Identitylessness: A Memoir, Vol. 1

by David Farr

As a consequence of driving drunk, David Farr's father wrapped his friend's car around a tree in the summer of 1971, several months before David was born. This resulted in a traumatic brain-injury (TBI) which negatively impacted his father for the rest of his life in several ways, not the least of which was a propensity to intermittent outbursts of violence which would terrify David, his siblings and their mother for more than a decade. Compounding his dad's woes was his belief that he could regain his former, pre-TBI, "true self." In an attempt to cope with living with David's father, his mother turned to a psychiatrist who not only practiced the now thoroughly debunked techniques of recovered-memory therapy with her, but also--and under the implicit sanction of the medical-industrial complex--initiated her into a lifelong dependence on the toxic benzodiazepine Xanax and the toxic selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor Zoloft (and later other SSRIs). He also "diagnosed" her with a multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder, itself virtually debunked and controversial at best. He then persuaded her that she needed to integrate her personalities into a single personality to achieve an entity status similar to what David's father called a true self. Under the deadly influence of this manifestation of what David calls identity-centric psychology, his mother was encouraged down a path which not only resulted in three serious suicide attempts, but also culminated in her tragic Xanax related death in the autumn of 1997 at the age of forty-three. In this first volume of A Memoir David Farr (BA Psychology, MS Conflict Resolution) describes his initial intuitive suspicions about identity as a destructive construct, and the reinforcing of those suspicions through witnessing the damage his parents' beliefs in those constructs wrought in their lives. His turn towards embracing similar yet individuated destructive beliefs in his mid teens through his early twenties via 12 Step philosophies, pentecostalism and evangelicalism is the focus of his forthcoming second volume. His return to his initial suspicions and a deepening of those suspicions leading up to and following his mom's passing when he was twenty-five is the principal subject of his forthcoming and final third volume.

294 pages, Paperback

Published May 9, 2021

About the author

David Farr is is one of the UK's leading screenwriters and directors for film, TV and theatre. In 2009, he was appointed Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his productions of The Winter's Tale, King Lear and The Homecoming all opened to critical acclaim. David is known for his work on Spooks and his 2016 BBC adaptation of The Night Manager, starring Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. He completed his first feature film, Hanna, in 2009, and has since adapted it into a hugely successful series for Amazon Prime. The Book of Stolen Dreams is his first novel.