sitonmyinterface | The Magic Castle by Carole Smith

The fact that this boy made it through his childhood trauma is a genuine miracle. While "multiple personalities" is still doubted today, this book takes you through a harrowing tale of a boy who acts out in a violent way. He loses time and forgets people and things. In this book, his adoptive mother takes you with her on the journey from adoption, to hospitalizations, to horrible flashbacks and blackouts and then comes full circle with therapy, integration, and recovery.

I have read books about child abuse/dissociative identity disorder before but I think this one takes the cake, so far (especially because Sybil was found to be untrue). This boy, from a very small age, was physically and sexually abused by his mother and her husband, and this included forced involvement in a satanic cult. He witnessed the murder of babies, and later recalled that his mother drowned them in the name of satan. At first, different personalities weren't noticed, only that he would fly off the handle with violent outbursts, not knowing who himself or anyone else was, doing criminal acts, and then not remembering what happened. At first he hated his mother and had no idea why but still wanted to see her sometimes, but eventually a legal process began against the mother, but nothing came of it in the end. It resulted in full integration and the book takes you through to the age of 17, when he was "programmed" to return to the cult because he was chosen at 7. Basically this shit's fucked. I wonder how he is today, but I am sure no one knows the actual names of those involved.