Does the book explain why her mother abused her and disliked her?
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gilmored_85 — 17 years ago(January 15, 2009 11:46 PM)
She did molest Sybil, inserting objects forcibly into a persons vagina or rectum is molestation/rape and is considered so in most if not every state and Hattie (Mattie) would also insert her finger into Sybil's (Shirly's) Vaginal along with the other objects, so, her mother DID molest her. Molestation unfortunaly can come in many forms, it's not just about innapropriate touching, in my opinion (having worked with survivors of sexual abuse)having Sybil sleep in her parents bedroom while they were having sex was a form of sexual abuse, especilly when her father (naked) put her over his knee and spanked her for interupting. Hattie also sexualy abused other children, in the book Sybil (Shirly Mason in reality) recounts her mom playing "horsey" with the neighborhood girls, and one incident Sybil saw her mother on her bed naked with a infant boy between her legs. Hattie (Mattie) was in no way capable of taking care of Sybil. The sexual abuse began as early as when Sybil was six months old. I just graduated with a Bacholar's in Social Work and this book has shocked me to my core, even though I have an undedrstanding of Mental illness I have a hard time having any sypathy for Hattie.
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renatom1 — 17 years ago(January 18, 2009 08:34 PM)
I believe what 'indy go blue44' means is that Hattie did not abuse Sybil to achieve any kind of sexual thrill; she did it because her schizophrenia made her do odd things. Perhaps, Hattie's deranged mind lead her to believe little men were trapped inside Sybil's vagina. There have been cases of schizophrenics tearing out their heating systems or digging large holes in their backyards because they become convinced men are trapped inside them and need to be let out. It's weird, but that's why we call them crazy and why many of them need to be in an institution, far away from people and other living things.
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zombiesushi — 15 years ago(August 12, 2010 11:52 AM)
I have to agree that it was the illness, and not the desire for sexual gratification that lead to the molestation, I just finished reading the book and recall that on several occasions Hattie would keep saying to herself, "I have to do it!" over and over while she abused and tortured Sybil in various ways, and, once done, she would say, "I did it!" triumphantly as she laughed to herself, very creepy! The abuses she inflicted upon Sybil all have a very ritualistic manner to them, and once the ritual was carried out the compulsion would go away for a time. Usually I can sympathize with an individual who is so clearly ill, but Hattie should have been made to suffer every injury she ever inflicted on her daughter and then been left in some cold dark hole somewhere for the rest of her life. Anybody who could do that to a kid just doesn't deserve to live.
~Copulate me nonviolently with a mechanical gas powered tree cutting device!~ -
indy_go_blue44 — 15 years ago(August 18, 2010 09:29 PM)
Hattie did have lesbian affairs with "working girls" in the town while Sybil was in tow, but it seems that she didn't deliberately put Sybil in a position to witness the acts. I won't argue that her sexual organs weren't invaded or argued, but in the legal sense of molestation being an attempt to achieve sexual gratification for herself or Sybil, it seems more a case of battery rather than molestation. There's no mention of Hattie masturbating herself or Sybil or of having Sybil do anything to her. I also won't argue that having sex in front of her wasn't a form of sexual abuse. In that I mostly blame her father; whereas Hattie was mentally ill, there wasn't a damn thing wrong with him to justify or explain his behavior.
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genevaporter — 12 years ago(April 14, 2013 07:16 AM)
I wondered if Hattie's mutilation of Sybil was done in what Hattie's twisted mind thought of as "for her own good." It seems similar to families that perform female circumcision on their daughters. The object of female circumcision is to prevent the female from enjoying sex, and remaining pure for her future husband. The culture justifies it as a method for preventing women from extramarital sex.
Hattie might have had the same idea for Sybil. She might have felt ashamed of her own sexual acts (or sexual abuse, because it's not uncommon for abuse victims to blame themselves for the abuse). She didn't want Sybil to feel that shame so she made it so Sybil would feel no pleasure from sex. If Sybil felt no pleasure, then she would not feel ashamed if anyone forced himself on her. Hattie might have seen herself as protecting Sybil by allowing Sybil to exonerate herself from blame.
The ironic thing was Hattie was doing exactly what she was trying to protect Sybil from. And it didn't work: part of the reason Sybil needed the other personalities was that she couldn't allow herself to feel angry about what her mother did to her. -
sntonysam5 — 12 years ago(July 04, 2013 12:34 PM)
You do know the story has been proven to be fabricated, don't you?
There was NO evidence at all the real Sybil, Shirley Mason, was abused at all by the mother. She did come from a strict religious background and felt isolated because of it, but her problems, which were nothing remotely close to MPD or DID, stemmed from a PHYSICAL problem called pernicious anemia. The doctor involved should have had her medical license taken away from her, but she wanted that fame and glory and was in cahoots with an author who also wanted the same thing. -
richard-III — 12 years ago(January 12, 2014 05:27 PM)
Except for Debbie Nathan's book (which is criticized for twisting the facts), there's no evidence that the story is totally fabricated. Schreiber's famous book SYBIL is not a scientific case document but a fictionalized version to tell the story as well as protect the 'real Sybil'. Nathan just tells her version of the story, and I dread the day that one journalist is considered to tell "the truth and nothing but the truth". Just like the TV movies made their own interpretations.
"I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film." -
alluneedisone — 11 years ago(October 21, 2014 04:26 AM)
I just recently read the book for our Biopsych class. Hattie not only abused Sybil, but other children as well. She would babysit them, and during that time, she would sexually abuse them, and Sybil saw all of this happen. Hattie would touch the genitals of the girls she would babysit while playing "horsey" and there was a time when Sybil saw her in bed, nude, with a baby boy between her legs. Her history is included in the book, as well as possible psychological and genetic illnesses that could have been passed on to her and to Sybil. I would recommend reading the book FIRST before watching the movies.
I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers but hold up a ship. -
eileen-guthrie555 — 9 years ago(September 19, 2016 07:04 PM)
You also need to remind people that Dr. Wilbur was a Freudian Psychiatrist, and Freud believed everything revolved around sex. So, some of the things in Dr. Wilbur's notes and some of the recording are her interpretations of the things Shirley revealed during hypnosis. Doesn't mean they happened, although I believed doctors did a physical examines on Shirley and did determined that she had been molested, rather violently. Both Shirley and Mattie were diagnosed as schizophrenic as well as other mental illnesses. I believe they said that Shirley had OCPD and was much later in life thought to have been bipolar. But, these were illnesses at the time in their lives to have never been given a name. Everything was lumped into a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
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eileen-guthrie555 — 9 years ago(September 19, 2016 06:11 PM)
I remember a section that described Sybil's father coming into her bedroom in his robe, but with his privates exposed.
That has since been revealed to never have happened. Her parents were both Seventh-Day Adventist and they obsessively feared masturbation/sex was to be blamed on degenerate behavior due to meat, gravy, butter, jam, eggs, pastry, white bread, coffee, pepper, tobacco, tea, beer, and liquor. Her parents were on another planet. So, very unlikely. It was Dr Wilbur's misinterpreted of the event when Sybil had her tonsillectomy. Her mother tricked her into the hospital and her parents held her down while doctors examined her. She went through surgery and she was traumatized by that event and feared hospitals for the rest of her life. So, that never happened just another one of Dr Wilbur's Freudian psychiatry theories that was false. -
fiatlux-1 — 17 years ago(January 21, 2009 02:51 PM)
I don't think Hattie's abuse was for her own sexual gratification, but then again she was said to molest children in the neighborhood as well. I do think Hattie's abuse was anger-oriented not sexual.
In the book, its speculated that not only did Hattie's mental illness contribute to her atrocious acts upon Sybil.but her suppressed rage was a huge factor. Hattie had harbored rage for many years, beginning with her father who yanked her out of school for no reason to work in the family music store.
Her dream was torn apart, and her illness appeared to get worse around this time.
Then, even though she was said to enjoy caring for other's babies she was uncertain whether she wanted one of her own. But that is what women were 'expected' to do, and Willard most likely wanted a child so Hattie had one (after several miscarriages).
She, combined with her illness, took her rage out on Sybil.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush." -
cookiela2001 — 14 years ago(May 18, 2011 02:07 PM)
In addition to Hattie's own individual frustrations and mental-makeup that shaped her behavior, the book describes mental illness and suicides as featuring in both Hattie and Willard's family trees. Especially on Hattie's, as I seem to recall.
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Sponiatowski — 14 years ago(May 19, 2011 11:47 AM)
Hattie's torture of Sybil has echoes of abortion and birth control methods of the time-period. Hattie's many miscarriages before Sybil was born may be because a butcher-type abortion had been performed on her. It's possible Hattie's father was so afraid Hattie would get pregnant that he performed enemas/douches on Hattie and later perfrormed a D&C with a kitchen knife or buttonhook. In those days a young girl "being whisked out of advanced education" was often the result of a "unwed mother" scenario. And often parental abuse is "inherited", the abuser re-enacting their own abuse on their children.
I think Hattie may have been molested by her father who performed enema's and douches on her afterwards and , because they were ineffective as birth control, performed a D&C on her when he got her pregnant.
!!!Scrooge for President!!! -
Sponiatowski — 14 years ago(May 20, 2011 07:40 AM)
It never stops if just the thought of a person or the whiff of disinfectant causes a person to disassociate. That's why it's the "cycle" of abuse.
I can't find much information on Hattie, but I believe that she went back to the "rest" home where she eventually died.
This quote about her is from Wikipedia: Shirley "Sybil" Mason was born and raised in Dodge Center, Minnesota, the only child of Walter Mason (a carpenter and architect) and Martha Alice "Mattie" Hageman. In regard to Mason's mother: "many people in Dodge Center say Mattie" "Hattie" in the book "was bizarre," according to Bettie Borst Christensen, who grew up across the street. "She had a witch-like laugh.She didn't laugh much, but when she did, it was like a screech." Christensen remembers Mason's mother walking around after dark, looking in the neighbors' windows. At one point, Mason's mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The IMDB Topic: "I wonder what 'Hattie' would have thought of the book and movie?" offers differing opinions on what happened to Hattie.
!!!Scrooge for President!!! -
Skylightmovies — 14 years ago(July 01, 2011 03:57 AM)
This makes a lot of sense to me.
If talented creative people are abused it's bound to cause severe depression directly proportional to the kind of abuse and how that personality is able to express it. It's only a question of how that will manifest it self later on.
Geez, that never ending cycle HAS to be broken and maybe Shirley managed that in her own way by sadly never having children of her own. -
fiatlux-1 — 14 years ago(July 10, 2011 08:03 PM)
Sadly, Sybil (Shirley) was told she'd likely never bear a child because of the internal scarring from Hattie's abuse. I wonder if she ever tried though.
It seemed that she wanted children on one level, and didn't on another. Very understandable there, given her past.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush." -
indy_go_blue44 — 14 years ago(July 14, 2011 04:49 PM)
Just about anything that can be said other than the documentation in the book is pure speculation. Hattie definitely had an abivalence about having children, we know she miscarried (IIRC) at least 3 times, and she was severely confined (ie, bedrest and close observation) during her pregnancy with Sybil, so it doesn't seem likely that Wilbur had anything to do with attempting or actually aborting her. She was 14 when her sister left home and she was TOLD that she was going to work in her parent's music store (demolishing her dreams of being a concert pianist) and in those days you didn't argue with your parents. Following this job placement, she did become severely depressed and as far as I can tell, this is when her problems started but that's speculation also.
I imagine 99% of this generation of kids would think they were abused if they were raised by 1900 parents.. and they may be right. It was a different world, and a man's home was definitely his castle, and he was lord of the keep.