A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder

Although I don't live under a rock, prior to purchasing "A Fractured Mind," I don't recall having ever heard of Robert B. Oxnam. Having now finished reading his book, I believe I won't have any such trouble remembering either his name or his story. First, I'd like to say that I have deep respect for Mr. Oxnam for going through with making his story and struggles known to the public--myself included. This was a courageous move on his part and I hope there are no regrets for any and all involved in the project. On, now, to the story. For the first section of this book, Oxnam told a lot of--what I thought at the time--standard family background, academic and work-related information, and showcased an obvious alcohol problem. I wondered if I was missing something or if they'd gotten the name of the book wrong. Once Oxnam began treatment and then therapy for alcoholism, things started to fall into place for me as a reader and I was amazed at how successful this man had become in spite of what I now know were serious mental and physical problems. I've read the book and seen the movie "Sybil" and was expecting this to run roughly the same course: in-depth coverage of the abuse that caused the original and subsequent dissociation, tales of bickering alters and integration, and a somewhat tidy ending. Imagine my surprise and confusion when the trauma Oxnam had suffered was discussed about the middle of the book. I cringed, thinking that all the dirty details would be chronicled throughout the second half; I was wrong. In a savvy move, the abuse was mostly alluded to, with only a few key events mentioned (no salacious content here). What the reader is left with is Oxnam's basic reaction--as an adult--to what happened to him as a child nearly fifty years earlier. For me, this had a more powerful impact than had everything been laid out. What surprised me again was that the story wasn't over after that. True to the title, this actually IS about Oxnam's "Life With Multiple Personality Disorder," and is told with honesty and a clear aim to show what living with the disorder is really like, including the ugly parts. It's about how the daily grind, work, marriage and family, fits into and is affected by one man who is now the collective whole of three distinct personalities. The story of Robert B. Oxnam, Bobby, and Wanda does not end with the conclusion of "A Fractured Mind;" how can it? He isn't "cured" in the typical sense of that fairytale happy ending, yet he does seem to be quite healthy at the end--in my lay and humble opinion.

Oxnam lends excellent credibility to the bizarre malady of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) -- a complex syndrome of disintegrated personalities within one's self. He makes an assertion near the outset of the book that we all may have a limited influence of this type of dissociative disorder. For instance, a close friend had a sledding accident and hit his head on some ice. He no longer felt like sledding and checked his wallet, then drove home. He made it home, but all he remembers is placing his key in the ignition, then waking up in the middle of a CAT scan. Fact: Our brain tells our hands to turn a stearing wheel, but who tells the brain, to tell the arm, to turn? Latency is a scary neurosis of consideration, as to how commonly we all come to having similar distortions in everyday life. There is a video clip of a man driving into a train in the wee hours of the morning but smiling during the whole event. Usually depressed people kill themselves. Turns out, this train was out of schedule and this particular fellow took the same route every day after work. It is believed that he never actually saw the train. Are we going through life much of the time on auto-pilot? Is having a 'presence of mind' something that has to be worked at? How often do we 'zone out'? This book is a great account of repairing the many facets of one's life by integrating the personalities and finding catharsis. Oxnam, an accomplished professional, candidly shares his life's experience with this non-chemical, socio-pathic imbalance.

I don't give out five stars lightly. This was one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. It's a fascinating glimpse into reality as perceived by someone with multiple personalities. The story is told from the varying perspectives of the different identities; each is unique but yet also part of a cognitive whole. I couldn't put it down. Truly amazing.

At first I wasn't sure why anyone without a professional interest in multiple personality disorder would want to read this book--an autobiographical account by an MPD sufferer of his multi-decade struggle with MPD. Yet this turned out to be, first of all, a well-told and absolutely gripping story. And while Dr. Oxnam faced challenges that are orders-of-magnitude greater than most of us, he comes across not as a freak but as an intelligent and feeling person struggling to understand himself. In that sense, the book goes to the heart of the human experience. Dr. Oxnam shows an almost impossible courage not only in coming to grips with MPD but in sharing publicly the intimate details of his personal hejira. I came away feeling the greatest admiration for Dr. Oxnam, and much richer for having read this book.

Doctor Robert Oxnam goes on a boat ride near the beginning of this book - one that has the contours of an escape. Yet, in a very real sense this whole story "A Fractured Mind" is a sea voyage and a sea change, an Odyssey in the traditon of Homer's great work. Like Homer, Oxnam is a blind bard until the fragmented pieces of his own soul come home for a reckoning. Before he becomes aware of the other people living inside his skull he is that strange figure caught in a song by the Beatles "He's a real nowhere man". There is something hollow yet implacably driven about his life. He consists of ambitions and cravings as he dashes meaninglessly through the existential void of his life. Compelled to deal with his alcoholism or be destroyed it is only a matter of time before the uncanny something that has bewildered his life manifests one day in his therapists office as a small boy. Before that there are warning signs like intimations of doom across his life. Why does he suffer these strange "blank spots" in his memories? Most sceptics of Dissociative Identity Disorder irrationally believe that therapists magically create alter egos and memories in their clients - where this profoundly idiotic point of view comes from is beyond me. But in any case Oxnam's therapist does not create the symptoms Oxnam experiences before therapy and before the revelation of the first alter. From the revelation of the first alter Oxnam's life ceases to become a mere wandering or a mere drive for an empty success in his field. Properly speaking it becomes a pilgrimage - an actual journey and a true sea change into self-knowledge and self-presence, out of an irresponsible careerism into a deep responsiblity for himself and others. An earlier reviewer asserts that Oxnam invented his own MPD to deal with his only "moderately successful career." That must be one of the more stupid excuses for denying a multiple's story I've yet heard. Obviously the questions raised about the normal human soul and personal identity by the fact of multiplicity are still quite unsettling to some very weak minded people even though we now live in the twenty first century and it ought to be obvious to everyone now that the human soul is wondrously strange and that we hardly know ourselves and what treasures of darkness exist within us. What ever the case may be we owe a debt to Doctor Robert Oxnam who has set his pen and heart to paper true. It is sojourners and survivors like him who summon up the deepest courage to deal with life as it is unlike the nervous scorners who run for the shadows like the scared people they are. May the odyssey of Robert Oxnam fare forward and fare well.