So I heard about this book in a conversation that had nothing to do with DID, looked it up, and thought, "hang on, this sounds kinda plural." Got it out of the library, started reading, and went to "welp, I am definitely doing a pluralstories writeup for this" in about 5 seconds.
And I finished it earlier today, so here we go!
(Some of the marketing presents it as a self-help book, but it's 98% memoir, with a few pages of "discussion questions" and "here's how you, too, can write letters to yourself" at the end.)
White Girl Within by Dr. Ronnie Gladden (memoir, book, 2023)
I thought I had this down, you know. I would always be the aloof and inaccessible conjoined twin, the shadowy passenger to your outer life. But now I’m triggered. The revolution is on. More people are coming out and singing their songs. I want to belt out my part before we eddy into eternity.
Blurb (from Goodreads): Two identities struggle to coexist in Ronnie Gladden's body, brain, and soul. On the outside, they are Black and male. Inside, a repressed White female identity begs for release and is ready to break the status quo. Grappling with double-binary thinking, an abusive father, and childhood trauma, they imprison their inner self to stay safe from the world.
Why is it worth your time?: A plural memoir unlike any other I've ever read. A series of letters between Ronnie and his headmate (only identified as White Girl, or WG); although both of them identify Ronnie as the core/original, WG's perspective gets significantly more page time. They don't struggle with amnesia or time loss; it seems they've both been aware of each other since WG's appearance at age 4, the struggle is about validating each other and learning to coexist. Possibly the most in-depth reflection on "our physical body has one race, but this system member has a different one" in existence to date.
Content Warnings: Descriptions of physical, emotional, and/or racist abuse, as well as alcoholism and racial violence.
Not really sure how to warn for this one, but, Ronnie and WG talk about their experience of race in ways that might raise some eyebrows. (Simple example: lots of waxing poetic about Ronnie's darkness vs. WG's light.) And, well, sometimes they're just objectively wrong about a thing. (Another simple example: they have a moment of daydreaming that Elon Musk might build tech to help with WG's dysphoria, apparently unaware that Musk openly hates trans people.) This isn't to discredit the book as a whole! It's just something I would feel weird about not acknowledging in the writeup.
Accessibility Notes: Print and digital/ebook versions available. Published in 2023, so new copies are easy to get (or have your library get).
Misc. Notes (if any): I didn't tag "type: medical" because Ronnie/WG don't use any psychiatric/DID-related terms in the memoir. (Not clear whether they've actively rejected the diagnosis, or whether they've never come across it in the first place, so they haven't had a chance to consider it.) But the experiences they describe are a typical DID origin story, of a child in an abusive household whose brain instinctively generates headmate(s) for coping and protection.
I'm not sure whether to tag dreamfolk/fictioneers, because none of those are described as full-fledged headmates the way WG is. But they write about internalizing fictional/TV characters pretty intensely ("you—we—brought these characters along in the same way most go and buy clothes"), and transcribe some "dream scene" conversations between them. Wouldn't be surprising if a future memoir said "we now realize those were from a roundtable of fictives having a chat."
Is it long, medium, or short?: Long (366 print pages)
It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? Teens and up
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Date: 2024-11-10 09:32 pm (UTC)And I finished it earlier today, so here we go!
(Some of the marketing presents it as a self-help book, but it's 98% memoir, with a few pages of "discussion questions" and "here's how you, too, can write letters to yourself" at the end.)
White Girl Within by Dr. Ronnie Gladden (memoir, book, 2023)
I thought I had this down, you know. I would always be the aloof and inaccessible conjoined twin, the shadowy passenger to your outer life. But now I’m triggered. The revolution is on. More people are coming out and singing their songs. I want to belt out my part before we eddy into eternity.
Blurb (from Goodreads): Two identities struggle to coexist in Ronnie Gladden's body, brain, and soul. On the outside, they are Black and male. Inside, a repressed White female identity begs for release and is ready to break the status quo. Grappling with double-binary thinking, an abusive father, and childhood trauma, they imprison their inner self to stay safe from the world.
Why is it worth your time?: A plural memoir unlike any other I've ever read. A series of letters between Ronnie and his headmate (only identified as White Girl, or WG); although both of them identify Ronnie as the core/original, WG's perspective gets significantly more page time. They don't struggle with amnesia or time loss; it seems they've both been aware of each other since WG's appearance at age 4, the struggle is about validating each other and learning to coexist. Possibly the most in-depth reflection on "our physical body has one race, but this system member has a different one" in existence to date.
Plural/1+ Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, creator speaks from experience, people: imaginary friends, relationships: teamwork
Content Warnings: Descriptions of physical, emotional, and/or racist abuse, as well as alcoholism and racial violence.
Not really sure how to warn for this one, but, Ronnie and WG talk about their experience of race in ways that might raise some eyebrows. (Simple example: lots of waxing poetic about Ronnie's darkness vs. WG's light.) And, well, sometimes they're just objectively wrong about a thing. (Another simple example: they have a moment of daydreaming that Elon Musk might build tech to help with WG's dysphoria, apparently unaware that Musk openly hates trans people.) This isn't to discredit the book as a whole! It's just something I would feel weird about not acknowledging in the writeup.
Accessibility Notes: Print and digital/ebook versions available. Published in 2023, so new copies are easy to get (or have your library get).
Misc. Notes (if any): I didn't tag "type: medical" because Ronnie/WG don't use any psychiatric/DID-related terms in the memoir. (Not clear whether they've actively rejected the diagnosis, or whether they've never come across it in the first place, so they haven't had a chance to consider it.) But the experiences they describe are a typical DID origin story, of a child in an abusive household whose brain instinctively generates headmate(s) for coping and protection.
I'm not sure whether to tag dreamfolk/fictioneers, because none of those are described as full-fledged headmates the way WG is. But they write about internalizing fictional/TV characters pretty intensely ("you—we—brought these characters along in the same way most go and buy clothes"), and transcribe some "dream scene" conversations between them. Wouldn't be surprising if a future memoir said "we now realize those were from a roundtable of fictives having a chat."
Is it long, medium, or short?: Long (366 print pages)
It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? Teens and up