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 A book described in Entertainment Weekly as; "A PAGE TURNING JOURNEY THROUGH HELL." Mmm. Well, perhaps a 'slight' exaggeration. Far from being taken down into purgatory, my concerns when reading this book initially lay elsewhere. Midway through another autobiographical journey of disordered multiplicity (otherwise known as MPD - Multiple Personality Disorder) and I'm starting to think the same as other multiples. Namely, is this guy for real or is he faking it? But West does believe what he is writing.
Reviewed by Coral Hull
First Person Plural : My Life as a Multiple
by Cameron West
Hyperion
Paperback: 350 pages, November 1999, ISBN: 0786889780
There is no doubt in my mind that Dr. Cameron West was sexually abused as a child. As non-descript as the statements are, a boy being physically molested by his mother and his grandmother of all things, was nauseating. The question is; is Cameron West multiple or was he ever multiple? I think the answer is 'yes.'
In this instance, the disordered multiplicity of Dr. West only gives the impression of been 'watered down' or over-simplified, due to the author's sparse writing style and perceptions of those with whom he shares the central psyche. Therefore to other multiples with more complex systems who are reading this book, it may almost seem too simple as to be credible. The story-telling style reminds me very much of the movie The 3 Faces of Eve and could almost sound like a non-multiple attempting to write about a multiple.
Many of the details I would expect to be part of a detailed exploration of multidimensional consciousness are simply are not there. This guy is no Truddi Chase or Billy Michigan. Then again, West has around 25 selves and Truddi had around 500! All systems are different. Chase's system was messy and complex and mysterious and to my way of thinking, more interesting and realistic. The West system is the clean-cut Hollywood style therapist's version. Discovering it is like watching a movie rather than reading a book.
A good example of the kind of simplicity that I am referring to, exists in the switching process adopted by (((West))). All it takes is a ridiculous phrase of "... Shudder Switch", and out 'they' all come, like the cast of some Broadway musical with arms linked, ready for the applause. This might be convenient for a therapist who has to leave the office early, but it doesn't wear somehow. In fact, Dr. West's 'pulp fiction' version of switching may be factually incorrect. The longer version of the switch reads as follows; "Shudder, switch, gone. I felt my body tense like the cable in a suspension bridge." (p95). Switching signifies a change, (that may be a subtle or minor change) in consciousness only, not an epileptic zombie.
On page 99 we have a brilliant piece of insightfulness, at least for this style of book, from one of West's many therapists when she says; "In some cases, eventually there's a full integration of all the personalities into one, and in other cases, where the personalities prefer to stay separate, they can work towards achieving co-operation so the whole system can function relatively smoothly in the world." (p99). Replace the word "personalities", that is considered condescending by many multiples these days with "selves", and the phrase "prefer to stay separate" with "prefer to be themselves" and I think we may be finally onto something. This therapist's 'sudden inspiration' must have slipped past the Sidran Censorship Committee.
West has a lot of assistance in finding out who he has been sharing the central psyche with, for the past so many years, from both his therapists, wife and child. This kind of support is nice to see, even when they do stuff up, such as when West's wife Rikki, tells a child self who is startled when looking into a mirror, "Cam is you all grown up. You thought you'd see a kid in the mirror right?" (p107). I'm not sure that telling a child that they are someone else who is "all grown up"; is such a good idea. But what do you say?
Hardly anything is known about multiplicity and West's wife was at least doing the best that she could under the circumstances. This turns out to be one of the more intimate pieces of description in this book, where Rikki gently holds the 'lost child' self of her husband. Then they go to a window and look at some deer outside in nature. There is something both reassuring and healing in the way that Rikki handles West.
I also liked the paragraph where a therapist 'gets tough' with the 'host self' of West, who, like so many other panicing, confused and passive hosts of the MPD literature cliche, has attempted to imprison the other selves within the central psyche, to the detriment of them all, including the system's external relationships. "You're the only one who can give you life Cam. If you lock them out you aren't going to make it ... You're going to have to face that you're a multiple and how you got that way, and start accepting your alters ... You're going to have to let them out, - even if it means that it takes longer to get your PhD. (p270). Ops, there goes that word "alters". Then again, First Person Plural was written in 1999.
Later West takes two steps backwards before one step forwards, when he describes his multiplicity as; "a fettered and festering corpse covered in sticky blackness, still mired in putrid shame and scorching self hatred ..." followed by; "... I could write an 86-page essay comparing the features of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) with those of DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) ..." (p287) Eeeek! Well, that's a Sidran description of multiplicity if ever I read one! How did the Editor let this 'blooper' slip through?
Firstly we are comparing multiplicity with 'dissociation' and next we are comparing 'dissociation' with being a Borderline! Perhaps we should just call all multiples 'disordered dissociated borderlines' and be done with it. West may have to realise the differences between all three in order to get his PhD in psychology, although perhaps not. Perhaps West might ask himself whether the host self suffers from BPD, rather than assuming that all multiples or disordered multiples are feeling the same way that he is.
And then a sad moment, when another 'girl self' that West shares the psyche with called Dusty, comes out in front of a therapist called Steve and sees herself in the body of an adult male and bursts into tears;
That's … not … me!" and put her head in her hands and started to weep.
Steve said softly, "It is you, Dusty. It is you." ...
She then lifted her face toward the ceiling; her arms reached out and she pleaded, "Help me! Help me, please. Don't make me look like this ...' And she dropped her arms, sank back down in her chair, hung her head, and sobbed.
She's you, too. She's you, too. (Mmm. Not!) Don't let go. Don't let go.
Dusty,' Steve said softly, 'you knew you lived in Cam's body. It's still you.' (p322)
The therapist then goes on to tell Dusty that she is a part of Cam. Uh-oh. Wouldn't it make more sense is to say that both Dusty and Cam share the same central psychic space? This is indicative of the classic mistake that is made where a majority books on MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) say that everyone is someone else. This is incorrect. Even if there is a dominant self who assumes conscious occupation and control of the physical body for a majority of the time, that does not mean that all the other selves are this one self. Saying that someone is not who they are, but instead, is someone else, does not make sense and may do more harm than good, since it is confusing and inaccurate way of looking at multiplicity.
To use a geographical analogy, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are not the USA. However, each country is part of the one planet, in a similar way that each separate self within a multiple psyche share the one central psychic space. The misconception about the psyche of a multiple, (even the disordered multiples), seems to have been made as far back as Putnam onwards. It's usually where I put any book on MPD to rest, since I know that what they are attempting to do, is to make all countries into America.
Co-operation is different from annihilation. Hopefully more multiples will become a wake-up to this kind of thing to avoid those who; 1. Do not to acknowledge and respect selves as individuals 2. Tell you that all multiples are disordered and 3. Tell you that you don't exist or that you are part of someone else.
Of course there is one exception and that is the self with the legal name of Cameron West. While the word 'confused host' is not mentioned, it is obvious that it's West, (and not Bart or Leif or Dusty or Clay), who is the "original" self. How any of these selves came into being is never mentioned, aside from a grey-haired-fanny in the face of West as a child, and then West as a child in an adult male's body, wanting to decapitate his fingers that were apparently inserted into his grandmother's vagina. Child molestation is a crude business. This is where West (a helpless gentle likeable infuriating multiple) first gets my sympathy.
So where do these selves all come from? We'll never know and that's okay. The book was mainly about West and his enduring and compassionate wife Rikki and their outrageously cute and intelligent son, Kyle.
Some of my favourite lines in the book were from Kyle and he was also the smart one, who saw straight through the cover up of both West and his wife Rikki, when he spouted, "... Has dad got multiple personalities?" Perhaps he should be employed (at 6 yrs old) by that group of silly old shrinks who make decisions on the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) to change 'dissociation' back to 'multiple personality'.
Co-consciousness is mentioned several times, along with a few oblique descriptions by West, on how the mind of 'a multiple like himself' functions. Some of these are bordering on the absurd. But the 'West' system is a little bit like that; harmless, flirty, simplistic and immature. West presents himself as the kind of guy that a strong woman would just love to take to her bosom, in order to nurture and rehabilitate and Bingo! We have a New York Times best seller. Some of the 'awful and yet funny at the same time' descriptions include; "... Long shapely legs that went all the way up to the buns of Navarone." (p11), "... Evening had succumbed to night." (p15) and "... And then we were off like the bride's nightie." (p152)
Then there's this one; "I even managed buns in space with Kyle again, which made me cry with joy. Rikki wasn't there when that happened or she would have cried, too. She was thrilled to hear about it, though, and hugged me like she wasn't afraid that I'd break." (p33) On page 73 Cameron West's wife Rikki takes him to a toy store and buys him a teddy bear and then buys herself a teddy bear, so that Cammie's teddy bear wouldn't be lonely and then they go to bed together each hugging their teddy bears. Multiplicity in middle class white America. It'd be enough to melt the hearts of any Oprah Winfrey Show audience.
Cameron's observation's of his family including his wife's "Buns of Navarone" instead of "Guns of Naverone." while describing his sleeping son Kyle; "In three minutes he as asleep twitching like Elvis and dreaming about two-foot candy bars, Lucky him." (p89) are often suprisingly shallow and disturbing for this reason. West's insights into human nature, even those of his own wife and son, often lack depth in this book and so it would make sense that his descriptions of multiplicity follow the same route. There are also some awful sexist descriptions that only begin to touch on the misogynist aspects of West's psyche. Then there's the flaunting of material wealth in lines like; "I was lying on my back on our white Berber living room carpet" (p9) and "I pulled my silver-blue Mercedes 450SLC into a parking lot space in front of my office and, with a grunting effort, extracted myself from the car." (p18) that could do with a good editor.
Overall, West's only real crime appears to be that he is a 'really super nice guy'. In fact, he affectionately refers to the others in his psyche as "my guys". But where are the unsavoury selves, the misogynists, the angry selves that I could only guess would despise women or at least be enraged and afraid of them, after being sexually abused by them as a child? Perhaps this was sorted out within the central psyche of West, well before the book was written and without his knowledge. Who knows? Perhaps it's none of our business. However since West is "good" and all "his guys" are good and helpless guys, it would make him very non-threatening. He is still in the "I am a sad pathetic victim survivor of a terrible mental illness" role.
Where are all the stories of unemployed single lesbian African American mothers who struggle financially and who have either awful (or outright boring) selves who are multiple? Are they only on the internet? West gets in there and he is pathetic and he is weak and he does as his told and ends up in a mental hospital not once, but several times, while his wife buys the bubble bath and packs Winnie The Pooh books in Cammie's briefcase, or should I saw BWEF-CASE (that's littles talk in MPD Land). This doesn't mean that all multiples have to be demonic seriel killers, but West takes the idea of a multiple so far into sugary syrup, that it makes me want to send him a Sesame Street bibbi and a big wooden spoon.
The book is worth a read if you are interested in this subject matter, but I am not sure whether it will shed any new light on multiplicity of even Multiple Personality Disorder. It will reaffirm the idea that all multiples are pathetic, cannot cope, are harmless, simplistic and disordered. It will certainly shed some light on the ever popular passtime of child molestation. If anything, this is important enough to make First Person Plural worthwhile. The end of the book is overtly political. Now I know why West has been using all the 'right' but inaccurate words like "dissociation" to describe multiplicity. On the final pages we discover an advertisement for The Sidran Foundation and it should not be there. Naughty.
I will end with a quote from a self within West's central psyche, that I think is applicable to selves within a multiple system, that is becoming aware and co-conscious. It occurs when one of the West selves says:
"It seems to me like I've spent my entire life having nothing more than a toehold in this world. That's all. Most of the time I feel like I'm just a piece of human being, one of a much of jagged chips of glass from a broken vase, lying scattered on an old rug. I look over at the other broken pieces of glass and some of them look like me and some of them don't, but we're all just chips of glass on the same rug. And I sat to myself, "Shouldn't we be closer together? We'd look a whole lot more like a vase if we were closer together, you know ... if we connected the pieces. And we'd be less likely to get swept up and thrown out with the trash. (p342).
While I like this analogy, I would prefer to see selves who suffers from a "disordered" form of multiplicity, as part of a group of singularly beautiful flowers, but growing from the one earth, with a strong root system, upon which they can each reconnect, in order to find their common ground.
About the reviewer: Dr. Coral Hull is an established Australian writer, artist and photographer and the author of over 50 books including; poetry, fiction, artwork, digital photography and non-fiction. Her books are now published through her own label Artesian Productions. Coral is the Director of The Thylazine Foundation Pty Ltd: Arts, Ethics and Literature. She is the Executive Editor and Publisher of Thylazine; an annual online zine featuring articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, photography, visual arts and the recent work of Australian writers and artists. She is based in Darwin, The Northern Territory, Australia.
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