Today I'm Alice
Alice Jamieson, Clifford Thurlow

Book Reviews

• "Today I’m Alice diverges from the popular “misery lit” genre; it is an intelligent, analytical first-hand account of mental illness, written by a remarkable woman still learning to live with herself."
  Financial Times
• "This is a remarkably lucid account of a life that has been fractured by multiple personality disorder… This isn't a misery memoir but an account of mental illness that's so beautifully written it reminded me of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Jamieson survived 100 overdoses, alcoholism and cocaine addiction to find love with a church warden.You won't be able to get her story out of your head… You won’t be able to get her story out of your head."
  London Lite
• ".. a compelling account of the strategies she has used to survive more than two decades of grotesque sexual, physical and emotional harm. It is not comfortable reading but it does offer insight into a form of mental illness that is more pervasive than we may realise"
  Times
• "Today I’m Alice is the first major British book covering the subject of Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder and childhood trauma, written by a survivor. It provides a unique insight into the complex world of living as a ‘multiple’ and is a book every mental health worker should read as this condition is rarely understood or appropriately treated within Mental Health Services..."
  Remy Aquarone, Secretary of the ESTD (European Society for Trauma & Dissociation) and Director of the Pottergate Centre for Dissociation & Trauma
• "…a harrowing account of childhood and subsequent battles with addiction and severe mental illness as a result of abuse…describes how multiple personality disorder develops as a direct result of repeated childhood trauma and allows a child to detach itself from a catastrophic event by creating other personas. In adulthood, these alternative personas or ‘alters’ become distinct personalities and the sufferer may have no awareness of what is happening when one takes control."
  Daily Express
• "Moving and ultimately inspiring, this is a gripping account of a rare condition, and the remarkable story of a courageous woman."
  Yorkshire Evening Post
• "This powerful and compelling memoir about living with multiple personality disorder is the first of its kind in the UK. Written in the first-person, it charts the life of Alice who, after being abused as a child, created multiple personalities to hide behind. "
  Northern Scot Midweek
• "The harrowing tale of Alice Jamieson's mental breakdown plunges boldly into the controversy over Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder) and recovered memories. The author's co-writer, Clifford Thurlow, more than meets the challenge of crafting a coherent story without telling it in chronological order. Instead, the unraveling of Alice's mind is revealed in flashes of memory and schizoid losses of time. The story unfolds much as it might have inside Alice's head, with growing horror as details pile on details. Her attempts to escape the mental torture through alcohol and drug abuse only add to her disintegration. Anyone who found the famous cases of Sybil and Billy Milligan fascinating will appreciate Alice's classic symptoms, which reassert the frightening range of possibilities inherent in mental illness."
  Emily Naish, Amazon.com
• "I heard Alice Jamieson interviewed on Radio 4, and found myself choosing this book on Amazon as a 'must read' oddball choice. It took me months to start it, but once I did, I didn't stop. Now I find myself almost unable describe the book, other than to say its beautifully written and compelling."
  M.Bhangal, Top 500 Amazon reviewer, Amazon.co.uk