One body… many minds. This strange set of circumstances is at the heart of this mental health book, which explores the unique journey of “The Fortress”—a self-designated group of personalities or “alters” that share the physical body of a woman diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). This women’s health book provides an insightful and compassionate perspective on the challenges and triumphs faced by those living with this condition.
In this unique mental health memoir, this unfortunate illness is born out of extreme psychological trauma or child abuse in a child’s very early years when their personalities are formed and solidified. Under these tragic circumstances, the child’s personality literally fragments into individual parts that remain separate to help diffuse the impact of the traumatic events that surround them.
The alters of the Fortress learned to journal from an early age, often signing their entries with their unique name and sharing their individual perspectives on the abuse they endured. Almost all of their writings survived more than half a century to be compiled as a testament to their determination to build a valuable life from the disaster that was their early existence.
In the mental health book’s passages, they outline what healing from dissociative identity disorder looks like. From the alters who struggled with self-harm and suicidality to those trying to forge a career in medicine, the Fortress shares how they were able to uncover the worst of the trauma they all endured. They openly reveal themselves and their private struggles through letters written to the healing professionals who were brave enough to guide them through recovery from a mental illness that few mental health providers understand or know how to manage.
Upcoming Book
From Okinawa, With Love
The 1950s was an uncomplicated time in rural Minnesota. Families settled in and around tiny villages dotting a larger landscape of farms and cornfields. Children were raised in families that often came from Germany, Ireland, and the Scandinavian countries where farming and church were part of everyday life.
Boys grew to be young men during this era and often joined the military to take advantage of the GI bill and the college money it promised them in return for their two or more years of service. Barely men, they were shipped off to far flung places so different from the farming communities they grew up in.
This is the path young Norby Traxler took. He left Le Center, Minnesota, on his 18th birthday, leaving behind his girlfriend Elaine, the farmhouse he group up in, and the friends he had just graduated from high school with. Saturday night at Hardiggers Dance Hall were replaced by KP duty, grueling Army drills, and a long boat ride to Okinawa – a hot and muggy tropical island between Japan and Taiwan. The Vietnam War had begun and the US was inching closer to engagement in that tragic war.
There were no cellphones in the 1950s and “party line” phone services were the norm in most rural homes. Rather than dashing off a text to loved ones, people wrote, shared, and coveted long letters whenever they wanted to communicate their thoughts, losses, or celebratory events.
The story “Okinawa, With Love” reveals the deeply-rooted bonds between several families from Minnesota through the letters they shared with one another during this time. Norby reveals his inner quirkiness and shares his grief over leaving the only life he knew through the letters he exchanged with Elaine and many of his loved ones, including Irene, the living embodiment of his own mother who died when he was just three years old.
Join the lives of the stalwart families as revealed in this book and learn how the art of letter writing molded relationships across the globe in an era when teen relationships were challenged by distance and the tough emotions everyone faces during these often confusing growing-up years.
