I bought Today I’m Alice, an autobiography of Alice Jamieson, written with the help of Clifford Thurlow, on Friday when I was in town. I started reading it on Saturday and finished it on Monday night.

Teenager Alice has bad dreams night after night after night. She slowly comes to realise they’re not dreams, they’re memories.

Memories of the despicable abuse her father subjected her to between the ages of six months and sixteen years old.

After a lifetime of therapy, alcohol, the voices telling her she’s useless, misdiagnosis, drugs and being admitted to psychiatric hospitals, she is finally diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Alice finds out that each personality has his or her own horror story starting with sexual abuse by her father to his lending her out to friends to his taking her to the castle for use by a paedophile ring.

It’s heart-rending, sickening, graphic.

Alice is a brave woman. She faces her demons, both in her head and in her father’s house. I wish her well.

I have few polite words to describe her father.

This will stay with me for a long time.

Tell the world about this!

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categories: Art and Literature
tags: biography and memoir, non-fiction, reviews