed per week

14 to 16 hours of sleeping each day from treatment

• Continued school to become psychoanalyst at Columbia University

Terrible student

Failed so many test and had bad grades

Was expelled

• Connie tried to get her reinstated

• Dean refused politely stating that Shirley’s chances of ever becoming a doctor were slim

POVERTY STRICKEN IN 1962

• Entering 8th year of analysis with no end in sight

• Ran up $30,000 in therapy bills, but the book she agreed to collaborate on 7 years prior, was in exchange for therapy

• Connie used influence to get Shirley hired at Falkirk to give private art therapy classes to depressed and schizophrenic patients

• Also the year her father passed

Grieved normally

• With her father’s stipend now gone and was as poverty stricken as ever

• Now, just as dependent on Connie

FINDING LOVE IN 1964

• At this point all 16 personalities were present

• Shirley resigned from her art therapy position and hunted for other jobs such as teaching English or Art to normal children

Had menial jobs

• Shirley had met Mario

Began dating

Something she hadn’t done in 10 years

Knew nothing of Shirley’s diagnoses

Proposed to her with diamond and ruby engagement ring

Asked to move to West Cost with him

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM, 1965• Shirley couldn’t be with Mario because she was sure Connie could help her land a

job and still wanted to do the book with her

Broke up with Mario

Would never have another boyfriend

Missed him years afterwards and deeply regretted her decision not to marry him

• Connie got Shirley another job at West Virginia's Mental Health Department at Lakin State facility

• Shirley upped her ingestion of antidepressants, past the recommended dose, caused medical crisis– she was lying on the floor when help arrived, weak, trembling, and bruised

THE CURE, 1965

• “The Blonde” emerged as suddenly as she disappeared

Made no more appearances—never disassociated into another alter personality again

Four weeks later she was “cured”

September 2, 1965– 11 years after her first psych session

• Started new job at Lakin

• Began working on book with Connie

• Eventually got a car and made trips to visit Connie on holidays and weekends

They took road trips together

Stayed home and passed time styling each other’s hair and playing with their dogs

1966 - 1973• At age 43 she attained a new job as an Art Professor

at Rio Grande, a small college in Ohio

• 14 years since she had lived independently

• Self-sufficient, loved her new work

Former students recalled: her being shy, warm in teaching, and supportive

Eventually given tenure

Fantasy of becoming psychoanalyst faded

Connie and Shirley christened the book Sybil because it sounded mythic and more American– more sellable

Sybil went on sale May 22, 1973

CHANGING TIMES, 1973• After Sybil went on sale women were confronting new roles due to Congress

approving the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution

Conservatives feared it would undermine traditional gender roles

• Profound social changes were opening up at home, school, and work

Hard to get used to for some women– led to conflicting feelings

• Women searched for a sense of integration– took up MP as a metaphor

“I always had time when I wanted to be someone else, like I had other selves ‘trying to escape’”

• The Sexual Revolution was also happening during the 1970’s

Many women embraced this new image of sexual willingness– to both be loved and unmarried

• Many women were grateful for this book

LATE 1973• Threats to Shirley’s anonymity almost immediately followed publication of Sybil

• Dropped off the face of the earth

• Moved into a red-and-white cottage down the road from Connie in Lexington, Kentucky

Connie supplied down payment

Get away from people discovering identity

Book was considered nonfiction

• She spent so much time at Connie’s that she never furnished her own home

• Still wanted Connie to herself so she threw temper tantrums when Connie tried to socialize with others

AFTER SYBIL, 1974• Company in Southern California wanted to produced

Sybil

Aired on NBC as miniseries, for two evenings, during November of ’76

40 million people tuned in

• Series became so iconic that Schoolastic (educational magazine) developed a “Sybil” lesson plan for high school use

Instructed to write discussion in dialogue from 2 or more sides of personality, name them, and indicate why you’re more “together” than Sybil

• Felt deeply fulfilled

• Planned to donate royalties to charity

1987

• Shirley became sick again

No medical records available as to what symptoms were

Non-psychiatric related

APRIL 1992• Connie suffered a fatal heart attack– 83

years old

• MPD became so reputable and alluring that it had become a part of the wallpaper of American culture

• “MPD: The Syndrome of the 90’s” Oprah called one of her programs

• Thousands of people were in treatment for MPD

• Few courts even started allowing alter personalities to give testimony in criminal trials

DEMISE, 1994• Life was getting harder with Connie gone

• Couldn’t step out onto own front lawn

• Very little money to live on

Royalties were only steady income

• Managed to work full-time for only 8 years of her life

Connie mostly supported her

• Scrambling to pay taxes and buy basic necessities

• From Friday at sundown until Saturday she listened to Seventh-Day Adventist inspirational tapes and read from the Bible

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS1. Ethics for doctors and mental health professionals were much looser in the 1950s and 1960s, when Dr. Connie Wilbur was treating Shirley Mason, than they are now.

What might happen today to a psychologist or psychiatrist who treated a patient the way Dr. Wilbur did Shirley?

2. People argue about whether MPD/DID is real.

What is your opinion?

3. Do you think Sybil truly had MPD? If not, what do you think she could have been diagnosed with?

4. Do you have any questions for me about Sybil?