Chris Costner Sizemore

Christine Costner Sizemore (April 4, 1927 – July 24, 2016) was an American woman who, in the 1950s, was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder. Her case was depicted in the 1950s book The Three Faces of Eve, written by her psychiatrists, Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, upon which the film of the same name, starring Joanne Woodward, was based. Sizemore went public with her identity in the 1970s.

Background Sizemore was born Christine Costner on April 4, 1927, to Asa "Acie" Costner and Eunice Zueline Hastings in Edgefield, South Carolina. In her book, I'm Eve (1977), Christine describes many phases of her life; the first she titles the separation, labelled the years 1927 to 1946, wherein she identifies a selection of the selves or alters and their memories. The first alter she calls from her memory is the red haired stranger who witnesses these very first traumatic events with Christine, whereby she can recollect this girl (one alter) in her memories. These memories match the ones Thigpen had attributed to her development of multiple personalities.

Her earliest memory, at 10 months old, is of the funeral of a five-month-old cousin. She writes of her fear of the white casket, her aunts mourning, her father closing the casket lid, and her concern that her cousin might be scared of the dark, alluding to her own fears of darkness and of death. She later describes, in her book, her guilt about still being alive when her cousin could not be. Thigpen pointed to three traumatic events Christine witnessed at age 2 as causing her dissociation. The first she recalls is of a drunken old man who had died in a water-filled ditch and was retrieved by her uncle and father. She describes the old man’s decomposition and being scolded by her mother for having witnessed this. In the second event, Christine is again scolded by her mother, this time for sitting under her legs. As Christine's mother is churning milk, the glass jar breaks unexpectedly and the mother presses the shards to her body to prevent Christine from being cut. Christine observes in horror as her mother's arm is slashed and is too paralyzed with fear to get aid for her mother. The final event is an incident that occurred at the saw mill where her father worked. When Christine’s mother hears the whistle that indicates an accident at the mill, she and Christine go to the mill and witness the dismemberment of a worker. Following these incidents, Christine is chronically and intensely worried about the potential illness and/or death of her family members and loved ones.

Diagnosis and The Three Faces of Eve Thigpen and Cleckley diagnosed Sizemore and treated her at no cost for several years.

In 1970, she started treatment with Tony Tsitos, whom she credited with making the greatest progress in integrating the divergent personalities over the next four years.

Sizemore stated that she felt exploited and objectified by the media blitz surrounding the book and film of Three Faces of Eve. Upon discovering in 1988 that her legal rights to her own life story had been signed away to 20th Century Fox by Thigpen, Sizemore went to Manhattan's Federal District Court to contest the contract. She accepted an out-of-court settlement, and no further films were made about her.

Sizemore's papers, covering 1952 through 1989, have been acquired by the Duke University Library. An overview of the collection and a summary of Sizemore's story are included on its website.