Doomed to Fail - Ep 220: One for you, Sixteen for me - Sybil & her Multiple Personalities

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Sources:Sybil - by Flora Rheta Schreiber - https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/sybil-by-flora-rheta-schreiber/259328/item/84207467/?#edition=4801599&idiq=3086510Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case - By Debbie Nathan - https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/sybil-exposed-the-extraordinary-story-behind-the-famous-multiple-personality-case_debbie-nathan/271028/? Today, we delve into the 1970s sensational 'novel non-fiction' book 'Sybil.' Sybil is the heroic journey of a woman plagued with 16 separate personalities - they came from [and trigger warning here] horrific childhood abuse and were eventually merged with the help of her psychiatrist. The book made A LOT of money, was a made-for-TV movie, and started a company called Sybil, Inc. Was it true? Kind of? Was the real Sybil pushed into it by her doctor? Also kind of? We will talk about what's true, what isn't, and how complicated and 'magical' our human brains are.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortlandthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. We are live and we are recording. Taylor, welcome back to your own show. Thank you. You welcome. Welcome back to you as well. Thank you. I need the welcome. How was Mexico? You were in Mexico. I was in Mexico. It was great. It was fantastic. It was my first time in all-inclusive. and there is something nice

about just not having to think about food or drinking or whatever it's just all there and usually it's all inclusive it's like a nice giant resort so you don't even have to leave the property which I didn't so it was nice yeah

I'd cruise but without the drowning in the ocean you probably could drown in the ocean but like there's no motion most motion sickness yes yes and it was on the beach but yeah so you had everything get a little bit of everything there

So it's kind of nice. That sounds great. How's life it on your run? Good. We've been busy. We went to Big Bear this weekend, one on the boat, kids have a thousand activities. That's good. Nice.

Are you excited for pumpkin spice latte season? I am. I had one already. And it was good. I got a decaf one because I am getting these terrible headaches. I think they might be caffeine-related, but I am drinking diet cook right now. So who knows? I had my first one this morning.

Pumpkin spice? Yeah. It was good. It was very good. It was also like a nice welcome back home because I don't think I'd do pumpkin spice in Mexico. So it was kind of like a little. That'd be weird. Yeah, probably.

I went to Trader Joe's as well. And Trader Joe's has every, it's too much pumpkin spice. Like pumpkin spice everything. I'm like, I don't need a pumpkin spice egg. You know, like leave me alone. Like everything is pumpkin spice. The Starbucks Nitro Pumpkin spice. with the sweet cream is

chef's kiss I do like the sweet cream it is amazing it's not good for you probably because it is super rich and decadent has more nitro in it I feel like it's trying to kill you

but it's still I get it I get it cool well am I going first or you on first it's usually me unless you desperately want to go first no all right I can go

yeah go nuts I introduce us as well oh right Hey. Hello. Welcome to doomed to fail. We bring you histories, disasters, and failures and interesting stories.

And I am Taylor, joined by Fars, and we're back to recording. But I did just get an email from someone who said, thanks for all the re-releases. They're fun. So, yay, we've been doing this. Thank you for doing those. Yeah. I did a lot of scheduling things, which is. Taylor, for anybody that doesn't know, is really the underlying engine that keeps this thing on the road.

I am. You are, too. You added it. You learned how to open garage band, which is hard. Not easy. Okay, but I'm ready. So I mentioned this to you when I was there that I was reading this book, but I since then have finished the book and read another book. Today's story, I have one that has 18 main characters, 16 of them are women, two of them are men, but I only have three bodies.

Does that make sense? Okay, so it's schizophrenia? It's multiple personalities. Got it, okay, great. Which is separate from schizophrenia and also no longer a thing. You say dissociative identity disorder now. But I'm going to tie it back to...

Wait, to what? Schizophrenia or... Multiple personalities. You don't say that anymore. Interesting. Is that supposed to be bad to say that? Well, it's not real for us. I don't know. Okay, just tell a story. Okay. I'm trying to.

But I'm going to talk about it in the vein of the 1970s sensation of the book and the TV movie Sibble, which I have right here. Yep. I told you that I was reading, and that I read, and that is really good. It was like very much, as it says, a page turner. Like, it was great. I got this at a church in the take a book, leave a book, didn't leave a book, took this instead, and it was great. You know, for the longest time when I heard the book was called Sybil, I thought they were talking about Sybil Shepard, the show that was on with her kids. And I was like, I don't get it.

She had multiple personalities. Like, I never saw it. Whatever, it doesn't matter. But, like, that's what I always associated with. I never knew that it was a whole separate thing. It's not. It's a whole separate case. She's played by, let's her face.

And now I can't remember in the TV movie. She looks like my mom. she's a mom and forest oh oh my god your mom your mom does look like Sally Field and mom looks just like Sally Field yeah wow yeah um so yes played by Sally Field in the in the

1970s TV movie Sybil and then there's another one that was made later but I read the book and then I also read a book from 2011 called Sybil Exposed which is like debunking a lot of what happened in this book but we're going to talk about what happened in the book what happened in Sibyl exposed the book

exposing the book and then kind of what happened in between to the women who are actually involved and then what it actually could maybe be if it is a real disorder. I'm seeing right now I don't know. So the three people are there is Flora Schreiber. She is our author. She's the person who wrote the book Sybil.

She's a journalist. There's Dr. Cornelia Wilbur. She is a psychiatrist that worked with Sybil throughout many, many years in New York City and then some years when she was a child in Omaha, Nebraska. And then there is Sybil Dorset, who is the main character of the book, which is like a true story novel that I'm going to explain what that means to. But her real name is Shirley Mason.

So Shirley Mason is the real name of this character, Sybil, but we're probably going to call her Sybil a lot because that's who she is in the book. Sybil's personalities are there's Sybil herself. There's Victoria Antoinette Charlo, who is Vicki, and she's like a really sophisticated blonde woman who has a family somewhere else. Like, she's not related to Sybil. The others think that they are related to Sybil. It's kind of confusing. But let me just list the names.

There's two Peggy Lou and Peggy Ann. They're both kind of like young girls. There's a Mary, a Marsha of Vanessa. There's two boys named Mike and Sid. They're kind of like little kids the whole time. or when Sibyl wants to, like, do something that is more manly, like build something with wood and nails, then she didn't do it. Sid did it.

You know, there's Nancy Lou Ann. There's another Sibyl Ann. There's Ruthie, Clara, Helen, Marjorie. There's a woman named the blonde that comes up at the very, very end, just like a very assertive blonde woman. And then there's a Sibyl herself, what all her personalities are emerged, and she's one person again. so they're all like the distinct people that are listed in the book as being personalities of simple the character okay um so a lot to hold on to it is a lot to hold onto you would think you would need notes um so i think also like i'm gonna say this later but it isn't there's so much going on like in people's brains that like who knows what it is but what it is but it isn't there's so much going on like in people's brains that like who knows what it is but what whatever it is, is not, like, magical. But I feel like the first thing you think of is that it's something that's, like,

supernatural and, like, create magical to have more than one person inside your body, you know? Yeah, I kind of think what goes on inside the brain is magical, because it's like a bunch of chemicals and electronic things that are going. It's, like, it's kind of nuts. That's what I was thinking as well. I was thinking, like, if we're going to describe it and have this feeling that it's, like, a little bit magical, then, like, it's all a little bit magical. Yeah, of course.

You know what I mean? like the I told you to listen to the the this new series on last podcast but they're talking about Aaron Hernandez and the city. I did listen to it and actually I will tell you that I got re-obsessed with that case and I just got home from the vet and I listened to another Aaron Hernandez podcast because I was like this is it's just such a crazy story but yes go ahead but yeah well but also exactly that like your brain gets rattled around and you're a different person like yeah there's so much going on in there and there's so much like your head is protecting something that is so important. and if anything happens to it, then, like, you're no longer you. You cease to exist and you become something else, you know, which is crazy. I don't mean that, like, crazy, crazy. I mean it, like, the concept is crazy. I actually emailed into last podcast the first time ever because me and Marcus wanted

to tag the exact same time, and I knew exactly who the football player was that he was to fuck you about. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah. That's fun. Good, thanks. That's fun for you guys. So I'm going to talk about what happened in the books of the ball and just, like, tell

you what happened like I'm doing a book report. I'll stop holding it because no one cares. Like I'm doing a book report. It's a hit. It comes out in 1973. They sell millions of copies. Right before this, a couple years before this, another book had come out called The Three Faces of Eve, which is similarly about a woman who has multiple personalities, but she only had three. So that was like one of the first recorded cases. There were a couple before that. And then also, which is interesting, is in cold blood had also just come out. And have you seen that movie or read it? Yes.

Or you saw a trip and a potty movie? Well, I saw that deputty movie, yeah. So my brother-in-law actually was asking me last week about horror books. He's like, what can I read? It's like a horror book that's scary. It would be like, you're not too gory, whatever. And I was told him that in cold blood is so scary to me. Like, I read the book and it was like in friends that I wanted to put it in the freezer.

Like, I was so scared, you know? And because it's like a true story and it could happen to anyone and it's horrible. But the way that, which I didn't, I don't know if this is in the Capote movie, because I don't think I saw that, but In Cold Blood was put out as like a serial book, like where you got it in the newspaper or like a magazine, like every week there'd be a little bit more of it. That makes sense because Capote started out writing for magazines. And like, I don't know if you remember this from the 90s, but like that's how my mom read the Green Mile. The Green Mile came out like every month at the supermarket in like a little tiny book. And then you would just like get more of it. So like that, like I don't know if they still do that.

media so different now, but like it was out like that. And in some cases, Sybil was put out like that as well. It was put out in like smaller towns and like newspapers just like piece by piece. So people would be excited to like get the next issue of the paper because it would have more of the book, that kind of thing. So it was this idea of like in Cold Blood is a true story, but it reads like a novel. So the idea that like it's a novel nonfiction book that you can just read and you're just as in just as invested as you would be reading a fiction novel because the writing is so good. Yeah. The story's told it in a certain way. So what happens in the book, Sybil, is we open up with Sybil, our character. She is in her 30s. She wakes up in Philadelphia. She's walking through like a warehouse district. She's cold. She's not wearing the right clothes. It's raining.

She has no idea where she is. And it's like the 1950s, 1960s. So she doesn't know where she is. She's walking down these streets. Eventually she finds her way to a bus stop, gets on a bus, takes her to the center of Philly. She's been there before. so she knows where she usually stays when she goes there. So she goes to the hotel she usually stays at and just kind of stands there.

Doesn't really know what to do. And she goes into her pockets and she finds a key. So she's like, okay, I'm probably staying at this hotel. This is a hotel that I'm familiar with. The last thing she remembered was several days before she was at Columbia University where she is a master's student. So everybody in the story is truthfully, very smart. They have many advanced degrees.

like they're all the women in the story are very smart and so she takes the key goes to the room she's like I don't know this is my room I don't know this is her hotel the key works it opens the door and she goes inside and she finds some of her things she also finds a pair of pajamas that are like very bright like a little kid would wear and not something that she would wear but she can tell they've been worn and she can find the receipt that says that they have been purchased so she surmises that she has purchased these but she doesn't remember and her whole life been plagued by times when she has big spaces of losing her memory, waking up somewhere where she didn't be, people remember things, her saying things that she doesn't remember,

people are like, oh, you were like this yesterday or whatever, like just things that she can't put together, but she thinks that it's normal and thinks that it's kind of part of her life, so she doesn't do anything about it. Like, she doesn't know what to do about it. She just kind of goes along with it. Then we learn about her life. She grew up in a really tiny town. Her parents were Seventh-day Adventists, which is like a very, very unfun faith to be part of it. Oh, also, did you hear that the rapture is going to be today? Seriously? Yeah, it hasn't happened yet, but it's what happens sometimes today.

I just looked out of the window. I don't, I don't see him. Isn't that the whole impetus for Seventh-day Adventists was like, it was supposed to happen, and then it didn't happen, and they kept pushing it back? Always, forever, till the end of time. It's not going to happen. But so, you know, like, she wasn't allowed to read fiction books because fiction is a lie, you know, like, stuff like that, like really strict, really.

harsh, like not, no fun to be a kid and be a seventh-day Adventist. And you're also scared of things like The Rapture. And, like, her dad was, like, actively planning for the apocalypse, stuff like that. That would be fun. I do want to do that, actually. I do want to build an underground cave filled with, like, cans of chili. Um, so she has a tough time in her childhood. Um, she, they find out later that she does have, like, a vitamin B-12 deficiency. So she may have, I guess this is going into part that might be true, but like when she's a child, she's like a little bit on edge. And so her parents do take her to see a doctor, to see a therapist. And she goes, she does meet Dr. Cornelia Wilbur when she's a child and Dr. Wilbur is like just

starting out her practice in Omaha. They see each other for a little bit. And then, um, the doctor moves and her parents kind of lie to civil and tell her that like the doctor didn't want to see her anymore and they don't actually make any effort to get her new doctor. She just doesn't, doesn't see anyone again. So she lives her life and she has some blackouts. She just, she says that she doesn't remember all of fourth grade. So Sybil will be like, I can't multiply because you learn multiplication in fourth grade. And she remembers in like third grade, her grandmother passed away and she remembers seeing, being at her grandma's funeral and the next thing she knew she woke up and she was in fifth grade. So she lost like a year and a half. So she's saying

during that year and a half, she was Peggy, which is the other little girl who was constantly Peggy constantly like 10 or 11 so that girl knows how to multiply like knows how to do things that Sybil does not know how to do because she was one who actually was in fourth grade when Sybil was not she was like somewhere else so she like has that like kind of like memory when she is is younger when she is older like she's not she's not like an invalid she becomes an art teacher and art therapist she's a good artist she becomes an art teacher and an art therapist she's a good painter she moves to New York her mom passes the way And she finds Dr. Wilbur again.

So Sybil finds Dr. Wilbur and they start working together. Dr. Wilbur works in New York City out of her apartment and they start having sessions again. And then one day, Sybil shows up to the appointment as someone else. She comes in, her posture is different, her clothing is different, her voice is different. And she says that she is Vicky. she is this outgoing and smart person who has friends and it's sort of like who sybil wishes she could be if she could have that kind of confidence you know like a more confident version of the same person is vicky so vicky's like oh i see sybil do this and i think she should do this or i vicky goes on like has friends that sybil doesn't know so sybil will like pass people in the hallway at school and they'll be like hey she'll be like hey but like doesn't remember hanging out with them when like vicky hung out with them stuff like that point we're going to say this is all nonsense no so this is what's happening in the book so that's happening and then there are others as well and like the other things like vicky comes in and vicky's like

can't you tell that i look different than sybil i have blonde hair or i'm taller than her or i like i'm like sybil's really really thin and like the actual physical body is very thin but vicky feels like she has more of a body like more confident in her body um also more uh person realities arrive as well. So they'll have, Dr. Wilbur is like, okay, let's meet more. So they'll meet every day. And Sybil will be like, I'm sorry I didn't come yesterday. And she'll be like, you did come yesterday. But yesterday. You were Peggy. You know, stuff like that. She's starting to tell her what's happening. And Sybil's like starting to accept it. But like, it's upsetting and hard for her to kind of understand what's happening. So also to note during this time, Sybil's dad is like

paying for her to live. So she doesn't, she kind of has a job. But mostly she's just like in grad school and kind of hanging out. And Dr. Wilber starts doing things like using, like using. hypnotherapy and sodium pentothal to have her kind of bring up repressed memories, which you can also assume where that goes as well. So she had, yeah, so she, some of the memories that Sybil has and confesses to Dr. Wilbur, um, either as Sybil herself or as one of the other personalities. And this is like very trigger warning child abuse, whether or not this is true. I'm going to say it out loud. So child abuse, you can pause for a couple minutes or fast forward. She said her mother would do things, like, obviously, like, beat her, and then she would sexually abuse her.

She would give her, like, enemas that were freezing cold water just to, like, mess with Sybil's insides. She would hang her upside down. She would tie her down on the kitchen table and insert things into Sybil's private areas, like wooden spoons, a button hook, which is, like, a very terrifying hook, and do things that eventually would make Sybil, the grown-up, unable to have children. because of what her mother had done to her. She would, the mother would put her in a grain silo to try to, like, drown her in the grain. Her mother would take her out on walks with a group of teenage girls, and she would make Sybil wait. Her and the teenage girls would go into, the mom and the teenage girls would go into the bushes and have sex. And so she was like corrupting the youth in the whole time.

Is this real? No. But this is what, this is what is presented in the book Sybil as, being real as the reason that Sybil has all these personalities. Got it. Okay. This is what's causing the sensation in the 70s is like reading the story and being like,

holy shit. Because everything you're saying reminds me of McMartin preschool where it's like, it's like who believes this? Yes. It doesn't have a giant toilet in the nursery where they were like flushing kids down the toilet or something? Yes. Yes. So it's a very

satanic panic. Very repressed memory. We say that, but we know that like usually those are made up you know like that that the satanic panic stuff was very very similar to this um she would oh another thing that she said that her mother did has her sibyl slept in her parents room until she was nine and she would her parents would have sex in front of her um she said that her mom would take her for walks and her mom would um like a dog go to the bathroom or other people's yards like all over town and sybil had like watch her mother do that um just like terrible abuse that she said that

that she hurt got from her mother. And it all comes out when Sybil is on a lot of drugs and being hypnotized. So, like, that's where those memories come. In the book, the dad comes to New York and he's like, yes, the mom was mean, but I didn't know all of these things. So that the mom was diagnosed as it's schizophrenic, but he still left Sybil alone with her mom. He didn't realize how dangerous she was. I don't know if that's true or not.

Again, this is just what's put in the book as truth. So eventually, Sybil and the doctor worked together and they try to get her life together. Sybil meets a man, but ends up leaving him because she doesn't want to get married and doesn't want to tell him kind of what is happening to her. She has a roommate who is kind of the only other person who really knows about the personalities, and that roommate talks to Dr. Wilbur a lot, and they kind of all work together. And eventually, Dr. Wilbur does a thing using the hypnotism to get the personalities to all grow into the same age. So she says, like, Peggy, you're 11. When I count to five, you're going to be 15. And Peggy will go, okay, okay, I'll be 15 when you count to five.

So she'll count to five and then go, Peggy, you're 15. And she'll go, okay, okay. And then she'll cue doing that until they were all the same age. And then they all were able to kind of start blending together. And then Sybil was one person and she was cured and it was a happy ending. Got it? Keep going. No, ask you a question.

That's the book,cible. That's what people were reading and being like, this is 100% true. I'm getting at, what I'm getting at is like, it's easy to, like, be in different times and be like, how do people believe this stuff? Yes. Easy for us to be like, that's dumb. I guess we would have believed that anyway. Okay, go ahead. Whatever.

It doesn't matter. But it does, well, like, I think that to me that it ties into the, you know, what could your brain do. Who knows? Who knows? You know? so it's not like impossible it's just like very unlikely sure um so after the book comes out guess what hundreds of people now have multiple personalities because of course they do even though it was like very rarely diagnosed before that now there's a ton of people mostly women

who say that they have it um and this a lot of this is the um Women are hysterical era as well. You know, like, it's their periods. It's because they, it's like Freudian. They want to, like, have sex with their fathers, like, all the reasons that women are crazy and not really going, getting to the root of, like, anyone's actual problems. So. They're self-selecting into it.

Well, society is not forcing them to say, I'm 20 other people. Like, nobody's going to imprint that story into your own brain. It's not a cultural phenomenon. Like, you read a book. And you're like, oh, maybe I'm not. I think it's exactly a cultural phenomenon because then everybody's saying that it's possible. And then you think things like, well, it's true that I act totally different at work than I do at home or that when I'm with my friends, I act different than I act with my kids. You know, I'm not saying that like I, but I'm saying that that's what was happening to people.

Okay. So the three women, let me tell you about the author, the doctor and the patient. These three women, now we're back to real life, are going to work together. create a company called Sybil Inc. And they're going to make a shit ton of money. So that kind of part kind of reminds me of the Warrens, where they're like, yeah, we write a book about this, you know? And they're going to.

The Sybil Exposed opens up with talking about the author and how after the book came out, she only wore for coats because she got rich. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So a lot of the facts and these next part of my story are from Sybil exposed, the book that was kind of, you know, really debunking it, debunking it from 2011. But let me just tell you about them. So the psychiatrist herself is Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur in real life.

This is a real, she's the real person. So she was also, quote, unquote, character in the book, but also she's a real psychiatrist. She was born in 1908 and died in 1992. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Her parents were like, you're super smart, but you're a girl, so you can't be a doctor. And she really wanted to be a doctor. So she kind of fought against her parents to be able to, to, to, study what she wanted to study. She got her bachelor's and her master's for the University of

Michigan and got her MD there in 1939 when she graduated. There were only eight women in her graduating class. So she's like super smart, very ambitious, wants to be a doctor. And she got married at 25, but she was still had her doctor practice. She also had possibly had like a thyroid problem that could have like made her life feel more intense than it was, but they didn't know how to treat thyroid problems and thought that that was all psychological and that was all like just again women being hysterical which is like a all encompassing for anything that a woman could possibly do. So there's a little bit of that in her history as well. She was really like interested in hypnosis and figuring out what hysteria is. She hypnotized and treated people and really

was like convinced that that was something that would that would work. So in this time the psychology is You know, it's in 1950s. It's, again, very Freudian, very post-World War II. Lots of things are being blamed on your parents. You know, people are coming home from the war different and not, a lot of people don't know how to handle that. You know, you're throwing someone, some of this before, like, from the flying a plane over Germany to going home and to be a shoe salesman, you know, and like, how do you move on

with your life? So a lot of people trying to figure out what to do there. A lot of stuff is being blamed on, on your parents. for the first time, officially, being blamed on parents, really, in psychology. There's a lot of stuff like Walter Mondale later works for societies to prevent child abuse, which is all very, very good because there's a lot of children who, especially with the 50s, you know, children are getting beaten by their parents and that sort of thing. But that also then opens up the door for things like the satanic panic and things of, you know,

children confessing to things and having false memories and all the things that happened. but people are just starting to think that maybe your parents have an effect on the way you are as a grown-up, which, of course, they do, you know? If you remember about someone's parents and been like, oh, I get it. This is exactly why you are the way you are, for better or worse, you know, like, this is, I get it now. Also, women are being forced back home, so they had, like, a little taste of freedom because they, like, didn't have to deal with their men for a couple years, and they got to have a job. And then, like, the men come home and they're like, I don't want to, I don't want to stay home and take care of you. reminds you like the Nantucket women where the men would leave for like

six months at a time. They're like, yes, great. Every marriage worked out there. Exactly. Like, did I miss you? No? Yeah, sure. Just go away again. So there's all that happening. While she's getting her degrees, she became a psychoanalyst in 1951

and she first started in Omaha. So that's when she met Shirley, who is the real civil, she met Shirley in Omaha. She worked with Shirley for 11 years in New York City. Again, like they were way too close. Like you should not see your therapist outside of therapy. You should not be friends. They should not come to your home unless there's like a medical emergency. Like just none of those things should happen. That's very

inappropriate. But Dr. Wilbur would go to, go to Shirley's house and she would do things like in the book. They're like, oh, she took a little bit of sodium pentothal and did, and did hypnosis. In real wife, she would, she became, Shirley, said, well, I'm going to call her Shirley now, became a drug addict because she was taking so much sodium pentothal and so many like barbituate drugs that the doctor gave her. She also would give her electric shocks at home. Like, that's not allowed. You should not have your home electric shock machine. But she would do things like that and talk to her and get her to, um, to tell her things. She would take her on vacations. She would give her money. She would, um, she like, saw her for free. She's like, you can pay me back later once we sell

this book, but, like, I'll see you for free for now. She had the roommate to help document the changes in Shirley, and she kind of poked in pride to get to what she wanted to hear. Like, there are recordings of the sessions, and it is very suggestive on Dr. Wilbur's behalf of being like, so was it Peggy that was talking? Oh, was it Vicky that was talking? Oh, was Vicki here? Yes, very, very leading. Later, Dr. Wilbur has other, inappropriate relationships with patients. At one point, she has a hospital, she's like the, in charge of the psychiatric unit of a hospital, and she's a group of psychiatrists that are under her, and, like, most of those people

will be accused of having inappropriate relationships with their patients. So she was, like, teaching other doctors to be inappropriate with their patients. She started an association for multiple personality disorder, which she was one of the first people to, like, really, you know, study it. And she took many, many women into her, into her care. And again, a lot of them were, like, how. wives who were exhausted, you know, probably depressed, maybe had other things. But like, she would say, oh, you must have, you must have this.

And they would come, they would go with it, you know, they would just go with it. So, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, like, like, like, yeah, when you put something out there as a suggestion, like, it makes sense that people will just gravitate towards. it. Right. That makes it the cultural phenomenon that it is, right? Because people are like, oh, I know there's something wrong with me. Maybe it's this, you know? Yeah. Anyway, I still have. No, but exactly. That's exactly right. Because you're like, when you first hear about it, you're like, this is magical and wild. And then later you're like, if true, how is it true? Like,

is it true because there's actively another person inside this person's brain who can see that person doing things and they try to get out and there's like a like those movies with all your emotions in your head, the kid inside out. You know, those like kids movies. You're probably going to hate this.

Ezra Klein was talking about like on an episode, I forgot which one it was. It's been like at least like six miles at this point. There was some of the lines of like are nonstop conversations around like trauma and the issues we have

and I forgot what the analogy was he drew I'm like kind of making this part up but what he was essentially saying was like look my grandmother survived Docow and like watched her whole family die and she came here, raised a family like was happy like but if you sat there and told her

you are traumatized like your life sucks everything's bad your family's like yeah you're going to force someone down a rabbit hole in their own brain of what they don't need to go down. And I think, well, I think, like, yes. And I also think that there's definitely a part of her brain that, of Ezra Klein's grandma's brain, who had to survive after that, you know. Yeah. Like you can't. This is why I don't believe in therapy, by the way.

Okay. But who, who, okay. Um, she, like, do like, like, if you just like, if you, I don't know, like, if you indulge a thing. thing that is like a earworm in your brain and you just keep reiterating like like why is that therapy never ends for people why is that they always go to therapy for the rest of their lives like are they healing are they getting better or is it helpful to rehash past traumas for the rest of your life until you're dead or is it better to be like all therapy is we graduated from couples therapy me and one i i also graduated but i graduated a very different way than you guys

I mean, but then also, okay, so I also have a dumb thing to say, but there's also on Alan McBeal, that show, someone was like, why are you like this? Your problems are so stupid, you know, like your problems are not being in DACO. And she goes, I get that, but they're my problems, you know? So, like, they feel, they still feel to me bad. That doesn't make them not stupid. I will say it. That doesn't mean you feel bad.

I know, but it's, it's, it's, it changes perspective. It changes perspective and gradients of human suffering to like, my problems are, I didn't get a horse when I was like 16. It's, you know, like, totally. But if that ruins your life, then that ruined your life. You could probably walk into the ocean. But it, but it's still your, it's still your brain. Like the DNA, I don't know, the gene pool. Why doesn't need someone that is traumatized by that? I'm just saying. I'm going to have to edit all this out, aren't I? I don't know, maybe everybody who didn't get a horse when they were a child that's going to be raptured today, so don't have to. There, yes.

Took around until the end of the day to see what happened. What social media feeds are you getting that resulted in you saying that? We're probably on very different social media. I thought a bunch of people saying that, I don't mean, the people that I'm looking at are making fun of the people who think that the rapists today. I'm not even, I'm saying I haven't even seen that. Oh, well, I don't know. I just saw it today.

I didn't get any pre-warning about the rapture. But I guess I wouldn't even know if it happened because I can't see anyone but you right now. The dog just floats away. I can't find Benjamin Franklin's ghost. I'm like, who is he? Anyway. So much out of me for this episode. Go ahead.

No, but in this case, yes. Like the therapy was pushing her to say some things. And I think therapy is good, but I do think that like there are. are cases where, you know, you can be pushed into something, and this is definitely one of those cases. So while she's working with Shirley, she thought, let's make money out for this, let's write a book. So she contacts our author, Flora Schreiber. So Flora Schreiber was born 1918. She died in 1988. She was an English professor and a magazine editor. She was also very, very ambitious. She worked as a psychology, psychiatry editor for Science Digest magazine in the 60s.

So this was like the beginning of talking about mental health publicly, at least right now. She was like very flamboyant. She's one of those people who had like a fake mid-Atlantic accent, like worked on it and like made it up and like, you know, sounded like she was very cultured. You know what I mean? Yeah. She would write articles for like, cosmopolitan. She would make so much money. So like I said, every article she wrote, she would make like $3,000, which is like $30,000 in like today's money. So you could write like six articles. You don't know what we have to do, you know? So she had like a pretty, like a pretty sweet job. And she was writing things that are like kind of wild. So one of the things that she wrote was about conversion therapy for gay people.

And she wrote this whole story about a young man. It's in Cosmopolitan magazine about a young man who was gay. Wait, well, you were talking? 1960. Got it. Okay. And didn't want to be gay anymore and went through all this stuff. Turns out at the end, he's not really gay.

He goes on a date of the woman. He's like, this is so much better. I was wrong. This is so much better. I don't want to do that. Accompanying the article in Cosmo or Pets. pictures of a young man who looks like very feminine wearing a suit kind of as like face down and you assume that like that is a man in the story and they're like kind of telling the story

and making up this like making you think that like this feminine young man I'm looking at is this gay person from this story but they're straight now when like the pictures were actually a woman wearing a suit like they didn't even try they didn't even like have like none of it was true but they were like putting it into magazines like specifically women's magazines like they were true. Why? To sell out magazines. Why does anyone do anything? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I guess. And so that's how Dr. Wilbur and Flora Schreiber met is because of the articles that she was writing. So Dr. Wilbur approached her and said, let's make, let's write a book. It'll be like a nonfiction narrative. And Flora Schreiber was like, great, but I need a lot more things. So she

worked with them for seven years and she was like I need this story to have a good ending I need all of personality is to become one I need surely to be fine I need to see them as different people so like while when you're reading sybil the book you're like she walked in and said I'm vicky I have blonde hair I look different from sybil can't you tell like that never actually happened because she in actually they put that together for the author you know what I mean she's like I ain't different like family look different um or you know tell me some stories they tell her story and she'd be like is that true like told her one story where they said that sybil Shirley sybil was like taken to holland during the 1940s to help smuggle a jewish person out of the country but like she couldn't have done that then

because holland was occupied by the Nazis like nothing to make a lot of the stories like actually didn't make sense like when she went to the small town there was no grain silo that she could have been drowned in by her mother there were no woods that she could have gone to with her mom for her mom to like molest teenage girls like and nobody in town actually like remember them like yeah Shirley's mom was like kind of weird but she wasn't like no one was afraid they weren't like very no one would have suspected like that level of abuse that they were claiming throughout the story you know so but she did like you know read the notes she was like at one point they gave um shirley and the doctor gave flora schreiber a journal that was like oh during this time i did this

and I felt this and I woke up as this, but like when the author of Sybil Exposed, like really went down into it, there's like a lot of compelling evidence that it was all written later, you know, even things like that it was written in a ballpoint pen that didn't exist in 1945, you know, so she couldn't have, it couldn't be your teenage diary. It was like made up afterwards. So they were like, they were giving the author more stuff as she asked for more stuff, like, making more salacious and they were. And I think they all just kind of like knew they were in a big, fat lie, but didn't care.

But the author didn't know it was a lie. I think that she asked them for things and she got them enough that she did. Okay. You know what I mean? Like if I was like, oh, I need exactly this thing. And you were like, oh, give me one second. I have it. Yeah, yeah.

Here it is. You know, you'd be like, okay, well, I don't think you just found them. I think you just made it. You know? Yeah. And I think she starts to realize it, but it's kind of too late because she already got in advance for the book and, like, has to write it. So she's like, okay, even like the times that she had her own misgivings about it,

she was like, we're going to keep going. they also did so when it became her most famous work it was the number one bestseller for a while it sold over six million copies some of the things that i thought was funny not funny but like obviously embellished things like some of the stories like couldn't couldn't possibly have been true some of them are but they like added certain things obviously made the mother into the into the villain of the story they also like hilariously the names that they changed were like like not very good name changes. Like they changed their name Maddie to Hattie and like Freddie to Teddy.

I'm like, that's not even trying very hard. You know, like Sybil's boy, the one boyfriend that she had was a Hispanic man. And they changed his name from like Miguel Ther Ramon. You know, you're like, okay. Like so, which means that Shirley Mason, people knew who she was. Oh, okay. Because it was easy enough to say she grew up in this little tiny town. She did this in Omaha.

She moved to New York. she was born this year she's small and skinny and has brown hair and her mom died this time and her dad was a um like a city worker or something or whatever like if you know this person you know them if i write a book about like a dude named mars you know like i figured out was you i could be like oh okay that sounds really close to you so there's so surely had to like hide after this essentially because people people were either like what are you talking about or they wanted to hear more from her

because Dr. Wilbur and Flores Shriver went on all the TV shows. They were famous. They like were always on TV they were like always in articles. They wanted to do the movie. They wanted to do board games which seemed a little mean. I wanted to do a board game. And the three women were all part of that. And they also, like, didn't want to share the spot with each other. So it was also, like, they're infighting and trying to get this money and, like, trying to figure this out. And then before, I guess, so that all happened.

The movie happened. It became really popular. Everybody kind of went on and, like, had a lot of money. Shirley, who is Sible, and Dr. Wilbur, continue to work together and kind of live together, again, in, like, a really weird way. So just a little bit about Shirley, like what we know actually is true. Her name is Shirley Mason. She wasn't only child. She did live with her parents who were a little bit older and they were a Seventh-day Adventists,

so she didn't have a lot of fun. She did go to see, go to New York City. She did Dr. Wilbur later. She was an art teacher. She was like, did art therapy. But then when she was exposed, she had to stop talking to her friends. And so she begins to live with Dr. Wilbur and they stay very, very close. There's times when she like wrote letters to people saying none of it's true.

It didn't happen. I was just doing what the doctor told me to say. And other times, she drove back and said, of course, it's true. So she's kind of going back and forth with it anyway. In the end, the doctor will die before Sibble, but Sibble is the one who takes care of her estate, and they, like, were way too close. Are they lovers?

Maybe. Okay. There's definitely an overtone where that is potentially an thing. Well, that seems bad if you're someone's doctor. A lot of it seems bad, yeah. I mean, like, if you're going to therapy, being a doctor's coming to your house and drugging the shit out of you

and then telling you all these crazy things that you said like that's bad yeah it reminds me tell them you love me is that what it's called tell them you love me yeah that's you haven't heard that one the doctor who works with like mentally disabled people and met this one and like

he was inaudible couldn't do anything but she said that as a doctor she knew that he fell in love with her and she was crazy she's a crazy person it's on Netflix but yeah it's terrible it's terrible so after you know after all this over after they've all passed away the simple exposed book from 2011 you know we talked about a lot of the discrepancy some of them also you know there was very little evidence for the claims no one really remembers and then with the medicine like

she was trying to do something new but like really pushing the boundaries of you know obviously of like over-drugging, over-drugging the patient. So after this, like I said, hundreds of women said that they had, they had multiple personalities, is there different people in different rooms. Now it's called dissociative identity disorder, D-I-D, which, you know, essentially means that dissociation

is the compartmentalization of psychological functions, such as identity and memory that are usually integrated. So it's like you remember things differently, but you don't remember everything. which I think is like whatever traumatizing thing did or did not happen to people who believe that they have this they're they're compartmentalizing parts of their life so they don't have to think about it you know yeah it makes sense and it would make sense that your brain could do that to be like I'm going to take this memory away from you you know so maybe that's

why you like forget traumatic things in some cases you know yeah maybe so so it's like very chicken or ugly does it come from abuse it come from the false memories? Are the false memories real? Like, I'm sure sometimes they're real, but a lot of times they're not. And like what can be pulled out of your brain or out of your, out of your imagination, even if you are like going through something or if you're not. Again, most, most of the people who were ever diagnosed with having DID were women in the 70s. And then it went kind of down from there. There are sort of people who have it now, but they're not like 100% sure exactly what it is, which is the same with all things in your brain, you know? One important note is if you have a demon, you have a demon. inside of you that does not count that's why not because a demon is like not you it's the demon okay then you go to the exorc route yeah yeah because like that's not like the demon isn't part of you the demon is just like using your body as like a skin that's fun yeah so you're just you're just you just have a demon in you um and then kind of the last bit is you know according to research at johns hopkins Hopkins Hospital, if people come in and say they have DID and they have these multiple

personalities, usually if you don't, like, give into it and don't agree with them and don't try to talk to them, they'll forget that they have them. And it'll be something else that actually is the problem, you know? So they... What I was going to say when you were saying that was, um, uh, maybe it's not that they have them. They have some underlying mental disorder. makes them wish they had this? Right. Like you wish that or,

or is that it? If you like push something, I feel like you could push something into a part of you where you don't remember it for real. And if, and that could be that trauma or whatever thing that you have not chosen not to remember, could be something that would change fundamentally who you were if you did remember. Right.

You know what I mean? but to have indulge it just like whatever you're going to just keep going that's kind of that's kind of the answer with doctors today is like don't indulge it don't you know hypnotize someone to be able to do it you know and then potentially they are um they won't have it it'll be something else and it'll be like you know normal trauma i forgot maybe it was you that said this but it was some parents i know it was like yeah if your kid gets hurt and it'll be like And you treat it like it's a big deal. Like, oh, my God. Yeah, that's a big deal. Then they're going to start freaking out and trying. But if you don't, they're just like, all right, well, that's like moving on. Yeah.

No, it's whole. And so much of it is, I think, I don't, like, I believe that Shirley's mother was like, you know, potentially schizophrenic for real, definitely very, very religious, you know, but I don't believe all of the sexual abuse like that seems like something that other people would have noticed, you know. but either way like the way your parents has such a big effect on who you are

you know yeah so and yeah so you just I don't know go to therapy talk about your parents which I have done do not go to therapy listen to you know what just listen to this podcast listen to us talking

and listening to your therapy no I'm taking absolutely no I have no stake in my life but just write to me and I'll fix your problem you brought back a lot of memories actually see well there we go now you have repressed memories that are coming up oh my god you know what's funny you know what's funny is when you

were talking everything's just connecting on everything when you were talking about like yeah they're in too deep at that point you already got the advanced just keep going it reminds me of the titans so marshal was like yeah it was just like what that guy did you're in too deep just keep getting and the publisher's like make it better make them more interesting you know can you how do we like how do you tell this story if the personalities don't look different you know like you can't you have to be like okay well this is who peggy

and this the book also has which i'll take pictures of like some of the drawings that she did of like you know she did drawings of herself as different people and they have like different art styles which is kind of fun like when she was a little boy she like drew a picture of herself as a little boy and she drew like i don't know those were actually hers yeah yeah yeah she's like all different like kinds of styles that she draws like you know she drew this hand that's very it's hard to draw hand that's pretty good it is good actually you know actually you know she's actually a good artist and she did she did have a job as a teacher and an art therapist so that's kind of fun um this one's a scary drawing she did a church doesn't look intense bar off anybody listens is you're like I can't see it I know I'm pretty social but you know what I mean so anyway But if you, I would recommend reading Sybil, I thought it was very fun. Like, it was like, oh my God, blah, blah, blah. And if I was a housewife in the 70s, I would have been like, holy shit, you know.

I mean, also, you know, while I was smoking a cigarette and vacuuming. Well, it would be also addicting because, like, it would be coming out in periodicals. And so, like, I get to find out who she is tomorrow and then who she is the next day and how it all gets resolved. So, like, I can see why you would go down the rabbit hole. But being that doctor, you are just depraved of morality. I blame the doctor the most Yes The writer as a writer

Her job is a bellish Yeah You know yeah Shirley is just a woman Trying to figure herself out And kind of like found someone Who could like help take care of her You know

And then the doctor was like Maybe you know overly excited about what she thought she was finding as well You know like Pobok someone has someone's going to be the first person to find something Yeah Or like not even She wasn't the first but at least like

you know someone's going to be someone's going to figure out something about our brains and we're going to be like oh totally that totally makes sense this whole time but like we can't even imagine right now I know I forgot what I was I forgot what it was I was looking at Brian Cox

is that his name the astrophysicist anyways he was they were talking about how like the fuel source for the sun and the earth it has like another couple hundred billion years to go and they're like well what's going to be of humanity then it's like

humanity's only been around for like a couple of hundred thousand years like we will almost certainly have become extinct several times over and over and over again like there's probably like 15 more iterations of the version of humanity that we consider today by the time that happens

so in the context of all that I'm like what could we possibly there's so much time left to learn everything totally I read like a quote from like Elon Musk's mom that was like ever since he found out that the earth was going to explode someday he wanted to get people to Mars and I was like you you learned that

in third grade we have we have plenty of time we have plenty of time we might destroy it anyways through pollution but I'm pretty sure interstellar guide to the galaxy showed me that astroturfing a whole world is kind of hard it's I mean it's not going to be easy it's not going to be easy or fun do you have any list of mail I do I have a fun one from Morgan was watching Jeopardy and

she sent me a little voice note which was so funny because I can picture her like rewinding it to be able to record it but Ken Jennings the question the answer was Darius the Great and Ken Jennings pronounced it Darius and I said I just also feel like it should be Darius because Darius

sounds like when I know but also So there's like, you know, Jason and the Argonauts. I think he'd be Darius. Either way, it's not Darius. Darius. Yeah, fair enough. Wait, what did you think? Jennings, you beat IBM's deep blue.

Also, like, who the fuck knows. I guess, whatever. But anyway, that was fun. Thank you, Morgan. I'm thinking of us. And if you have any other ideas or suggestions or little tidbits, email us. Doomedepelpod at gmail.com.

And we're at Doom to Fellpot at all the socials. Every single one of that. Thank you for monitoring those. I know you don't read old paperbacks, but in the back of old paperbacks, it has a way to order more books, and it's so fun. Each one's like $1.25,

and you need to just worry about this page and check the ones you want and they'll just little card in with like a check. And then they'll look at 15 cents per copy for postage and handling. That's kind of a nicer time, wasn't it? Yeah, you had to like wait.

We've also had work. We've been watching like 9. these MTV, just like hours of it, because you can watch like MTV, just like hours of music videos and news and commercials. And a lot of it is like, oh, there's a competition. You have to send in a postcard, you know, with like your answer. And then you're going to win something like a CD player or something. It's just always hilarious and fun.

Columbia Records definitely got me with that one cent for 12 CDs or whatever thing. Yeah. Fun. Anyway, thanks. We can go ahead and cut things off. Are you good, Taylor? I'm good. Sweet.

Thank you. And we'll go ahead and cut it.