Chris Costner-Sizemore
Encyclopedia
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
. Her case, with a pseudonym used, was depicted in the 1950s book and film The Three Faces of Eve
The Three Faces of Eve
The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 American film adaptation of a case study by Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley. It was based on the true story of Chris Costner Sizemore, also known as Eve White, a woman who suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder formerly known as multiple personality...
by her psychiatrist
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
s, Corbett H. Thigpen
Corbett H. Thigpen
Dr. Corbett H. Thigpen was an American psychiatrist and co-author of the internationally-popular, nonfictional book The Three Faces of Eve....
and Hervey M. Cleckley
Hervey M. Cleckley
Dr. Hervey Milton Cleckley was an American psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of psychopathy. His book, The Mask of Sanity, originally published in 1941, provided the most influential clinical description of psychopathy in the 20th Century...
. She went public with her true identity in the 1970s. She lived for many years in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
.
In accordance with then-current modes of thought on the disorder, Thigpen reported that Sizemore had developed multiple personalities as a result of her witnessing a horrifying accidental death and two serious non-fatal accidents within three months as a small child. By Sizemore's own report, these incidents triggered the evidencing of selves which were already present. "Despite authorities' claims to the contrary, my former alters were not fragments of my birth personality. They were entities, whole in their own rights, who coexisted with my birth personality before I was born. They were not me, but they remain intrinsically related to what it means to be me."
While The Three Faces of Eve was written by Thigpen and Cleckley with limited input from Sizemore, her later books I'm Eve and A Mind Of My Own fill in details. Much earlier, in 1958, she had written Strangers in My Body: The Final Face of Eve, using the pseudonym Evelyn Lancaster. According to psychiatrists who worked with her after she moved from South Carolina, Sizemore did not experience three selves, but approximately 20. The doctors reported that her selves presented in groups of three at a time.
Sizemore reports feeling exploited and objectified by the media blitz surrounding the book and film. Upon discovering in 1988 that her legal rights to her own life story had been signed away to 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
by Thigpen, Sizemore went to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's Federal District Court to contest the contract, and won.
Sizemore was the inspiration for the song Christine
Christine (song)
"Christine" is a song recorded by British rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees. The song was written by Banshees members Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin and it was released as the second single from the band's third album Kaleidoscope....
and its B-Side "Eve White/Eve Black" by the English rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees.
The 1952-1989 papers of Chris Costner Sizemore have been acquired by Duke University Library. An overview of the collection and a summary of Ms. Sizemore's story are included on its website. Sizemore was interviewed on the BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
channel series Hard Talk on March 25, 2009.