A former Mountains resident will visit the region to talk about her debut memoir SPLIT a life shared: living with Multiple Personality Disorder.
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Maggie Walters will be at Springwood Presbyterian Church on Monday June 17 at 7.30pm, in conversation with John McClean, as they talk about shedding a light on stigma around mental health. The event is free.
As a small child, the author was subjected to trauma that caused her to develop personalities (known as alters) to ensure her survival.
It was not until many years later, struggling with anxiety, an unpredictable temper and an inability to make friends, that a qualified therapist diagnosed her as a trauma survivor with Multiple Personality Disorder, now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder.
DID is often sensationalised in movies, but what causes it and what is it really like to live with?
Ms Walter said she wants to "get the word out about mental health, and normalise perspectives around complex trauma".
To help shine a light on this mental health condition that is thought to affect approximately 1.5 per cent of the global population - 250,000 in Australia.
The Springwood church will host the now Northern Rivers-based author as she discusses her acclaimed debut memoir.
"As a small child, I was subjected to trauma that caused me to develop personalities to ensure my survival," she said.
"It's been a complex and difficult journey for sure, but I've found the process of writing Split - and now being open with people about it - has been extraordinarily healing.
"I love that it's also being helpful to others with complex trauma and DID, their families and the medical profession too."
In the foreword psychiatrist Dr George Blair West says: "If I was asked to capture DID in one sentence, I would say: 'it's a testimony to how the human mind really can develop superpowers ... and fly away'.
"DID is not a mental illness, it is perhaps, the most powerful adaptive response that the human mind is capable of when it is faced with the most powerful trauma that humans are capable of."
Ms Walters said she was rejected 14 times by agents and publishers because "although they loved the book, and thought the subject matter was important, they didn't think they could sell it, as I was not a 'celebrity'".
She said seeing and sharing it has been "empowering".
Port Macquarie publishing consultant, Anna Featherstone, said 'It's exquisitely written and reveals an extraordinary way of being in the world. It will be great for people to be able to hear from and speak with Maggie about her book and experiences.'
