17 personalities -- one at a time

Book describes Southland woman's treatment

"Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with = 17 Personalities" by Richard Baer (Crown Publishing, $24.95) is based on a true story.

And the horrific, mind-boggling events took place here in the Southland.

Baer, a psychiatrist and an Oak Park native, treated Karen Overhill (whose name was changed for the book) for multiple personality disorder beginning in 1989 at his Oak Lawn office on 95th Street.

Overhill, who still lives just south of the office, had created the 17 personalities - female and male, young and old, thin and fat, short and tall - to handle various tasks, some mundane, others brutal. Developed one by one, the multiple personalities were a coping mechanism for the ongoing abuse that began when she was just a toddler.

Every day, all day, various personalities or alters would "come in" and "come out." Karen called it "switching time."

Baer's first book is an account of treating Karen, starting with four years of therapy for chronic pain, depression and suicidal tendencies before one of her personalities revealed itself. "Switching Time" closes with therapy sessions using hypnosis and visual imagery to integrate all 17 personalities. Baer, a resident of Chicago's Old Town community, details how the personalities were "born" and how Karen survived a lifetime of abuse.

While she has declined to give media interviews, Karen agreed to share her story in the hope of protecting children and opening parents' eyes.

"It's too great a story to sit on," Baer said. "She wanted people to be more aware of how little girls can be abused. It really does happen all the time."

"Switching Time" begins with Karen's first visit to Baer when she was a 29-year-old mother of two. The multiple personality disorder first came into play when Baer received a letter in the mail from Claire, a little girl who wrote that she "lives inside Karen" and needs help tying her shoes.

Over time, the personalities revealed themselves in therapy sessions with Baer. And with each, Karen's posture and mannerisms would change but always were consistent with that persona.

"It was exciting initially to experience," Baer said. "She was so convincing and so compelling. Miles (one of the personalities, a young boy) was always Miles -- the same manner of speaking, same age-appropriate vocabulary. What he remembered never leaked over into what others remembered."

Karen would bring Baer letters written by the different personalities, and each had unique handwriting.

Katherine, the motherly alter, was the one who woke Karen's children for school and made their lunches. Katherine, not Karen, had chosen Baer by talking to other patients and calling the state medical society.

Ann, the religious alter, did church projects and tried to keep the faith.

Karen 2, another alter, worked as a secretary and shopped, but needed Holdon, the fatherly alter, to drive and carry groceries.

Holdon liked to drive at night to think and clear "his" head. Karen often would get in her car and not remember adding the last 300 miles to the odometer. Or she'd "come to" and not know where she was, such as the time a kind woman at a gas station told her she was in Tinley Park.

Karen was "gone" for years at a time, including all of high school. Yet the different personalities managed her day-to-day life.

"You wouldn't know there was anything wrong with her if you met Karen on the street," Baer said. "If you met Katherine, she'd seem nice and prim. If Karen 2 came out, she'd be bubbly. It'd never occur to you it was a different part."

While some of the alters handled homework or chores, many of them had a horrible purpose in life.

Karen's mother once scrubbed her face with a wire brush for wearing makeup. But that was nothing compared to the sadistic, ritualistic sexual and physical abuse Karen suffered at the hands of her father, grandfather, grandmother's brother and their friends, including a priest and a cop. She was the routine victim of their made-up cult, with late-night meetings held in a nearby funeral home and the basement of a factory in the 1960s.

Male personalities were created in order for Karen to not feel the sexual abuse. Miles, for instance, took away the physical pain.

When it was too much to handle, another alter was born. When the cult violated Karen at the funeral home, placed her in ice water with blood from a corpse and then locked her in a coffin, bound with cords and duct tape, Karl was born.

Karen's parents also blamed her for medical bills to treat pneumonia and a large tumor on her forehead, beat her for it and wished her dead. They never stopped telling her she "owed" them for paying the medical bills. As an adult, Karen repeatedly couldn't deny her mother's and friends' demands for loans they never paid back.

"She's still a very sensitive individual who struggles with standing up for herself," said Baer, who has kept in touch with Karen.

Today, Karen exists as a whole person. Before, she operated with a mind compartmentalized like a house. Each personality "lived" in one area of an imaginary house mapped out in Karen's head.

Katherine and Holdon watched over the other personalities and decided who was allowed to come out and when. But sometimes alters snuck out, as three did at the altar during her wedding, causing her to faint each time.

So, how does someone go about daily life with such a complex system? Baer explains multiple personalities as an extreme extension of everyday disassociation.

One example is being on "auto pilot," where you drive from Point A to Point B without realizing it.

"Part of you is functioning, driving, but you're not thinking about it," he said.

Another example, he said, is a soldier who suffers shock on the battlefield and then disassociates by blocking the trauma from his conscience.

"How do you get from that to a personality? By keep having to disassociate," Baer said. "As Karen used each alter over the years, they became more complex and personlike. But they weren't real full people."

One personality was demur while another was flirtatious. A personality would become friends with people, and if Karen ran into them, she didn't know their names or anything about them, although they knew her.

"You may act one way with a toddler than with your husband on a date, or when your boss scolds you," Baer said. "The difference for you is you remember. Karen wouldn't."

In 1996, Baer began integrating each personality one by one in therapy sessions through hypnosis and visualization. With each integration, Karen felt their presence, their physical and emotional pain, their thoughts, strengths and weaknesses. It took weeks for her to get used to each new personality being a fully aware part of her.

For example, Karen had trouble walking when Julie was integrated. Julie couldn't move her legs "because of the weight of all the men on top of her," Baer writes.

Forced by the father to do so, Sydney, a boy, stole from stores and then was smacked on his hand afterward so his fingers were numb. Karen had trouble dialing the phone after his integration.

"Switching Time" recounts Karen's life abuse in painfully descriptive detail. The book, however, does have a happy ending.

With Baer's help, Karen divorced her abusive husband, stopped getting disability benefits and got a full-time job. Her daughter attends college and her son is in the military, he said.

The former president of the Illinois Psychiatric Society, Baer is medical director for National Government Services, the nation's largest Medicare contractor.

Vickie Snow may be reached at (708) 633-5981 or [email protected].