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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda gem Nation. This associative identity disorder formerly

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Speaker 1: known as multiple personality disorder brendan. People of our age

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Speaker 1: probably first saw this.

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Speaker 2: In the movie Sybil Yes, Sally Feel.

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Speaker 1: Personalities is what we would call it. This happens when

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Speaker 1: a person goes through some horrendous abuse and they switch

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Speaker 1: to other identities to manage the abuse so that they

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Speaker 1: can survive the experience. Maggie Walters has shared her incredible

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Speaker 1: story of living with this disorder in a new book

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Speaker 1: called Split and She joins, Now, Hello, Maggie.

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Speaker 3: Good morning.

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Speaker 2: Hey Maggie, Hey, how are you doing very well?

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Speaker 3: Maggie?

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Speaker 1: How many personalities, if that's what we call them, did

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Speaker 1: you have? How did it manifest for you?

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Speaker 3: So I've probably got close to forty. A lot of

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Speaker 3: people that I'm aware of have more than that, but

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Speaker 3: I have about forty and they don't manifest anymore. I'm

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Speaker 3: what's called high functioning. What that means is that unless

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Speaker 3: I get severely triggered, they don't come out that I

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Speaker 3: don't flip. It was when I was a child that

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Speaker 3: they basically were developed by my system administrator and her

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Speaker 3: name was Annie, in order to manage our system so

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Speaker 3: that everybody could stay safe.

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Speaker 2: And I was reading when you went through some terrible

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Speaker 2: abuse when you were young, and yeah, so can you

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Speaker 2: be triggered just like these interview for example? Could something

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Speaker 2: I don't want to trigger you with anything.

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Speaker 3: No. Look, I'm associative. That's the beauty of it, you know.

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Speaker 3: I'm sorry, naturally, I actually have an altar who really

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Speaker 3: sees talking about this stuff. She doesn't have any trauma

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Speaker 3: associated with her. She sees talking and sharing this message

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Speaker 3: trying to you know, to normalize and change the narrative

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Speaker 3: around mental health as being very healing for all of us,

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Speaker 3: which is really great. So that helps a lot. So

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Speaker 3: I don't tend to get triggered.

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Speaker 1: You said that the characters inside the other personalities in

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Speaker 1: a bit of a wood, they were the girls, and

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Speaker 1: each one would come out at a different time and

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Speaker 1: deal differently with the abuse.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, so it's you know, they were some of

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Speaker 3: them they knew exactly what their their jobs were. In

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Speaker 3: the book, I talk about how you know they they

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Speaker 3: got ready, They knew what sort of abuse was getting

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Speaker 3: ready to happen. So different altars were created for different things,

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Speaker 3: and a lot of them have stayed children and very small,

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Speaker 3: so they're kind of stuck in a loop where the

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Speaker 3: abuse is all they know and it's all they're aware of,

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Speaker 3: even while it's not happening. That's just that's their whole

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Speaker 3: world and that's all they can think about.

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Speaker 2: And so you're conscious of these happening. So yeah, yeah, Like,

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Speaker 2: do you get all the girls together and say, let's

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Speaker 2: have a meeting. Who's going to deal with these?

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Speaker 3: Ah? Look, I wish we were that functional. I like

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Speaker 3: to say that my altars, we have a dysfunctional family.

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Speaker 3: Some of them I get along with, some of them

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Speaker 3: I don't. They often are happy to tell me when

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Speaker 3: I am not dealing with the world in the way

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Speaker 3: that they would like for me to deal with it.

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Speaker 3: Some of them are not really happy about me trying

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Speaker 3: to increase the visibility of complex mental trauma and trying to,

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Speaker 3: you know, change the way the world sees it. And

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Speaker 3: it's it's causing me a few internal problems. We're just

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Speaker 3: a dysfunctional, normal family, and when we do talk, I

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Speaker 3: try to negotiate with them. Sometimes successful, sometimes it's not.

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Speaker 1: Is it exhausting, Maggie, It sounds exating.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, tell me about it, you know, I have

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Speaker 3: friends who go, man, I just I'm neurotypical, and I

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Speaker 3: just have my own voice speaking to me in my head,

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Speaker 3: and it drives me crazy, you know. And when I've

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Speaker 3: got thirty or forty that are constantly telling me their

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Speaker 3: perspective on my life. Yeah, it's chaotic and can drive

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Speaker 3: me crazy at times.

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Speaker 2: And could you take any drugs to fix this or

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Speaker 2: a drug?

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Speaker 3: No, they're drugs are not a part of this. And

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Speaker 3: that's probably one of the biggest misconceptions around this, is

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Speaker 3: that and why it's misdiagnosed. Someone will come in and

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Speaker 3: say they hear voices, so they're automatically diagnosed to schizophrenic,

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Speaker 3: bipolar or something like that, and they think drugs are

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Speaker 3: going to fix it. You can't do any drugs that

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Speaker 3: are going to change this because this was not This

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Speaker 3: is not a biological issue. This is a trauma issue,

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Speaker 3: and the only way to resolve it and to bring

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Speaker 3: peace to the system in any sort of fashion is

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Speaker 3: therapy and talking.

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Speaker 1: So how old were you when you pieced all this together?

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Speaker 3: So I actually went away when I was three. My

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Speaker 3: family was immigrating from England to America and I got

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Speaker 3: hit and I went away so our whole childhood, I

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Speaker 3: was not around. I didn't really come back until in

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Speaker 3: my late twenties and my primary alter Annie, she started.

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Speaker 3: She knew straightaway that she was an altar and that

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Speaker 3: she had to start wrestling with things and start creating

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Speaker 3: girls to deal with some of the abuse that happened

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Speaker 3: once we moved to the States. She so she started,

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Speaker 3: so she had to wrestle with all that. At a

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Speaker 3: point where actually she left home, she started forgetting about

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Speaker 3: the abuse. And it was that when everything started to

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Speaker 3: calm down a little bit and the girls felt safer

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Speaker 3: that we're actually able to see a therapist too. Helped

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Speaker 3: to start walking through understanding what it meant to be multiple.

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Speaker 2: That's great that you managed to pick this upot though,

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Speaker 2: that you've actually and this gives us a way to

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Speaker 2: move forward with dealing with people with mental health issues.

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Speaker 3: Well, and that's my whole goal at the end of

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Speaker 3: the day is you know, some people said, You've have

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Speaker 3: let people so inside such intimate events in your life,

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Speaker 3: and I'm like, the more I am transparent about who

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Speaker 3: I am, the more you guys are going to go,

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Speaker 3: you know what, You're just somebody like someone else and

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Speaker 3: let's show you a bit of love and kindness and

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Speaker 3: move on.

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Speaker 1: Oh, Maggie, amazing, very good.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: And I guess you'd never be lonely. You never to

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Speaker 2: get lonely, No.

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Speaker 3: Never never. That's so well he could insight.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good upside. If you want to read Split,

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Speaker 2: head to Maggie Walters dot com. Maggie, thank you for

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Speaker 2: joining us.

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Speaker 3: Yes, can I just say really quickly that I am

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Speaker 3: doing a Sydney launch at better Red than Dead on

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Speaker 3: Thursday night. Please come down and enjoy a talk with me.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Oh it would be amazing. You've been fabulous. Thank you, Maggie, well,

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Speaker 1: thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating