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When Rabbit Howls: A First-Person Account of Multiple Personality, Memory, and Recovery
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A woman diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder reveals her harrowing journey from abuse to recovery in this #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography written by her own multiple personalities.
Successful, happily married Truddi Chase began therapy hoping to find the reasons behind her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What emerged from her sessions was Truddi’s mind and body were inhabited by the Troops—ninety-two individual voices that emerged to shield her from her traumatizing childhood.
For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain of the ritualized sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her own stepfather—abuse that began when she was only two years old. It was a past that Truddi didn’t even know existed, until she and her therapist took a journey to where the nightmare began...
Written by the Troops themselves, When Rabbit Howls is told by the very alter-egos who stayed with Truddi Chase, watched over her, and protected her. What they reveal is a spellbinding descent into a personal hell—and an ultimate, triumphant deliverance for the woman they became.
Successful, happily married Truddi Chase began therapy hoping to find the reasons behind her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What emerged from her sessions was Truddi’s mind and body were inhabited by the Troops—ninety-two individual voices that emerged to shield her from her traumatizing childhood.
For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain of the ritualized sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her own stepfather—abuse that began when she was only two years old. It was a past that Truddi didn’t even know existed, until she and her therapist took a journey to where the nightmare began...
Written by the Troops themselves, When Rabbit Howls is told by the very alter-egos who stayed with Truddi Chase, watched over her, and protected her. What they reveal is a spellbinding descent into a personal hell—and an ultimate, triumphant deliverance for the woman they became.
400 pages, Paperback
First published June 8,1987
This edition
- Format
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400 pages, Paperback
- Published
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February 5, 2002 by Berkley
- ISBN
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9780425183311
- ASIN
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0425183319
- Language
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English
About the author
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Truddi M. Chase and "The Troops" were the authors of When Rabbit Howls, an autobiography describing their childhood life with a sexually psychotic stepfather.
In the early 1980s, Chase began therapy to address feelings of extreme fear and distress which she thought might be related to the fact that her stepfather had "fondled" her. What she uncovered with Dr. Robert Phillips was a snakepit of sexual depravity and mental and physical cruelty.
Without prompting on his part, Truddi Chase revealed herself to be not one woman, but nearly a hundred people sharing one body, interacting with the world through a screen or front they called "the woman". Over a ten-year period, these selves, "The Troops" -- men, women and children -- explained to Phillips exactly what had happened. They spoke of pleasure and enjoyment in their lives as well as pain. Some of the most poignant passages in the text are about their daughter, whom they took to public gardens so that she could "see and touch beauty".
At that time, most people with multiple personalities were supposed to integrate into a single self, but the Troops refused integration and worked as a cooperating team.
The book When Rabbit Howls was published in 1986 and was not well received by the press, but was welcomed by victims of child abuse and people with multiple personalities, who found in the Troops' narrative validation of their own experiences.
Truddi Chase died March 10, 2010, after a long battle with COPD. Their daughter is involved with training service dogs and works in an arboretum.
Truddi's last book, The Creature of Habit, was completed by their daughter in 2013. It is self-published and will be available on amazon.com later this year.
In the early 1980s, Chase began therapy to address feelings of extreme fear and distress which she thought might be related to the fact that her stepfather had "fondled" her. What she uncovered with Dr. Robert Phillips was a snakepit of sexual depravity and mental and physical cruelty.
Without prompting on his part, Truddi Chase revealed herself to be not one woman, but nearly a hundred people sharing one body, interacting with the world through a screen or front they called "the woman". Over a ten-year period, these selves, "The Troops" -- men, women and children -- explained to Phillips exactly what had happened. They spoke of pleasure and enjoyment in their lives as well as pain. Some of the most poignant passages in the text are about their daughter, whom they took to public gardens so that she could "see and touch beauty".
At that time, most people with multiple personalities were supposed to integrate into a single self, but the Troops refused integration and worked as a cooperating team.
The book When Rabbit Howls was published in 1986 and was not well received by the press, but was welcomed by victims of child abuse and people with multiple personalities, who found in the Troops' narrative validation of their own experiences.
Truddi Chase died March 10, 2010, after a long battle with COPD. Their daughter is involved with training service dogs and works in an arboretum.
Truddi's last book, The Creature of Habit, was completed by their daughter in 2013. It is self-published and will be available on amazon.com later this year.
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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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this book actually changed my life. by far the most challenging book i’ve ever read, but definitely the most influential. this book took months for me to get through, so many passages were unbearable to read. and so many didn’t make much sense. but i strongly recommend this book. definitely an adult book, personally i don’t believe this belonged in my high school library. seriously such an eye-opening read
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Not a fun read, but very interesting, particularly if you are interested in psychology. I actually didn't finish the last 3rd of the book in detail, kind of skimmed through it. It was very graphic in parts, which was hard to get through. I think what held me back from really liking it was that it is supposedly true, but the inner skeptic in me kept wondering if it was all true, how the author was able to pen this book "through" her other personalities in the manner she did. Multiple personality disorder/DID sure is a fascinating thing though.
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Heartbreaking and eye opening
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Arguably the best and most realistic book available on the subject of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Though it is certainly fashionable to doubt the very existence of DID today, those who do so seem to be reacting more to the possibility of Truddi Chase's harrowing upbringing rather than what it caused psychologically. Since I am married to a multiple myself, I can assure any doubters that stories like Chase's happen all the time. Such damage may well be happening to someone right this minute. To dismiss such stories out of hand doesn't do much to help attract those with DID to the help they need. Who wants to seek help for something they are told does not exist?
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I really enjoy psychology so this book is right up my alley. I personally believe multiple personalities as a real disorder. This book was incredibly interesting. The book was written at the beginning of her discovery of the many personalities and all the personalities starting to recognize the existence of the each other. This book really stays with you. I think one of the things you don't realize with people with sort of disorder is that they aren't really crazy but have had to become that way to appear normal and go on with their life. It is sort of their own kind of normal, its self preservation. You get a window into what it is like in the head with some with multiple personalities.
Disclaimer - The book can be hard to read at times b/c she talks about the horrific abuse she suffer as a child.
Disclaimer - The book can be hard to read at times b/c she talks about the horrific abuse she suffer as a child.
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I never give books 1 ⭐️, but it was warrented here. Let me first say that the 1 star rating is not a reflection of Truddi Chase or the horrific child abuse she endured. The 1 star rating is purely from my reading experience.
This book was first off misleading. My understanding of the book going into it was that this was an autobiography written by a woman who suffers from multiple personality disorder (since been changed to D.I.D) stemming from the abuse she suffered through as a child. It was supposedly her story as she received therapy. What I got was, yes her autobiography, but many scenes in this book did not include her or were from the perspective of her therapist, police chief or someone else. Makes absolutely no sense??? Did she write these too?
This book needed an editor badly, and I get it if she truly wrote this, as a reader we would want an authentic experience, but this was so confusing it was almost unreadable. Maybe working with the therapist, and an editor would have created something more understandable. Also the child abuse mentioned and described in this book is extremely hard to stomach.
There were also many things mentioned in here in the form of energy enhancement to give people highs from being around her, messing up electronics and actual mind reading. This in no shape or form for me is believable, and therefore makes me question the validity of the entire book.
I will say, however; if this book is true the quote below is the saddest and scariest thing I’ve ever read.
“In the garden, a squirrel shot under a pile of dead leaves that trembled atop his quivering body. Inside the house the woman stood stock still, gazing out at nothing. Inside her mind there was nothing. No memory, nothing. She had no experience with which to compare that lack; no emotion of her own with which to feel terrified, or even annoyed. For a very small second in time, she looked out of the prison of her own space and knew that except for when the others gave her something, she did not exist.”
This is not one I would recommend unless you really are interested in the the subject of D.I.D. Honestly this book was so exhausting for me I’ve lost interest in the entire topic all together.
Happy reading or in this case happier reading next time…
This book was first off misleading. My understanding of the book going into it was that this was an autobiography written by a woman who suffers from multiple personality disorder (since been changed to D.I.D) stemming from the abuse she suffered through as a child. It was supposedly her story as she received therapy. What I got was, yes her autobiography, but many scenes in this book did not include her or were from the perspective of her therapist, police chief or someone else. Makes absolutely no sense??? Did she write these too?
This book needed an editor badly, and I get it if she truly wrote this, as a reader we would want an authentic experience, but this was so confusing it was almost unreadable. Maybe working with the therapist, and an editor would have created something more understandable. Also the child abuse mentioned and described in this book is extremely hard to stomach.
There were also many things mentioned in here in the form of energy enhancement to give people highs from being around her, messing up electronics and actual mind reading. This in no shape or form for me is believable, and therefore makes me question the validity of the entire book.
I will say, however; if this book is true the quote below is the saddest and scariest thing I’ve ever read.
“In the garden, a squirrel shot under a pile of dead leaves that trembled atop his quivering body. Inside the house the woman stood stock still, gazing out at nothing. Inside her mind there was nothing. No memory, nothing. She had no experience with which to compare that lack; no emotion of her own with which to feel terrified, or even annoyed. For a very small second in time, she looked out of the prison of her own space and knew that except for when the others gave her something, she did not exist.”
This is not one I would recommend unless you really are interested in the the subject of D.I.D. Honestly this book was so exhausting for me I’ve lost interest in the entire topic all together.
Happy reading or in this case happier reading next time…
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This book was fascinating, very well written, and very difficult to read. Unlike many other books on the subject, which are written by the clinician involved, When Rabbit Howls is an autobiographical account of living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) and learning to come to grips with both it and the absolutely obscene abuse that is believed to have led to it (in her case). In an effort to make the experience clear to a lay audience while still conveying the reality of multiplicity, the Troops (as the "collective" calls itself) wrote the book as a first-person perspective told through a third-person narrative, which makes the book challenging at times, but worth the effort of reading. This book is not for the faint of heart or for the easily confused, but I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of psychopathology.
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