The Minds of Billy Milligan

Shortly after Dorothy married Chalmer, she discovered that he was unusually strict and controlling with all the children, and they grew terrified of him. One Sunday, a few weeks after Billy turned nine, he noticed Chalmer watching him closely. The next morning, Chalmer took only Billy up to his farm and sexually abused him in the barn, threatening to kill and bury him there if Billy told anyone what happened. The moment Billy began to feel the pain, however, he closed his eyes and “his mind, his emotions and his soul [shattered] into twenty-four parts” (159).

After Chalmer beat Dorothy for the first time, Billy was distraught and went to sleep, and the others emerged. He began to constantly lose time and was repeatedly punished in school for his strange behavior. The first time Arthur emerged, Billy was due to take a math test in class; Arthur completed the test, and when Billy awakened, he was amazed to find that he had obtained a perfect score in a subject he struggled with.

When Billy was 14, Chalmer took him out to the barn and, after abusing him, briefly buried him alive; from that moment on, 14-year-old “Danny” was terrified of the earth and refused to paint landscapes. Some days later, “Tommy” emerged when a bedside lamp in Billy’s room needed fixing; curious and fascinated by electronics and electricity, he began to learn everything he could about them from library books. He also learned to pick locks and studied methods of escape.

Billy loved flowers, poetry, and helping Dorothy around the house, but Chalmer punished him for doing feminine things. “Adalana” appeared to do them for Billy instead, and when she received the brunt of Chalmer’s wrath, she learned that men were not to be trusted and to seek comfort and closeness with women instead. Allen emerged for the first time when Billy was being bullied by some neighborhood boys and needed to talk his way out of the situation. However, when the boys flung him into a pit and threw stones at him, “Ragen” emerged and climbed out of the pit, exhibiting unprecedented strength, and confronted the bullies with a pocket knife; they promptly scattered.

The logical and intelligent Arthur confirmed the existence of the other alters and over time deduced their personalities and purposes by tracking the lost time. Arthur eventually met and spoke with each of the alters, and his knowledge of them all made him the default head of the large family of Billy’s identities. He noted that Kevin and Phillip were troublemakers and had a penchant for criminal behavior, so they needed to be watched; he observed that Ragen was dangerous and powerful but necessary for Billy’s survival.

Arthur eventually introduced himself to Ragen and explained the existence of the others to him. Together, the two decided that the highest priorities were to control the alters and events (so that they could all survive) and to continually work at self-improvement. They also agreed that they must maintain Billy’s ignorance about their existence lest it “drive him insane” (175).

When Billy was 15, the school psychologist reported on Billy’s trances, uncommunicativeness, uncooperative and erratic behavior, depression, and tendency for self-harm. The school principal referred Billy to the Fairfield County Clinic for Guidance and Mental Health. He was examined by the director, psychiatrist Harold T. Brown, who diagnosed him as having “hysterical neurosis with many passive-aggressive features” (178-79) and admitted him to the children’s unit of Colombus State Hospital.

Milligan was eventually discharged at his mother’s request. His discharge summary noted his disruptive behavior and recommended that he continue therapy on an outpatient basis. Billy continued to struggle in school, especially when word got out that he was a patient at the mental health clinic. Ashamed and distraught after a girl bullied him, he climbed up to the school’s roof, intending to jump, but Ragen pushed him off “the spot” of consciousness just in time. Arthur and Ragen decided that for everyone’s safety, Billy must be kept asleep henceforth. Arthur or Ragen would control consciousness, depending on the situation, and Allen would do the speaking. All the alters were told of the plan and directed to protect the secret at all costs.

Allen cycled through different jobs, such as working in a florist’s shop with “Timothy” and Adalana’s help and working as an orderly on a night shift in a nursing home with “Mark” and Arthur’s assistance. He was eventually let go from both jobs.

Milligan continued to receive poor grades in school, and he kept getting into trouble. After the school was evacuated following a bomb scare, everyone suspected Milligan; Tommy denied making the bomb, though he privately noted that he taught another boy how to do so. However, Milligan was expelled, after which Tommy and Allen joined the Navy.

Tommy lied on his recruitment papers about never having been in a psychiatric institution, and Milligan was made the “RPOC (Recruit Petty Officer in Charge) of 160 young recruits” (195). Tommy and Allen did a brilliant job the first few weeks, but when they learned that Chalmer was beating Dorothy again, Milligan’s behavior turned erratic once more, and the different alters constantly switched. After being examined by a psychiatrist, he was honorably discharged.

On the way home, Phillip took a bus to New York instead of flying to Ohio. He spent a couple days there before Allen took over and was furious and terrified to discover that he was in New York and had an invalid ticket. He managed to talk the airlines into writing him a fresh ticket from New York to Ohio, and as he flew home, he wondered who had stolen time from him.

Allen got a job selling vacuum cleaners. One of his coworkers, Sam Garrison, learning that Milligan was still a virgin, solicited the services of two sex workers for both of them. However, Allen declined their advances, and Garrison left with Allen without paying the women. Four days later, Garrison and Milligan were arrested on charges of kidnapping, rape, and assault with a deadly weapon, brought against them by the women. The judge set a bail bond amount, which Dorothy paid, and she took Milligan home before sending him to stay with her sister in Miami until the hearing.

While Milligan was away, Kathy and Challa, Chalmer’s daughter, convinced Dorothy to divorce Chalmer. In Florida, Allen did well in school and got a job at a paint supply store. When Milligan returned home for the hearing, he was found guilty and sent to an Ohio Youth Commission facility; on the same day, Dorothy’s divorce from Chalmer came through.

The youth camp that Milligan was sent to had four zones, and residents progressed from Zone 1 to 4 through a merit system; merits could be docked by the staff or by the boys in Zone 4, also called “trusties.” Tommy observed one of the boys from Zone 4, Frank Jordan, using this rule to his advantage to rag and bully two other boys in Zone 1, Tony Vito and Gordon Kane.

As time passed, the various alters engaged in different activities at camp. Milligan was eventually moved to Zone 2, but as he was anticipating moving to Zone 3, Jordan docked Milligan’s merits when Tommy refused to do Jordan’s laundry. Along with Vito and Kane, who had also been docked merits, Allen put together a case to propose a change to the merit system and argued it to the social worker in charge, who promised to look into it.

The same evening, Jordan punched Vito when he refused to polish Jordan’s shoes, and Tommy and Kane retaliated by beating up Jordan. Before Jordan could tell his story to the staff, Allen informed them about Jordan hitting Vito. A couple days later, it was announced that only staff could dock merits henceforth. Jordan was required to repay all the merits he unjustly docked from his own account and was bumped down to Zone 1, while Milligan, Kane, and Vito all moved up to Zone 3.

Once Milligan moved to Zone 4, he was allowed to go home for visits. On his first trip back home, he met Dorothy’s new boyfriend, Del Moore, who made Tommy uncomfortable. However, he liked and got along well with Stuart, Del Moore’s son, who was the same age as Billy. The two young men made plans to share an apartment once Milligan got out of youth camp, and even their parents approved of their plan. However, a few weeks before Milligan was due to leave camp, Stuart died in a motorcycle accident, and Tommy went into shock.

A month after Stuart’s death, Milligan was released from youth camp. Arthur created and communicated a set of rules to the other alters that they must strictly follow if all of them were to survive: They must behave properly to women and children, remain celibate, spend their time on self-improvement, respect the property of the other alters in the family, and never lie. Breaking any of these rules would lead to banishment with the other “undesirables,” like Phillip and Kevin.

In addition, each alter was given specific responsibilities. For instance, as the protector, Ragen was the only one allowed to perpetrate violence or carry out victimless crimes, but only in self-defense and for survival; Danny was entrusted with babysitting and caring for the younger children; Adalana was to perfect her cooking skills, for use when Milligan finally moved out and got his own apartment.

“Samuel,” a practicing Jew, broke one of the rules when he sold some of Allen and Tommy’s paintings for money. When Arthur found out, he banished Samuel despite Samuel's argument that his belief in God might serve as good insurance for the afterlife. Samuel contended that being the only one in the family with this belief could be a reason to keep him around, just in case God did exist. “Martin,” a braggart from New York, was banished when Arthur found that he spent his time dreaming of a flashy life rather than working on improving himself. “April” from Boston, obsessed with thoughts of killing Chalmer, was banished after she almost convinced Ragen to carry out the deed.

At a party that Milligan was invited to, Allen met a woman named Marlene, who he sensed was attracted to him. When Marlene later arrived at Milligan’s apartment, having tracked down his address from a mutual friend, Kevin opened the door; he didn’t remember meeting her but was pleased to see her, and they spent the evening together.

Milligan began a relationship with Marlene, but whenever they had sex, Kevin disappeared and Adalana emerged. Allen and Tommy eventually discovered that someone in the family was in a relationship with Marlene; while Allen decided that he wanted nothing to do with Marlene, Tommy began to fall for her. Marlene learned to adjust to Milligan’s various shifts in temperament and behavior, which moved without provocation from anger to tenderness, from clumsiness to witticisms, and from affection to withdrawal.

Ragen began to collect weapons, and Kevin got in touch with Kane from youth camp about dealing drugs. Although Kevin sought out Kane, Ragen took on the job because of its dangerous nature and the requirement to wield weapons: He was tasked with protecting various people who made narcotics deliveries across Columbus. However, the mix-ups between alters began to peak: Ragen began to suspect that Phillip and Kevin were both stealing time, despite their banishment, when he found barbiturates and amphetamines in Milligan’s apartment. Ragen tried and failed to communicate with Arthur about the situation.