For anyone who has ever wondered why some people suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID; formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder), what it might be like to be in a relationship and raise children with someone who regularly exhibits startling and abusive DID symptoms, and whether DID can be healed, BRAIN STORM: A Life in Pieces by Shelley Kolton is the memoir to dive into. Written by the first gynecologist to establish an all-women practice in New York, Kolton is an intelligent, accomplished, modern-day woman with a thriving career, good friends and coworkers, a loving partner, kids…and 30+ other people living inside her. Though it takes years to discover them, these other personalities/”alters” fractured off Kolton’s main self early in life to help her survive childhood ordeals–the kind commonly practiced by serial killers, which many victims don’t, and didn’t–live through.
To help young Kolton cope, Night Writer was born deep within her psyche, as was Baby and Little Shelley and Eraser and Butch/Romeo and Fuckface and Seven, to name a few. Some alters even had alters of their own. Most amazing and heartening–considering the awful verbal taunts and abuse expressed by Kolton’s other selves later in life towards her own intimate loved ones–is the fact that the author’s life partner stays long enough to reach a happier ending on the other side of the despairing, suicidal, post-abuse abyss. There was a time in the 1980s when firsthand accounts from survivors of ritual abuse began cropping up seemingly everywhere–from private homes to church environments to daycare centers. Then a backlash hit, claiming false memory syndrome or mass hysteria; decrying inaccurate, over-reported accounts because how could it possibly be true that so many seriously deranged sexual predators were operating–and apparently collaborating with each other–in contemporary, civilized society?
In Kolton’s case, the initial perpetrator was the family’s friendly neighbor, Jack, who occasionally babysat and also surreptitiously gathered groups of people in robes in his basement to chant over, torturously rape, and sometimes murder people, especially children. Ever wonder how sexual deviants like John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Epstein get away with their crimes for as long as they do? Because they make sure to surround themselves with folks who either can’t believe anyone within their privileged circles could possibly be involved in anything malevolent and/or folks who happen to be practicing the same sorts of activities. Kolton’s childhood rapist Jack Watkins, for instance, had a prestigious job with the United States government and sported proud photographs of himself with several U.S. presidents. He was also having an affair with Kolton’s mother. Young Shelley Kolton was far from his only victim.
Shelley Kolton’s excellent and harrowingly detailed memoir, BRAIN STORM: A Life in Pieces, is the incredible story of how the author determinedly healed from Dissociative Identity Disorder, brought on by intentionally wrought damage in early childhood.
~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader