Not Sybil

A Girl Not Named Sybil

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/magazine/a-girl-not-named-sybil.html?pagewanted=3&src=recg&adxnnlx=1318852883-/AjM2pCOLKRt0gmrJY8Cpw

She claimed she awoke in antique shops

Surrounded by shattered china dolls

Or in foreign hotels in far flung cities

Quiet woman transformed into pigtailed girl;

And arrogant student;

Frightened loner;

Chatty rule breaker.

You believed it all,

Crawling into bed with your patient

To administer electric shock

Feeding her sodium pentothal , barbiturates

Tape recording endless sessions

Where she spoke of Mother

(and the flashlight inside her, blanket over her eyes, cotton stuffed in her nostrils; silver boxes and glass bottles, arms and legs held down)

The only doubt you had...

When she confessed so many lies...