The autobiography explains the creation of the 92 multiple personalities, named "The Troops," that Chase developed to deal with the abuse she suffered. Chase writes about how she didn't reach the conclusion that she had multiple personalities until her sessions with the hypnotherapist Dr. Robert Philips of Washington D.C. Differing from most people with her condition, Chase didn't fuse her separate personalities, but instead they worked together in a team to protect her.
Chase writes through her personalities, with the book narrated by one troop member, named Recorder. The other personalities (social Alvira, hard Nails, alert Gatekeeper and others) describe Chase's suffering. The book talks about her vague recollections from her rape at the age of two to the continued abuse until she was sixteen. Chase describes how she "went to sleep" to escape the abuse, retreating to her internal world. The book follows her life through college and medical school years, where she experienced breakdowns and hospitalizations.
Chase worked with ABC to produce a miniseries entitled "Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase," based closely on "When The Rabbit Howls." The miniseries depicts events from the book, such as when Chase met and married her husband, the birth of her daughter and the deterioration of her condition, leading to her therapy. The miniseries starts with Chase calling her therapist, telling him she has found her stepfather and is going to kill him.
Truddi Chase appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on two occasions and was the first guest on Oprah Winfrey's radio program. She also attended an interview with Phil Donahue. She spoke about how, after the release of her autobiography, her stepfather denied having abused her when approached by a Washington Post reporter.