mental illness – Now I've Heard Everything

Today doctors call it “dissociative identity disorder” but when Chris Costner Sizemore was diagnosed and treated for it over 60 years ago, it was simply called “multiple personality disorder.”

The movie “TheThree Faces of EVe” came out in 1957, changing Sizemore’s name to EveWhite. Her “alters” were Eve Black .. and Jane. Actress Joanne Woodward won an Oscar for her portrayal of Eve.

It later came out that Sizemore had something more like 22 personaliities, not just three.

I mer in 1989, when she wrote a book called A Mind of My Own. IT told the story of how, with years of psychiatric help, she had integrated her several personalities.

So here now, from 1989. Chris Costner Sizemore.

Chris Costner Sizemore died in 2016. She was 89.

Well before her 20th birthday, Patty Duke had already won an Oscar and was star of her own TV series.

Patty Duke won the Oscar for best supporting actress in The 1962 movie The Miracle Worker, which was the captain from the Broadway play in which she also starred.

On the heels of that success came her TV series, the Patty Duke Show, in which she played the dual roles of typical American teemager Patty and her identical cousin from England, Cathy.

Later Patty Duke moved on to more sophisticated, adult roles, including a part in the movie Valley of the Dolls.

But all along the way, she suffered from severe, undiagnosed bipolar disorder, Exacerbated by various forms of abuse.

In the early 1980s Duke finally got the help she needed, And a few years later, she wrote a memoir entitled Call Me Anna. That’s when I met her.

Now it’s important to keep in mind that this interview is 33 years old, and many advances have been made not only in the treatment of the disorder, but how we refer to it.

So here now, from 1988, Patty Duke.

Patty Duke died in 2016. She was 69.