“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky (post 7): Charlie, protagonist, abused as child, has symptoms of multiple personality

Chbosky’s first novel (1) is about a 15-year-old boy, Charlie, who was first psychiatrically hospitalized at age seven, currently sees a psychiatrist, and is socially awkward, but is also endearing, a straight-A student, and considered to be a budding genius by his English teacher.

His multiple personality is revealed at the end of the novel, but is not labeled as such, and is not recognized as such by most reviews.

Early hints of multiple personality include his surprising personality switches from meek to aggressive (in sports as a child and when defending a friend in a fight in high school); his peculiar experience when looking in a mirror (2, p. 74) (search “mirrors” for past discussions of this issue in multiple personality), and his innumerable episodes of crying, which are out of proportion to current situations and are quite puzzling.

As is revealed at the end of the novel, he had been sexually abused, repeatedly, by his aunt Helen when he was seven. I would guess that his puzzling episodes of crying have been the tears of a child-aged alternate personality.

At the end of the novel, Charlie is psychiatrically re-hospitalized:

“I’ve been in the hospital for the past two months…they brought me to the hospital where I stayed when I was seven after my aunt Helen died. They told me I didn’t speak or acknowledge anyone for a week…All I remember is putting the letter in the mailbox. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a doctor’s office” (2, p. 208).

Book reviews that venture a diagnosis usually say PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), but Charlie has a cardinal symptom of multiple personality—amnesia, a memory gap, a dissociative fugue—from the time he mailed the letter to the time he found himself in the doctor’s office.

And, as previously discussed, additional unacknowledged symptoms of multiple personality are found in Chbosky’s new novel, Imaginary Friend.

1. Wikipedia. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perks_of_Being_a_Wallflower

2. Stephen Chbosky. The Perks of Being a Wallflower [1999]. New York, Gallery Books, 2012.