Splintered

Splintered is a true story about Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities).

When six-year-old Lucinda suffers horrendous abuse, her mind splinters, and she dissociates so that she doesn't have to deal with the pain. For her, time moves not precisely as it ought but flickers in and out of her mind. Memories of her abuse were repressed for over thirty years, and when she remembers what happened, it happened not in the past but became a present terror. As memories appear, like flashes of lightening in a black sky, she writes them down, and realizes that she is broken. Like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing, she must put herself back together.

At age 81, LuWanda Cheney became obsessed with putting these memories in order. Lucinda's journals became this book.



"Rarely does one read the horrendous experience of a child and still feel the need to finish the story. This is a beautifully written story. The child's narration completely transforms our perception of childhood abuse.

---Gail Bobbin, Domestic Violence Task Force