Chapter three

(1)

Billy Milligan was transferred from the Franklin County Jail to Harding Hospital two days ahead of schedule, on the morning of March 16. Dr. George Harding had assembled and briefed a therapy team for Milligan, but when he arrived unexpectedly, Dr. Harding was away at a psychiatric meeting in Chicago.

Judy Stevenson and Dorothy Turner, who had followed the police car to Harding Hospital, knew what a terrible blow it would be to Danny to be taken back to jail. Dr. Shoemaker, a staff physician, agreed to take personal charge of the patient until Dr. Harding returned, and the sheriff’s deputy signed his prisoner over.

Judy and Dorothy walked with Danny to Wakefield Cottage, a locked psychiatric unit with facilities for fourteen difficult patients requiring constant observation and personal attention. A bed was found and prepared, and Danny was assigned to one of two “special care” rooms whose heavy oak doors had peepholes for around-the-clock observation. A psychiatric aide (called " psych-tech” at Harding Hospital) brought him a lunch tray, and both women stayed with him while he ate.

After lunch, Dr. Shoemaker and three nurses joined them. Turner—feeling it was important for the staff to see the multiple personality syndrome for themselves—suggested to Danny that Arthur come out and meet some of the people who would be working with him.

Nurse.Adrienne McCann, the unit coordinator, had been briefed as part of the therapy team, but the other two nurses were taken completely by surprise.

Donna Egar, mother of five daughters, found it difficult to sort out her emotions at meeting the Campus Rapist. The nurse watched closely as first the little boy talked and then his eyes became fixed in a trance, lips moving silently, conducting an inner conversation. When he looked up, his expression was austere and haughty, and he spoke in a British accent.

She had to keep from laughing, not convinced by Danny or Arthur of either s existence—it could be an act by a brilliant actor to avoid prison, she thought. But she was curious about what Billy Milligan was like; she wanted to know what kind of person would do the things he had done.

Dorothy and Judy spoke to Arthur, reassuring him that he was in a safe place. Dorothy told him she would be coming by in a few days to do some psychological testing. Judy said she and Gary would visit from time to time to work with him on the case.

Psych-tech Tim Sheppard observed the new patient every fifteen minutes through the peephole and made entries on the special-procedures record for that first day:

5: 00 sitting cross-legged on bed, quiet

5: 15 sitting cross-legged on bed, staring

5: 32 standing, looking out window

5: 45 dinner served

6: 02 sitting on edge of bed, staring

6: 07 tray removed, ate well.

At seven-fifteen, Milligan began pacing.

At eight o’clock, Nurse Helen Yaeger went into his room and stayed with him for forty minutes. Her first entry in the nurses’ notes was brief:

3/16/78 Mr. Milligan remains in special care—observed closely for special precautions. Spoke of his multiple personalities. “Arthur” did most of the talking—he has an English accent. Stated that one of the persons—namely Billy—is suicidal and he has been asleep since 16 years of age in order to protect the others from harm. Eating well. Voiding well. Taking foods well. Pleasant and cooperative.

After Nurse Yaeger left, Arthur silently informed the others that Harding Hospital was a safe and supportive environment. Since it would take insight and logic to assist the physicians in therapy, he, Arthur, would henceforth assume complete domination of the spot.

At two twenty-five that morning, Psych-tech Chris Cann heard a loud noise from the room. When he went to check, he saw the patient sitting on the floor.

Tommy was upset at having fallen out of bed. Seconds later, he heard the footsteps and saw the eye at the peephole. As soon as the footsteps faded away, Tommy pulled the taped razor blade from the sole of his foot and carefully hid it, retaping it to the underside of one of the bed slats. He would know where to find it when the time came.

(2)

On his return from Chicago on March 19, Dr. George Harding, Jr., was annoyed that his careful arrangements had been upset by the early transfer. He had planned to greet Milligan in person. He had gone to a great deal of trouble to assemble a therapy team: psychologist, art therapist, adjunctive therapist, psychiatric social worker, doctors, nurses, psych-techs and the Wakefield unit coordinator. He had discussed with them the complexities of multiple personality. When some of the staff admitted openly that they didn't believe in the diagnosis, he listened to them patiently, spoke of his own skepticism and asked them to assist him in fulfilling the charge of the court. They would all have to keep open minds and work together to get an insight into William Stanley Milligan.

Dr. Perry Ayres gave Milligan a physical examination the day after Dr. Harding returned. Ayres wrote in the medical history that frequently Milligans lips moved and his eyes were diverted to the right, usually before responding to a question. Ayres noted that when he asked the patient why he did that, he responded that he was talking to some of the others, especially Arthur, to get the answers to the questions.

“But you're supposed to call us Billy, ” Milligan said, “so no one will think we’re crazy. I’m Danny. It was Allen that filled out that form. But I’m not supposed to talk about the others.” Dr. Ayres quoted this in his report and added:

We agreed early that we would try to talk only about Billy, with the understanding that Danny would give us the health information related to all of them. It was his inability to stick to this agreement that led to the disclosure of the other names. The only ailment he recalls is the hernia repair when Billy was 9— “Davids always been 9, ” and it was David who had the hernia repair. Allen has tunnel vision, but everyone" else has normal vision...

Note: Before going into the examining room, I discussed with him the nature of the examination contemplated, describing it in detail. I emphasized that it would be important to check his hernia repair and his prostate by rectal examination, the latter because of the urinary abnormality [pyuria]. He became very anxious and his lips and eyes moved rapidly as he apparently held a conversation with the others. He nervously but politely told me “that might mess up Billy and David because that’s where Chalmers raped each of them 4 times when we lived on the farm. Chalmers was our stepfather.” He also added at about this point that the mother described in the family history is Billy’s mother, “but she’s not my mother—I don’t know my mother.”

Rosalie Drake and Nick Cicco, co-therapists in Wakefield Cottage’s “mini-group” program, became most closely involved with Milligan on a day-to-day basis. At ten each morning and three each afternoon, seven or eight of the Wakefield patients would be brought together to work on projects and activities as a group.

On March 21, Nick brought Milligan from the special-care room, now locked only at night, to the activities room. The slender twenty-seven-year-old psych-tech, who sported a full beard and wore two earrings—a delicate gold loop and a jade stone—in his left ear lobe, had heard of Milligans hostility toward males because of the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child. He was curious about multiple personality, though he was skeptical about the whole idea.

Rosalie, a blond, blue-eyed occupational therapist in her late twenties, had never dealt with a multiple personality before. But after the briefing by Dr. Harding, she became aware that the staff had quickly divided into two camps: those who believed Milligan was a multiple and those who believed he was a con man—faking this exotic illness to gain attention and to avoid going to prison for rape. Rosalie was struggling hard to keep an open mind.

When Milligan seated himself at the end of the table; apart from the others, Rosalie Drake told him that the mini-group patients had decided the day before to make collages that would say something about themselves to someone they loved. “I don’t have anyone I love to make one for, ” he said. “Then do it for us, ” Rosalie said. “Everyone is doing it.” She held up a sheet of construction paper she was working on. “Nick and I are doing them too.”

Rosalie watched from a distance as Milligan took a sheet of eight-by-eleven construction paper and started cutting photographs from magazines. She had heard of Milligans artistic ability, and now, looking at the shy, quiet patient, she was curious to see what he would do. He worked silently, calmly. When he was done, she walked over and looked at it.

His collage startled her. It showed a frightened, tearful child looking out of the center of the page, and beneath him the name morrison. Looming over him was an angry man and, in red, the word danger. In the lower right comer was a skull.

She was touched by its simplicity of statement, the depth of emotion. She hadn’t asked for anything like this, and it wasn’t what she’d expected. It revealed, she felt, a painful history. She shivered when she looked at it, and right then and there she knew she was hooked. No matter what doubts the others in the hospital might have about him, this, she knew, was not the product of an unfeeling sociopath. Nick Cicco agreed.

Dr. George (so called by staff and patients to distinguish him from his father, Dr. George Harding, Sr.) began to read the relevant psychiatric journals and discovered that the disease known as multiple personality seemed to be on the increase. The doctor made calls to various psychiatrists, and all of them said much the same thing: “We’ll share with you the little we know, but this is an area we don’t understand. You’ll have to blaze your own trail.”

It was going to take much more time and effort than Dr. George had first imagined, and he wondered if he had done the right thing accepting this patient in the middle of a fundraising campaign and expansion program for the hospital. He reassured himself that it was important to Billy Milligan, and important to the profession, to help psychiatry probe the limits of knowledge about the human mind.

Before he could provide the court with an evaluation, he would have to learn Billy Milligans history. Considering the massive amnesia, that posed a serious problem.

On Thursday, March 23, Gary Schweickart and Judy Stevenson visited their client for an hour, going over his vague memory of events, comparing his story with those of the three victims, planning alternative legal strategies, depending on Dr. Hardings report to the court.

Both attorneys found Milligan more at ease, though he complained about being locked up in special care and having to wear “special precaution” clothes. “Dr. George says I can be treated just like the other patients here, but nobody here trusts me. The other patients are allowed to go off the grounds in the van on excursions, but not me. I have to stay here. And I just get furious when they insist on calling me Billy.”

They tried to calm him, to explain that Dr. George had gone out on a limb for him, and that he had to be careful not to try the doctors patience. Judy sensed he was Allen, but she didn’t ask, always afraid he might be insulted that she didn’t know him.

Gary said, “I think you should try to cooperate with the staff here. It’s your only chance to stay out of jail.”

As they left, both agreed that they were relieved he was safe and that the day-to-day responsibility and worry were off their backs for a while.

Later that day the first therapy session was a strained fifty-minute hour for Dr. Harding. Milligan sat on the chair facing the window in the interview room at Wakefield, but he would not, at first, make eye contact. He seemed to remember very little of his past, although he talked freely of the abuse by his adoptive father.

Dr. Harding knew he was being overcautious in his approach. Dr. Wilbur had told him to find out as soon as possible how many personalities there were, to establish their identities. The alternates needed to be encouraged to tell why they existed and to be permitted to relive the specific situations that had caused their creation.

Then all of the alternates had to be encouraged to know one another, to communicate and to help one another with their different problems, sharing things instead of being separated. The strategy, Wilbur had said, was to bring.the others together and eventually introduce Billy—the core personality—to the memories of those incidents. Then, finally, fusion might be attempted. Though the temptation was great to try her approach, the way she had skillfully brought the personalities out in the jail, George Harding had long ago learned his lesson. What worked for someone else didn’t always work for him. He considered himself a very conservative man, and he would have to learn in his own way, and in his own good time, who and what he had here.

As the days went by, Nurse Donna Egar discovered that she was pretty much on a one-to-one basis with Milligan. He slept very little, far less than most of the other patients, and waked early, so she got to talk to him a great deal. He spoke about the other people who lived with him inside his body.

One day he handed her a sheet of paper with writing all over it and signed “Arthur. ” He seemed quite frightened, saying, “I don’t know anybody named Arthur, and I don’t understand what’s written on the paper.”

Soon the staff was complaining to Dr. George that they found it increasingly difficult to deal with someone who constantly said, “I didn’t do that, someone else did, ” when they had seen it happen with their own eyes. Milligan, they said, was undermining the treatment of other patients, manipulating the staff by going from one to the other to get what he wanted. He constantly hinted that Ragen might come out and handle matters, and the staff saw this as a veiled threat.

Dr. George suggested that he be the one to deal with Milligan’s alter personalities, and then only in therapy sessions. The staff should not mention or discuss the other names on the unit, especially not in front of the other patients.

Helen Yaeger, the nurse who had spoken to Arthur on the first day, now entered this treatment plan on the nursing-goal sheet dated March 28:

Within one month Mr. Milligan will accept responsibility for acts which he denies as evidenced by no statements of denial of these behaviors.

Plan:

(1) When denies ability to play piano—staff replies they saw or heard him play—maintain a matter of fact attitude.(2) When observed writing notes that he denies knowledge of—staff should tell him he was seen writing notes.(3) When patient refers to himself as another personality—staff should remind him his name is Billy. Dr. George explained his approach to Allen during the therapy session by pointing out that the other patients on the unit became confused when they heard the various names of the personalities.

“Some people call themselves Napoleon or Jesus Christ, ” Allen said.

“But its different if I and the staff do it—call you Danny one day and Arthur or Ragen or Tommy or Allen another time. I suggest that to the staff and to the patients, all your personalities answer to the name of Billy, while in—”

“They’re not ‘personalities, ’ Dr. George. They’re people.” “Why do you make the distinction? ”

“When you call them personalities, it’s as if you don’t think they’re real.”

(3)

On April 8, several days after Dorothy Turner had begun a program of psychological testing, Donna Egar saw Milligan walking back and forth in his room angrily. When she asked him what was wrong, he answered in his British accent, “No ope understands.”

Then she saw his face change again and then his whole posture, walk and speech, and she knew it was Danny. At that point, seeing how consistent he was, how real these different personalities were, she no longer assumed he was faking. She had to admit that she, alone of the nursing staff, had come around to being a believer.

A few days later, he came to her, very upset. She could tell quickly that it was Danny. He stared at her and said pathetically, “Why am I here? ”

“Where do you mean? ” she asked. “Here in this room, or in this building? ”

He shook his head. “Some of the other patients asked me why I’m in this hospital.”

“Maybe Dorothy Turner can explain it to you when she comes to do your testing, ” she said.

That evening, after his testing session with Dorothy Turner was over, he wouldn’t talk to anyone. He ran into his room and went to the bathroom to wash his face. A few seconds later,

Danny heard his front door open and close. He looked out and saw a young woman patient named Dorine. Though he often listened to her problems sympathetically and talked about his own, he had no other interest in her.

“Why are you here? ” he asked.

“I wanted to talk to you. Why did you get so upset tonight? ” “You know you can’t come in here. Its against the rules.” “But you look so depressed.”

“I found out what someone did. Its terrible. I’m not fit to live. ” Just then footsteps approached, followed by a knock on the door. Dorine jumped into the bathroom with him and closed the door behind her.

“What’d you do that for? ” he whispered harshly. “I’ll get into worse trouble. Now it’ll be a mess. ’

She giggled.

“All right, Billy and Dorine! ” Nurse Jaeger called. “You two can come out whenever you’re ready.”

In the nurses’ notes for April 9, 1979, Nurse Yaeger wrote:

Mr. Milligan—found in his bathroom with female peer—light off—When questioned about this stated he needed to be alone to talk to her about something he found out he did—Related with questioning that during his psychological testing this evening with Mrs. Turner, he learned he had raped three women. Became very tearful, saying he wanted “Ragen and Adalana to die.” Dr. George called—incident explained. Placed in special care room and on special precautions. Few minutes later patient observed sitting on bed with bathrobe tie in hand. Still tearful, saying he wanted to kill them. After speaking to him for a while he gave up bathrobe tie. Prior to doing this placed around neck.

In her testing, Dorothy Turner discovered significant IQ variation among the different personalities:

VERBAL IQ

PERFORMANCE

FULL SCALE

Allen

Ragen

David

Danny

Tommy

Christopher

Christene was too young to be tested, Adalana would not come out and Arthur declined to take the IQ portion of the tests, saying it was beneath his dignity.

Turner discovered that Dannys Rorschach responses revealed poorly concealed hostility and a need for external support to offset the feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. Tommy showed more maturity than Danny and more potential for acting out. He had the most schizoid characteristics and the least concern for others. Ragen showed the most potential for violent acting out.

Arthur she found strongly intellectual, and she felt he relied on this to maintain his position of direction over the others. He also appeared to her to maintain a compensatory feeling of superiority to the world at large, but had feelings of uneasiness and was threatened by emotionally stimulating situations. Emotionally, Allen appeared to be an almost detached personality.

She found some things in common: evidence of a feminine identity and of a strong superego, which anger threatened to override. She did not find evidence of psychotic process, nor of schizophrenic thought disorder.

When Rosalie Drake and Nick Cicco announced that the mini-group would be doing trust exercises on April 19, Arthur allowed Danny to take the spot. The staff had prepared the rec room with tables, chairs, couches and boards, turning it into an obstacle course.

Knowing Milligans fear of men, Nick had suggested that Rosalie blindfold and lead him through. “You’ve got to work with me, Billy, ” she said. “It’s the only way to build enough confidence in other people so you can live in the real world.”

He finally allowed her to blindfold him.

“Now hold my hand, ” she said, leading him into the room. “I’m going to take you over and around the obstacle course, and I’ll keep you from being hurt.”

As she led him, she could see and feel his uncontrolled terror at not knowing where he was moving or what he might crash into. They moved slowly at first and then faster, around chairs, under tables, up and down ladders. Seeing his panic, both she and Nick admired him for going through with it.

“I didn’t let you get hurt, did I, Billy? ”

Danny shook his head.

“You’ve got to learn that there are some people you can trust. Not everyone, of course, but some.”

Rosalie noticed that more and more in her presence, he assumed the little-boy role she had come to know as Danny. It upset her that so many of his drawings contained death images.

The following Tuesday, Allen was permitted to go for the first time to the adjunctive therapy building to attend expressive-art class, where he would be able to sketch and paint.

Don Jones, the mild-mannered art therapist, was impressed by Milligan’s natural talent, but Jones could see he was anxious and restive about being in the new group. The bizarre drawings, he realized, were Billy’s way of attracting attention and seeking approval.

Jones pointed to a sketch of a tombstone engraved with the words “do not r.i.p.”

“Could you tell us something about that, Billy? What were your feelings when you drew that? ”

“Its Billy’s real father, ” Allen said. “He was a comedian and a master of ceremonies in Miami, Florida, before he killed himself.”

“Why don’t you tell us what you felt? We want to get in touch with feelings rather than details at this point, Billy.” Allen threw down his pencil in disgust at still having Billy get credit for his artwork, and looked up at the clock. “I’ve got to get back to the unit to make my bed.”

The next day he talked to Nurse Yaeger about the treatment, complaining that it was all wrong. When she told him he was interfering with the staff and the patients, he became upset. “I’m not responsible for things that are done by my other people, ” he said.

“We can’t relate to your other people, ” Yaeger said, “only to Billy.”

He shouted, “Dr. Harding isn’t treating me the way Dr. Wilbur told him to. This treatment is no good.”

He demanded to read his chart, and when Yaeger refused, he said he knew he could make the hospital allow him access to his records. He was certain, he said, that the staff was not recording his changes of behavior and that he wouldn’t be able to account for his lost time.

That evening, after a visit by Dr. George, Tommy announced to the staff that he was firing his doctor. Later Allen came out of his room and said he was reinstating him.

After she was given permission to visit, Milligans mother, Dorothy Moore, came almost every week, often with her daughter, Kathy. Her sons reactions were unpredictable. Sometimes after her visit he would be happy and outgoing. Other times he would be depressed.

Joan Winslow, the psychiatric social worker, reported in the team meeting that she had interviewed Dorothy after each of her visits. Winslow found her a warm and giving person, but speculated that her shy and dependent nature had prevented her from interfering with the reported abuses. Dorothy had told her she always felt there were two Billys—one a kind and loving boy, the other someone who didn’t care if he hurt peoples feelings.

It was Nick Cicco who noted on the chart that after a visit from Mrs. Moore on April 18, Milligan seemed very upset and isolated himself in his room with a pillow over his head.

By the end of April, with six of the twelve weeks gone, Dr. George felt things were going too slowly. He needed some way to establish lines of communication between the personalities and the original personality, the core Billy. But first he had to break through and reach Billy, whom he had not seen since that Sunday when Dr. Wilbur had convinced Ragen to let him come out.

It occurred to Dr. George that it might be effective to confront the core personality and the alter egos with videotaped records of their speech and behavior. Dr. George told Allen about his idea and how important it was for the personalities to communicate with one another and with Billy. Allen agreed to it.

Latei; Allen told Rosalie he was very pleased about the videotape they were'going to make of him. He was nervous about it, but Dr. George had convinced him that he would learn a lot about himself

Dr. George held the first videotaped session on May 1. Dorothy Turner was present because he knew Billy felt at ease with her and because he intended to try to bring out Adalana. Though he had at first resisted bringing out new people, he realized it was necessary to understand the significance of this female aspect of Milligans personality.

He repeated several times how helpful it would be if Adalana would come out and talk to them. Finally, after several switches to the others, Milligan’s face changed to a soft, tearful expression. The voice was choked and nasal. The face became almost feminine. The eyes drifted.

“It hurts to talk, ” Adalana said.

Dr. George tried to hide his excitement at the switch. He had wanted her to come out; he had expected it. But when it happened, it came as a surprise. “Why does it hurt? ” he asked. ‘Because of the boys. I got them into trouble.”

“What did you do? ” he asked.

Dorothy Turner, who had met Adalana in the jail the night before the transfer, sat by silently and watched.

“They don’t understand what love is, ” Adalana said, “what it means to be held and cared for. I stole that time. I felt Ragen s alcohol and pills. Oh, it hurts to talk about it...”

“Yes, but we need to talk about it, ” Dr. George said, “to help us understand.”

‘ I did it. It’s a little too late to say I’m sorry now, isn’t it? I ruined the boys’ lives... But they just didn’t understand...”

“Understand what? ” Turner asked.

“What love is. What the need for love is. To be held by someone. Just to feel warm and cared for. I don’t know what made me do it.”

“During that time, ” Turner asked, “did you feel warm and cared for? ”

Adalana paused and whispered, “Just for a few moments... I stole that time. Arthur didn’t put me on the spot. I wished Ragen off the spot...”

She glanced around tearfully. “I don’t like to go through this. I can’t go into the courtroom. I don’t want to say anything to Ragen... I want out of the boys’ lives. I don’t want to mess them up anymore... I feel so damned guilty... Just why did I do it? ”

“When did you first begin to be on the spot? ” Dr. George asked.

“Last summer I started stealing time. And when the boys were in solitary confinement in Lebanon, I stole some time to write poems. I love to write poems...” She wept. “What are they going to do to the boys? ”

“We don’t know, ” Dr. George said softly. “We’re trying to understand as much as we can.”

“Just don’t hurt them too bad, ” Adalana said.

“When these incidents occurred last October, were you aware of what was being planned? ” he asked.

“Yes. I know everything. I know things Arthur doesn’t even know... But I couldn’t stop it. I was feeling the pills and the alcohol. I don’t know why I did it. I was so lonely. ”

She sniffled and asked for a Kleenex.

Dr. George watched Adalana’s face closely as he questioned her very cautiously, afraid of frightening her away. “Were there friends you found... some pleasure in? To deal with some of your loneliness? ”

“I never talk to anybody. Not even to the boys... I talk to Christene.”

“You said it was during the summer that you were on the spot some of the time, and in Lebanon. Were you on the spot before that time? ”

“Not on the spot. But I was there. I’ve been there for a long time.”

“When Chalmer—”

“Yes! ” she snapped. “Don’t talk about him! ”

“Can you relate with Billy’s mother? ”

“No! She couldn’t even relate with the boys.”

“Billy’s sister, Kathy? ”

“Yes, I talked to Kathy. But she didn’t know it, I think. We went shopping together.”

“Billy’s brother, James? ”

“No... I don’t even like him.”

Adalana wiped her eyes and then sat back, looking at the videotape machine, startled, sniffling. Then she was silent for a long time and Dr. George knew she was gone. He watched the glazed expression and waited to see who would come on the spot.

“It would be very helpful, ” he said, gently, persuasively, “if we could talk to Billy.”

The face changed to a startled, frightened look as Billy glanced around quickly to take in his surroundings. Dr. George recognized the expression he had seen in the Franklin County Jail that day Dr. Wilbur had brought out Billy, the core personality.

Dr. George spoke to him gently, afraid he would disappear before he could make contact. Billy’s knees jiggled nervously, eyes glanced around fearfully.

“Do you know where you are? ” Dr. George asked.

“No? ” He shrugged and said it as if answering a yes-or-no question on a school test and uncertain whether he had the right answer.

“This is a hospital and I’m your doctor.”

“Jesus, he’ll kill me if I talk to a doctor.”

“Who will? ”

Billy glanced around and saw the videotape camera pointed at him.

“What’s that? ”

“That’s for recording this session. It’s a videotape machine, and we thought it would be helpful to have a record of this session so that you could see what was happening.”

But then he was gone.

“That thing frightened him, ” Tommy said in disgust.

“I explained it was a videotape recorder and—”

Tommy snickered. “He probaoly didn’t know what you were talking about.”

When the session was over and Tommy had gone back to Wakefield Cottage, Dr. George sat alone in his office and thought about it for a long time. He knew he would have to tell the court that although William S. Milligan was not insane jn the usual sense of being psychotic (since dissociation was considered a neurosis), it was his best medical judgment that because Milligan was so far removed from reality that he couldn’t conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, he was not responsible for those crimes.

What remained to be done was to continue treating this patient and in some way make him competent to stand trial.

But with less than six weeks left of the three months provided by the court, how did you cure an illness that had taken psychoanalysts like Cornelia Wilbur in her work with Sybil more than ten years to accomplish?

The next morning, Arthur decided it was important to share with Ragen what he had learned about Adalana during Dr. George’s videotaping session. He paced back and forth in the special-care room and spoke aloud to Ragen: “The mystery of the rapes has been solved. I know now who did it.”

His voice changed quickly to Ragen’s: “How you know? ”

“I have learned some new facts and put the information together.”

“Who it vas? ”

“I guess, since you have been blamed for those crimes you didn’t commit, you have a right to know.”

The conversation went on with rapid-fire switching, sometimes aloud, sometimes in the mind as speech without sound.

“Ragen, do you recall at times in the past hearing female voices? ”

“Yes, I have heard Christene. And—yes, other voices of vomans.”

“Well, when you went out stealing, three times last October, one of our females got involved.”

“Vat you mean? ”

“There is a young woman you have never met, called Adalana.”

“I never hear of her. ”

“She’s a very sweet and gentle person. She’s the one who has always done the cooking and cleaning up for us. She did the flower arrangements when Allen got the job at the florist’s shop. It just never occurred to me that—”

“Vat she have to do about it? Did she take money? ”

“No, Ragen. She’s the one who raped your victims.”

“She raped girls? Arthur, how does z she rape a girl? ” “Ragen, have you ever heard of a lesbian? ”

“All right, ” Ragen said, “how does a lesbian rape another girl? ” _j

“Well, that’s why they accused you. When one of the males is on the spot, some of them have the physical ability to perform sex, even though we both know I have laid down the rule that we are to be celibate. She used your body.”

“You mean I am blamed all this time for a rape this bitch committed? ”

“Yes, but I want you to talk to her and let her explain.” “So that is vat all this rape talk is about? I kill her.” “Ragen, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? ”.

“Adalana, I want you to meet Ragen. Since Ragen is our protector, he has a right to know what happened. You will have to explain yourself and justify your actions to him.”

A soft, delicate voice echoed in his mind, as if from the darkness beyond. It was like a hallucination or a dream voice. “Ragen, I’m sorry for the trouble—”

“Sorry! ” Ragen snarled, pacing. “You filty slut. Vy for you go around raping vomans? Do you realize vat you put us all through? ”

He turned sharply, stepping off the spot, and suddenly the room was filled with a sound of a woman crying.

Nurse Helen Yaegers face appeared at the peephole. “Can I help you, Billy? ”

“Blast you, madam! ” Arthur said. “Leave us alone! ”

Yaeger left, upset that Arthur had snapped at her. When she was gone, Adalana tried to explain herself: “You have to understand, Ragen, my needs are different from the rest of you.” “Vy in hell you have sex vit vomans anyvay? You are voman yourself.”

“You men don’t understand. At least the children know what love is, what compassion is, what it means to put your arms around somebody and say, ‘I love you, care about you, have feelings for you.”’

“I must interrupt, ” said Arthur, “but I have always felt that physical love is illogical and anachronistic, considering the most recent advancements in scientific—”

“You’re crazy! ” Adalana screamed. “Both of you! ” Then her voice softened again. “If you could just experience what it’s like to be held and cared for, you’d understand.”

“Look, bitch! ” Ragen snapped. “I do not care who or vat you are. If you so much as speak to another person on this unit—or to any other person again—I vill make sure you die.”

“One moment, ” Arthur said. “You do not make those decisions at Harding. Here I am dominant. You listen to me.” “You are going to allow her to get avay vit this shit? ”

“By no means. I will handle it. But you are not the one to tell her she can no longer take the spot. You have nothing to say about it. You were idiotic enough to allow her to steal that time from you. You had not enough control. Your stupid vodka and marijuana and amphetamines made you so vulnerable that you put Billy’s and everyone else’s life in danger. Yes, Adalana did it. But the responsibility was yours, because you are the protector. And when you became vulnerable, you put not only yourself but everyone else in danger.”

Ragen started to speak, but backed away. Seeing the plant on the windowsill, he swung his arm and swept it to the floor.

“Having said that, ” Arthur continued, “I agree that Adalana will henceforth be classified as ‘undesirable. ’ Adalana, you will never again take the spot. You will no longer take time.”

She moved to the comer, facing the wall, and wailed until she left the spot.

There was a long silence, and David came and wiped the tears from his eyes. Seeing the plant in the broken pot on the floor, he watched it, knowing it was dying. It hurt to see it lying there with its roots exposed. He could feel it withering away.

Nurse Yaeger came back to the door with a tray of food. “Are you sure I can’t help you? ”

David cringed. “Are you going to put me in jail for murdering the plant? ”

She set the tray down and put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder. “No, Billy. No one is going to put you in jail. We’re going to take care of you and make you better. ”

Dr. George took time from his busy schedule to attend the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Atlanta on Monday, May 8. He’d seen Milligan the previous Friday and arranged for him to begin intensive therapy, while he was gone, with the Director of Psychology, Dr. Marlene Kocan.

Marlene Kocan, a New Yorker, was among those at Harding Hospital who had from the beginning doubted the diagnosis of multiple personality, although she never expressed this openly. Then one afternoon as she was talking to Allen in her office, Nurse Donna Egar greeted her: “Hi, Marlene. How’ve you been? ”

Allen turned instantly and blurted out, “Marlene is the name of Tommy’s girl friend. ”

That moment, seeing how spontaneous his remark was, spoken with no time for reflection, Dr. Kocan decided he was not faking.

“That’s my first name too, ” Kocan said. “You say she’s Tommy’s girl friend? ”

“Well, she doesn’t know it’s Tommy. She calls all of us Billy. But Tommy’s the one who gave her an engagement ring. She never knew the secret.”

Dr. Kocan said pensively, “It’s going to be quite a shock when she finds out.”

At the APA meeting, Dr. Harding brought Dr. Cornelia Wilbur up to date on Milligans progress. He told her he now believed fully that Milligan was a multiple personality. He described Milligans refusal to recognize the other names in public and the problems it was causing.

“He’s used it in Dr. Pugliese’s group therapy and caused problems with the other patients. When hes asked to share his problems, he just says, ‘My doctor told me not to talk about it.’ You can imagine the effect of that and of his tendency to play junior therapist. Hes been dropped from group.”

“You’ve got to understand, ” Wilbur said, “what it does to the alter personalities not to be recognized. Sure, they’re used to responding to the original name, but once the secret is out, it makes them feel not wanted.”

Dr. George considered that and asked Wilbur what she thought about his attempting to treat Milligan in the brief time left.

“I think you should ask the court for at least another ninety days, ” she said./‘And then I think you should try to fuse him so that he can help his attorneys and stand trial.”

“The state of Ohio is sending a forensic psychiatrist down to look him over about two weeks from now, on May 26. I was wondering if you’d consider coming to the hospital for a consultation. I could use your support.”

Wilbur agreed to come.

Although the APA meeting was scheduled to run until Friday, Dr. George left Atlanta on Wednesday. He called a team meeting at Wakefield the following day and told the staff that after discussing the case with Dr. Wilbur, he had decided that not recognizing the alternate personalities was counter-therapeutic.

“We thought if we ignored the multiple personalities, perhaps that would integrate them, but actually it’s just caused them to go underground. We’ve got to continue to stress the need for responsibility and accountability, but we’ve got to avoid repressing the various personalities.”

He pointed out that if there was to be any hope of achieving fusion so that Milligan could go to trial, all the personalities would have to be recognized and dealt with as individuals.

Rosalie Drake felt relieved. Secretly, she had always responded to them anyway, especially Danny. It would be easier now for everyone, having it all out in the open instead of pretending it didn’t exist just because of the few who still didn’t believe.

Donna Egar smiled when she entered the new plan on the nursing-goal sheet of May 12, 1978:

Mr. Milligan will feel free to refer to other personalities in order to allow him to discuss feelings which he otherwise finds hard to express. Evidence will be his frank discussion with staff.

Plan:

(A) Do not deny that he experiences these dissociations.(B) When he believes he is another personality, elicit his feelings in that situation. (4)

When the mini-group began working in the garden in midMay, Rosalie Drake and Nick Cicco discovered that Danny was terrified of the hand-run Rototiller. They began a deconditioning program, telling Danny to come closer and closer to the machine. When Nick said that one of these days he’d lose his fear of it and even be able to run it, Danny nearly fainted.

Several days later; one of Rosalie’s other male patients refused to cooperate in the gardening project. Allen had noticed that from time to time the man seemed to enjoy picking on her.

“This is stupid, ” the patient shouted. “It’s obvious you don’t know a goddamned thing about gardening.”

“Well, all we can do is try, ” Rosalie said.

“You’re just a fucking stupid broad, ” the patient said. “You don’t know a goddamned thing more about gardening than you do about group therapy.”

Allen saw her near tears, but he said nothing. He let Danny out for a while to work with Nick. Back in his room later, Allen started to come on the spot but felt himself jerked back and slammed into a wall. That was something only Ragen could do, and only close to the moment of switching.

“Jesus, what’s that for? ” Allen whispered.

“In garden this morning you permit that big mouth to offend a lady.”

“Well, it’s none of my doing.”

“You know rules. You do not stand by and see voman or child hurt or offended vithout taking action.”

“Well, why didn’t you do something? ”

“I vas not on spot. It vas your responsibility. Remember that, or next time ven you are coming on spot, I break your head.”

The next day, when the aggressive patient insulted Rosalie again, Allen grabbed him by the collar and glared ferociously. " Watch your goddamned mouth! ”

He hoped the man wouldn’t start anything. If he did, Allen decided, he was going to leave and let Ragen do the fighting. That was for sure.

Rosalie Drake found that she constantly had to defend Milligan against those in the hospital who said he was nothing more than a eon man faking to get out of a prison sentence and against those who were offended by Allens demands for special privileges, pitting one staff member against another, by Arthurs arrogance and by Tommy’s antisocial attitude. She was furious when she heard some of the nurses complain that Dr. George’s pet patient was taking up too much of the hospital’s time and facilities. And she cringed when she heard the sneering remark again and again: " They worry more about that rapist than they do about his victims.” When you were trying to help the mentally disordered, she insisted, you had to put aside feelings of vengeance and deal with the individual.

One morning, Rosalie watched as Billy Milligan sat on the steps outside Wakefield Cottage, moving his lips, talking to himself. A change came over him. He looked up, startled, shook his head, touched his cheek.

Then he noticed a butterfly, reached out and caught it. When he peeked between his cupped palms, he jumped to his feet with a cry. He moved his open hands, sweeping them upward as if to help the butterfly take flight again. It fell to the ground and lay there. He looked at it in anguish.

As Rosalie approached him, he turned, obviously frightened, tears in his eyes. She had the feeling, without knowing why, that this was someone different from the others she had met He picked up the butterfly. " It don’t fly anymore.”

She smiled at him warmly, wondering if she should risk calling him by his right name. Finally she whispered^ " Hello, Billy. I’ve been waiting for a long time to meet you.”

She sat beside him on the steps as he hugged his knees and looked in awe at the grass and the trees and the sky.

A few days later, in mini-group, Arthur allowed Billy to take the spot again and work with clay. Nick encouraged him to model a head, and Billy worked at it for nearly an hour, rolling the clay into a ball, adding pieces for eyes and a nose, and pushing in two pellets for the irises.

“I made a head, ” he said proudly.

“That’s very good, ” said Nick. “Who is it supposed to be? ”

“Does it have to be someone? ”

“No, I just thought it might be.”

As Billy glanced away, Allen took the spot and looked at the clay head in disgust—it was just a gray blob with pellets of clay stuck on it. He picked up the modeling tool to reshape it. He’d turn it into a bust of Abraham Lincoln or maybe Dr. George, and show Nick what real sculpture was.

As he moved toward the face, the tool slipped, digging into his arm and drawing blood.

Allen’s mouth fell open. He knew he hadn’t been that clumsy. Suddenly, he felt himself thrown against the wall. Damnit. Ragen again.

“What’d I do now? ” he whispered.

The answer echoed in his head. “You do not ever touch Billy’s vork.”

“Hell, I was only going to—”

“You ver going to show off. To show you are talented artist. But now is more important for Billy to have therapy.”

That evening, alone in his room, Allen complained to Arthur that he was sick and tired of being pushed around by Ragen. “If he’s so finicky about everything, let him or one of the others handle it.”

“You’ve been quite argumentative, ” Arthur said. “Creating dissension. Because of you, Dr. Pugliese dropped us from group therapy. Your constant manipulation has created hostility in many of the Wakefield staff.”

“Well, then, let someone else handle things. Put on someone who doesn’t talk much. Billy and the children need the treatment. Let them deal with these people.”

“I’ve been planning to let Billy take the spot more frequently, ” Arthur said. “After he meets Dr. George, it will be time for Billy to meet the rest of us.”

(5)

As Milligan entered the interview room on Wednesday, May 24, Dr. George noticed the frightened, almost desperate look in his eyes, as if he would flee or collapse at any moment. He stared at the floor, and Dr. George felt there was a tenuous thread holding him in the here and now. They sat silently for a while, Billy’s knees jiggling nervously, and then Dr. George said softly, “Maybe you can tell me just a little bit how you feel about coming up and talking with me here this morning.”

“I don’t know anything about it, ” Billy said, his voice nasal and whining.

“You didn’t know you were going to come up and meet with me here? When did you come on the spot? ”

Billy looked confused. “The spot? ”

“When did you become aware that you and I were going to be talking? ”

“When that guy came and told me to come with him.” “What did you think was going to happen? ”

“He told me I was gonna go see a doctor. I didn’t know why.” His knees were jiggling up and down uncontrollably.

The conversation moved slowly, with agonizing silences, as Dr. George worked to establish a rapport with what he felt certain was the core Billy. Like a fisherman handling his pole with delicacy to work the line but keep it from breaking, he whispered, “How are you feeling? ”

“Fine, I guess.”

“What kinds of problems have you been having? ”

“Well... I do things and I don’t remember ’em... I go to sleep... and people tell me I do things.”

“What kind of things do they say you do? ”

“Bad things... criminal stuff.”

“Things that you thought of doing? Most of us think of doing a whole lot of different things at different times.”

“Just every time I wake up, somebody says I did something bad.”

“What do you think of it when they tell you you’ve done something bad? ”

“I just wanna die... ’cause I don’t wanna hurt nobody.” He was trembling so badly that Dr. George quickly changed the subject. “You were telling me about sleeping. Just how much do you sleep? ”

“Oh, it don’t seem like a long time, but it is. I keep hearing things, too... somebody trying to talk to me.”

“What are they trying to say? ”

“I can’t really understand ’em.”

“Because it’s in whispers? Or garbled? Or indistinct, so you can’t make out the words? ”

“Its real quiet... and it sounds like its from somewhere else.” ^

“Like from another room or another country? ”

“Yeah, ” Billy said. “Like from another country.”

“Any particular country? ”

After a long pause as he searched his memory, he said, “It sounds like people on James Bond. And the other sounds like Russian. Is that the people the lady told me was inside me? ” “Could be, ” Dr. George whispered, almost inaudibly, worried as he saw the look of alarm cross Billy’s face.

Billy’s voice rose to a cry: “What are they doiri in there? ” “What are they saying to you? That might help us to understand. Are they giving you directions or guidance or counsel? ” “Sounds like they keep saying, ‘Listen to what he says. Listen to what he says.’”

“Referring to whom? To me? ”

“I guess so.”

“When I’m not with you, when you’re alone, do you hear them talking to you too? ”

Billy sighed. “Kinda like they’re talking about me. With other people.”

“Do they act as if they need to protect you? Talk about you to other people, but as if they need to shield you? ”

“I think they make me go to sleep.”

“When do they make you go to sleep? ”

“When I get too upset.”

“Do you feel it’s when you can’t handle the upset? Because that’s one of the reasons people go to sleep, to get away from whatever’s upsetting them. Do you feel as if you’re getting strong enough now so that they wouldn’t have to be so protective of you? ”

“Who’s they? ” he cried out, his voice rising in alarm again. “Who are these people? Why don’t they let me stay awake? ” Dr. George realized he had to take another direction. “What are the things that are hardest for you to deal with? ” “Somebody going to hurt me.”

“Does that frighten you? ”

“It would make me go to sleep.”

“But you still could get hurt, ” Dr. George insisted. “Even though you didn’t know it.”

Billy put his hands on his jiggling knees. “But if I go to

“What happens then? ”

“I dunno... Every time I wake up, I’m not hurt.” After a long silence, he looked up again. “Nobody said why these people are here.”

“The ones who have been talking to you? ”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe its because of what you’ve just been saying, that somehow when you didn’t know how to protect yourself from some danger, another side of you has been able to figure out a way to protect yourself from being hurt. ”

“Another side of me? ”

Dr. George smiled and nodded, waiting for a response. Billy’s voice quivered, “How come I don’t know the other side? ” ^

“Because there must be some great fear inside of you, ” Dr. George said, “that prevents you from taking the actions that are necessary to protect you. Somehow it’s too frightening for you to do this. And so you have to go to sleep in order for that side of you to take those corrective actions.”

Billy seemed to be considering it, and then he looked up, as if struggling to understand. “Why am I that way? ”

“There must have been things that frightened you terribly when you were very small.”

After a long silence, Billy sobbed, “I don’t want to think about those things. They hurt.”

“But you were asking me why you had to go to sleep when there were situations you were afraid of being hurt in.”

Billy looked around and in a choked voice said, “How’d I get here in this hospital? ”

“Mrs. Turner, Dr. Karolin and Dr. Wilbur felt that perhaps if you came to the hospital, you wouldn’t have to go to sleep. That you’d be able to learn how to deal with problems and frightening experiences, and that you’d be able to deal with them.” ^ ^

“You mean you guys c’n do that? ” sobbed Billy.

“We certainly would like to try to help you do that. Would you like us to try? ”

Billy’s voice rose to a cry again: “You mean, you’ll get these people outta me? ”

Dr. George settled back. He had to be careful not to promise too much. “We’d like to help you so that you don’t have to go to sleep. So that these sides of you can help make you a strong and healthy person.”

“I won’t hear ’em anymore? And they won’t be able to put me to sleep? ”

Dr. George chose his words carefully: “If you become strong enough, there won’t be any need to put you to sleep.”

“I didn’t think nobody’d ever be able to help. I—I didn’t know... Anytime I turned around, I’d wake up... I was locked in a room—back in the box...’’He choked up, eyes flicking back and forth in terror.

“That would be very frightening, ” Dr. George said, trying to reassure him. “Terribly frightening.”

“I always got put in a box, ” Billy said, his voice rising. “Does he know I’m here? ”

“Who? ”

“My dad.”

“I’ve had no contact with him. I don’t know if he knows you’re here.”

“I—I’m not supposed to tell things. If he knew you was talking to me, he’d... oh!... he’d kill me... and bury me in the bam...”

The painful expression on Billy’s face was terrible to see as he cringed and then looked down. The line had snapped. Dr. George knew he’d lost him.

Allen’s voice came out softly. “Billy’s asleep. Arthur didn’t even put him to sleep. He just went to sleep because he started remembering again.”

“Talking about those things was just too difficult, is that right? ”

“What was you talking about? ”

“About Chalmer.”

“Oh, well, that would—” He glanced up at the video recorder. “What’s this film machine on for? ”

“I told Billy that I would like to video-record. I explained to him about it. He said it was okay. What made you come here now? ”

“Arthur told me to get on the spot. I guess you were scaring Billy with that remembering. He kinda felt trapped in here.” Dr. George started to explain what he and Billy had talked about, and then he got an idea. “Tell me, would it be possible for me to talk with you and Arthur both here? All three of us talking together about what just happened? ”

“Well, I can ask Arthur.”

“I want to ask you and also get Arthurs opinion about

whether perhaps Billy is stronger now, not suicidal, and could maybe deal with more things—”

“Hes not suicidal.”

The voice came out in a soft, clear, upper-class British accent, and Dr. George knew Arthur had decided to come out and speak for himself. He had not seen Arthur since the examination with Dr. Wilbur and others that Sunday morning at the jail. Trying to remain composed and show no surprise, he continued the conversation: “But does he still have to be handled with kid gloves? Is he still vulnerable? ”

“Yes, ” Arthur said, placing the tips of his fingers together. “Easily frightened. Very paranoid.”

Dr. George pointed out that he hadn’t really meant to talk about Chalmer at that point, but that Billy had seemed to need to talk about it.

“You touched a memory of the past, ” Arthur said, choosing his words carefully, “and that’s the first thing that popped into his mind. Common fear triumphed as well, and that was more than enough to put him to sleep. There was nothing I could do to control it. I let him wake up before he came—”

“Are you aware of all that he says when he’s awake? ” “Partially and not always. I can’t always tell exactly what he’s thinking. But when he is thinking, I can sense fear. For some reason, he can’t actually hear what I’m saying to him all very clearly. But it sounds as if he knows that there are times when we put him to sleep, and that he can go to sleep on his own.” Dr. George and Arthur reviewed the backgrounds of some of the alter personalities, but just as Arthur began to recall memories, he suddenly stopped, cocked his head and ended the discussion.

“Someone is at the door, ” he said, and then he was gone. It was Psych-tech Jeff Janata, who had said he’d be back at a quarter to twelve.

Arthur let Tommy go back with Jeff to Wakefield Cottage.

The following day, two days before Dr. Wilburs visit, Dr. George knew, by the jiggling knees, that it was the core Billy who had come to therapy again. Billy had heard the names Arthur and Ragen, and now he wanted to know who they were.

How could he tell him? Harding wondered. He had a horrible vision of Billy killing himself when he learned the truth. The patient of a colleague in Baltimore had hung himself in prison after he learned he was a multiple personality. Dr. George took a deep breath and then said it: “That voice that sounds like a James Bond movie is Arthur. Arthur is one of your names.”

The knees stopped moving. Billy’s eyes widened.

“A part of you is Arthur. Would you like to meet him? ” Billy began to tremble, knees moving so violently that he noticed it and put his hands out to still them. “No. It makes me want to sleep.”

“Billy, I think if you tried real hard, you could stay awake when Arthur comes out and talks. You could hear what he says, and then you’d understand what your problem is.”

“That’s scary. ” '

“Will you trust me? ”

Billy nodded.

“All right then. While you’re sitting there, Arthur is going to come on the spot and talk to me. You won’t go to sleep. You’ll hear everything he says, and you’ll remember. Just the way some of the others do. You’ll be off the spot, but you’ll remain conscious.”

“What’s ‘the spot’? You said that last time, but you didn’t tell me what it is.”

“Thats Arthur’s explanation of what happens when one of your inner people comes out into the reality and takes over. It’s like a big spotlight, and whoever steps on it holds the consciousness. Just close your eyes and you’ll see it.”

Harding held his breath as Billy closed his eyes.

“I can see it! It’s like I’m on a dark stage and the spotlight’s shining on me.”

“All right now, Billy. If you’ll just step to one side, out of the light, I’m sure Arthur will come on and talk to us.”

“I’m out of the light, ” Billy said, and his knees stopped jiggling.

“Arthur, Billy needs to talk to you, ” Harding said. “I’m sorry to disturb you and call you out, but it’s essential to Billy’s therapy that he know about you and the others.”

Harding felt his pa) ms moisten. As his patient’s eyes opened, the expression changed from Billy’s frown to Arthur’s heavy-lidded haughty gaxe. And out came the voice he had

heard the day before: clipped upper-class British speech out of a tightly clenched jaw, lips barely moving.

“William, this is Arthur. I want you to know that this is a safe place, and that the people here are trying to help you.” Instantly Billy’s facial expression changed, eyes opened wide. He looked around, startled, and asked, “Why didn’t I know about you before? ”

He switched again to Arthur. “It was my judgment that it would do you no good to know until you were ready. You were very suicidal. We had to wait until the right time before you were told the secret.”

Dr. George watched and listened, awed but pleased as Arthur spoke to Billy for nearly ten minutes, telling him about Ragen and the other eight people and explaining how Dr. George’s job was to bring all the minds together into one to make him whole again.

“Can you do that? ” Billy asked, turning to Dr. George.

“We call it fusion, Billy. We’ll do it slowly. First Allen and Tommy because they’ve got a great deal in common. Then Danny and David, both of whom need a great deal of therapy. _ Then we’ll merge the others, one by one, until you’re whole again.”

“Why do you have to fuse ’em with me? Why can’t you get rid of ’em? ”

Dr. George put his fingertips together. “Because other therapists have tried that in conditions like yours, Billy. And it doesn’t seem to work. The best hope you have of improving is to bring all these aspects of yourself together, first by communicating with each other, then by remembering everything each of them is doing, getting rid of the amnesia. We call that co-consciousness. Finally, you work at bringing the different people together. That’s fusion.”

“When you gonna do this? ”

“Dr. Wilbur is coming to see you the day after tomorrow, and we’re going to have a presentation and a discussion with most of the hospital staff who work with you. We’ll show the videotapes to help some of our staff—who have never experienced this mental condition—to help them understand you better so that they can help you.”

Billy nodded. And then his eyes went wide as his attention turned inward. He nodded several times, and then he looked up at Dr. George in astonishment.

“What is it, Billy? ”

“Arthur says to tell you he wants to approve who can come to see me at the meeting.”

(6)

Harding Hospital was abuzz with excitement. Dr. Cornelia Wilbur had lectured there in the summer of 1955, but this was different. Now they had a notorious patient, the first multiple personality to be observed around the clock in a mental hospital. The staff was still divided in their belief about the diagnosis, but everyone wanted to be in that room to hear Dr. Wilbur talk about Billy Milligan.

Though the Wakefield staff had been led to believe that ten or fifteen people would be present, the room in the basement of the administration building was packed with nearly a hundred. Doctors and administrators brought their wives; staff members from other branches of the hospital—who had nothing to do with Milligan s treatment—crowded into the back of the room, sitting on the floor, lining the walls and standing out in the nearby lounge.

Dr. George showed the audience the recent videotapes of himself and Dorothy Turner working with different personalities. Arthur and Ragen stirred interest, since no one on the staff outside of Wakefield had ever seen them. Adalana, whom no one but Dorothy Turner had ever met before, caused some awe, some scoffing. But when the core Billy came on the video monitor, there was rapt silence. And when he cried out, “Who are these people? Why don’t they let me stay awake?, ” Rosalie Drake, among others, had to fight back tears.

When the viewing was finished, Dr. Wilbur brought Billy into the room and interviewed him briefly. She spoke with Arthur, Ragen* Danny and David. They answered questions, but Rosalie could see how upset they were. When the session was over, Rosalie realized from the buzz of conversation that everyone on the Wakefield staff was annoyed. Nurse Adrienne McCann and Nurse Laura Fisher complained that once again Milligan was being made to feel special and had another chance to be in the spotlight. Rosalie, Nick Cicco and Donna Egar were angry that Billy had been put on display.

After Dr. Wilburs visit, the therapy strategy changed again, and Dr. George concentrated on fusing the personalities.

Dr. Marlene Kocan set up regular sessions, and the persona