First Person Plural

First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple
Dissociative Identity Disorder, which was previously known as multiple personality disorder, is a result rooting from severe trauma. This trauma usually occurred during childhood and had to do with sexual or emotional abuse. First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple is a memoir written by Cameron West. West gives us a first hand account of discovering, accepting, and treating Dissociative Identity Disorder. Cameron West successfully takes the reader through his analysis, personal thoughts, and his treatment in dealing with Dissociative Identity Disorder in his novel, First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple.
The story begins with introducing Cameron West, or Cam, his wife Rikki, and their son Kyle. They seem to be leading a normal, healthy life, other than the fact that Cam has an allergy disease. As Cameron learns to deal with his new disorder, he has to hide a lot of the facts from his son because he is so young. Therapy sessions eventually bring out the fact that his mother, grandmother, and others sexually abused Cam. Cameron has no conscious thought of these occurrences but begins to have multiple flashbacks to the incestuous episodes. With the help of his therapist and wife, Cameron attempts to learn how to survive with his multiples. Each multiple has different names, ages, and even handwriting. We eventually learn that there are twenty-four multiples in total.   In the second part of the book, Cam, Rikki, and Kyle move to San Francisco, California. They begin to settle in, but not long after they moved there, Switch, one of Cam’s multiples, takes a knife and cuts three gashes into his body. After this, Cam is checked into Del Amo psychiatric ward in Los Angeles. He has to be admitted here twice because his multiples got out of hand. However, it wasn’t until he was checked into a psychiatric ward in Texas that he truly began to accept who he was. Cameron’s denial of having Dissociative Identity Disorder made...