Sybil: Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)

Sybil Isabel Dorsett exemplifies the physiological disorder, dissociative identity disorder (DID) or multiple personality disorder. At the beginning of the movie Sybil begins to have flashbacks to her terrible unrevealed past which force her to quit her job as a substitute teacher. She attempts to go to her father for understanding but finds none. Sybil then continues to suffer random blackouts during which she breaks a window and cuts her hand badly. She then goes to the doctor against her father’s wishes and meets Dr. Cornelia Wilbur who then uncovers her blackout issue and diagnoses her with DID. Dr. Wilbur then begins to help Sybil overcome her fears and recover her past through psychotherapy starting by convincing Sybil of her condition

She had sixteen in all. Sybil had two male personalities one named Mike and the other Sid, both of them were mostly young and did not show much during the movie. Besides her main personality, Sybil, Peggy Ann and Peggy Lou, little girls, are the most prominent; they hold Sybil’s artistic abilities, and deal with all of the fear and anger Sybil held against her mother. Vanessa keeps Sybil’s musical talents and can play the piano, she is around 12 years old. Vicky is young, about 9, handles sophisticated situations, and can speak French. Marsha dresses in all black and constantly attempts to kill herself and Nancy awaits the end of the world. Mary resembles Sybil’s grandmother, whom Sybil adored. Ruthie on the other hand is the infant mentioned earlier. Clara is very religious and does not have faith in Sybil and Helen is depressed yet still has hope and ambition. Marjorie is the only personality that is purely good natured and

I can’t help but to picture how scary and confusing life must have been for her, not knowing what she did while she was another person. This film really helped me understand what those with the disorder have to go through and feel much more sympathetic towards them. Before this I never knew how much trauma one had to undergo to split oneself into different persons in order to cope. I believe this film did a very good job portraying what was going on inside of her mind and how the disorder works. It also was quite entertaining and I enjoyed it