Identical Twins, Pamela Spiro Wagner (diagnosed with schizophrenia) and Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D. (mentally-well psychiatrist), co-author autobiography

The book is alternately narrated by each sister (1). See both sisters in a video (2). Pamela, writing as Phoebe Sparrow Wagner, summarizes her psychiatric treatment (3).

Pamela, Carolyn, and most of Pamela’s psychiatrists believe that Pamela has schizophrenia. 

But Pamela had auditory hallucinations at least as early as age eleven (1, p. 30-33) and DSM-5, the psychiatric diagnostic manual, does not even discuss schizophrenia that young, remarking only that onset prior to adolescence is rare. In fact, the prevalence of schizophrenia prior to age thirteen is very rare, only 1 in 40,000, while hearing voices that young is much more common in other diagnoses (4). According to DSM-5, one of those other diagnoses is dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality).

Since multiple personality is a posttraumatic disorder, the question arises as to whether the autobiography describes any early childhood experience that would have traumatized Pamela more than Carolyn. It does. When the twins were eleven, Pamela disobeys their father. He tells Carolyn to go to her room and Carolyn reports the following:

“When I hear a smack and the words, ‘I’ll show you,’ I tear back to our bedroom, slam the door, and hurl myself into the closet…I dive into a clean pile of quilts and yank them over me. The hollow closet door doesn’t keep out a thing…Pammy shouting. Daddy Bellowing. Words crashing. Threatening, swearing, slapping, thudding, kicking, crashing, things toppling, breaking, smashing…More clattering, banging, shouting. Heart jumping, thumping, panicking, pumping. Everything spinning. Stop! Water running. Stop! I don’t want to hear. Water running?…Pammy screaming…Where’s Mommy? Mommy! More stamping. Dragging…I grit my teeth, pull clothes and blankets around me. Gotta keep from screaming. What’s going on? Make it stop! Water sloshing. Choking sounds. Is he going to drown her? I hurl myself out of the closet. He has her head under the faucet, soap in her mouth. I throw myself at him. ‘No, Daddy! She can’t breathe. You can’t do this!’…I slap him, kick his shins, bite him like an animal until finally Pammy can wrestle free and run for cover” (1, p. 22).

I doubt that one such event would lead to multiple personality, but it may not have been Pamela’s only traumatic experience with her father.

Pseudonyms

The twins’ family name is their father’s last name, Spiro. At age 25, Pamela, who says, “My father and I still do not speak,” legally changes her last name to Wagner, her mother’s maiden name, declaring, “I feel like my real life has finally begun” (1, p. 160). She later also comes to use the name “Phoebe Sparrow Wagner” (3). And as I’ve discussed in past posts, pseudonyms may be the names of alternate personalities.

1. Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D. Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

2. Video “Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDPlktZrGI

3. Phoebe Sparrow Wagner. July 13, 2019. “Why I Take Drugs [medications] and Don’t Plan To Stop.” https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/07/take-drugs-dont-plan-stop/

4. Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289250/