When Rabbit Howls: A First-Person Account of Multiple Personality, Memory, and Recovery

by Truddi Chase and Robert A. Chase, Truddi; Phillips Jr.

Book Overview

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 terrifying: Truddi's mind and body were inhabited by the Troops--ninety-two...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425183319
• ISBN13: 9780425183311
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

When Rabbit Howls

If you are interested in psychology or learning about multiple personalities, now refered to as dissociative identity disorder (DID), you should definitely read this book. The book does a great job highlighting the difficulties and struggles that an individual with DID must experience and explains it in a easy to digest manner. There is also a huge twist at the end which really shocked me becuase it was based on a true story and I wasn't expecting a twist. Overall, this is a great book and I highly recommend it.

When Rabbit Howls is a great book

I think books like these are interesting to read. You never know what is going to happen. It is sad thought because in order for this to happen to a person they were terribly abused throughout there life. It is a good book though

Extremely intense. Unlike other well-known accounts written, this is taken from "The Troops" actual journals and videos while in therapy. Can be disturbing to the reader, but if you want to understand how life is perceived, and lived, with MPD, this is the book to read

Clara D. (its my english paper *gasp*)

As a young girl, Truddi Chase suffered horrors that only some can bear to even dream about. All her life, she remembered the horrors, and she was seemingly strangled by them. Her only escape was her mind, and she locked herself away in it. Years went by and slowly she created ninety-two different personalities, all with their own names and even features. Now, in the book When Rabbit Howls, she finally expresses the life of an abused child who suffered from something far beyond a mental illness. This book was far, far beyond nice. It was beautifully written and was so powerful that you couldn't help but be drawn to certain characters and memories. While reading many books, people look to be drawn completely into the story. However, in When Rabbit Howls you need to rely on your mind to help you get through some of the more complex memories. This was a book that made you use your mind, not just solve out every problem for you. For instance, in chapter 17, page 173, she begins to describe her new memories as such, "Into the woman's half-awake mind fell an image of cylindrical rough stone walls and a quavering reflection in the water below. A sense of movement gripped her; she became dizzy. Long, thin, living shapes rushed at a downward angle past the periphery of her half awake mind. Except that there wasn't one snake, there were many and they weren't on the bed now. They rained down on the tiny creature hanging in the well, the child who swayed back and forth in some contraption made by man, that only the devil himself could have contrived." This was, to me, one of the more complex memories and I pondered over it until, finally, after reading over more of the book, they explained it. One of the parts I especially enjoyed about it was how, while reading it, and then explaining When Rabbit Howls to my friends and family, the idea of her mind is so surreal, almost impossible to believe, that I almost felt as though I was speaking of a fiction book. Each personality is so wonderfully formed and is so complete that some of the ones who have `died' in her mind due to especially traumatizing events give you an odd feeling of depression that made me feel like crying or running to some safe corner of my room. Another part that I enjoyed was the perfect feeling of frustration and helplessness that Truddi Chase depicts in her writing. In chapter 22, the last sentence is "...and sanity seemed a very fragile thing." This shows how her world is finally beginning it make sense and, while that is happening, it is also falling apart. One of the parts I considered most frustrating about the book was the ending. I shall not reveal the specific part that frustrated me so but I must say that it was not an angry frustration but that of feeling incapable to fully grasp a subject clearly beyond your reach. No matter how much I consider it, the idea of Truddi Chase's mind is something I will never quite be able to comprehend. Like many, I'm sure, who have read thi

A RIVETING, HEART-RENDERING STORY!

As a counsellor, I have encountered two individuals with Multiple Personality Disorder, a traumatic emotional affliction which is a result of a severe traumatic experience in childhood, generally extreme physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse. The mind has its own unique built-in defense system which has the potential to create other personalities to help absorb the pain, fear and humiliation. "When Rabbit Howls" is the story of one such woman whose mind "split" and created 92 different personalities. The book gives the reader a clearer understanding of MPD, its's causes and effects, and explains how individuals with MPD can go on to live productive, fulfilling lives with the help of professional therapy.For those interested in reading of similar cases of MPD, I also suggest reading, "Becoming One," by Sarah Olson, "Sybil" by Flora Rhets Schreiber, "First Person Plural" by Dr. Cameron West, and "Silencing the Voices. All of these are excellent books and each one is deserving of a five-star rating.

Emotional Awakening

When Rabbit Howls is the most powerful emotional awakening I have ever experienced. I recalled many things from my own childhood and old emotions welled up inside me. Never before has a book come to life and wrapped itself around me as this one has. When Rabbit Howls snapped me to attention and awoke all of my senses. I could barely wait to visit the Troops every night when I left my world for theirs, in between the two covers of book. Now that I have finished reading the book, I realize that the Troops live on and there is more to their lives. At this very moment, I wonder what they are doing. The Troops have given me strength to face each new day and I have a better understanding of who I am. My heart is heavy with sorrow for the actual core self of the Troops, a little sleeping angel. This is, without a doubt, the saddest life story I have ever heard about. It's as though the book came to life and I, the reader, became very much a part of what was going on. I wish I knew how the troops are doing today and "Stanley". I never gave it much thought before about people having other selves to live for them because of a sleeping or dead core self. It all makes perfect sense to me now and it explains why I talk to myself sometimes..... I just want to give Truddi Chase and the Troops big hugs! I can not describe to you, the energy I felt, as I read each and every account of the Troops lives. This is one book that I believe everyone should read, there is something in it for everyone, including the outsider. Please let it be known that Truddi Chase and the Troops have accomplished what they have set out to do, they have helped me, a sexually/physically abused self. They will ALWAYS be in my daily thoughts.

The Only Sane Response to an Insane Situation...

The Human Spirit is resilient and the mind of the child born as Truddi Chase and who became the Troops are pioneers for those who have until recently no voice ... she exposes poignantly the horror, the pain and the marvelous way a mind can protect itself through the creation of many to help cope with the devastation heaped on her by two very deranged people, who called themselves parents. The movie based on the book is Voices Within and does a good job ... but read this book if you or anyone you know is a multiple and/or a survivor of intense and long term abuse. Troops thank you all!