Split - by Maggie R Walters (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

As a young adult, years after her physical abuse has ended, Maggie Walters (continually struggles with an unpredictable temper and socially difficult behaviour) has to leave yet another job due to her unpredictable temper and socially difficult behavior. After several false starts she finds a therapist who she trusts, just enough, to start talking about the childhood locked away behind the anger and isolation she has learnt to live with.

Eventually she is diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, MPD (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID).

Gradually, she understands. It was not Maggie who survived her childhood. The instinct to survive created an alternative identity called Annie, who with a myriad of other 'alters', lived through the abuse inflicted on her.

Decades later, with a husband and three much-loved children, Maggie strives to live a normal life despite a past which has left her internal world with a hidden, dark secret. Every day, unseen by those around her, trigger incidents fill her head with voices, the chaotic remnants of her other selves who lived the childhood she couldn't. This is the 'normal' which Maggie has learned to live with.

In SPLIT Maggie tells the story of managing this 'normal', of understanding and accepting her past, and standing proud in the life she has built from the ashes of her broken childhood.

It is a story not only of survival, but of self-acceptance, of the triumph to simply live. You will not read another book like it.

Review Quotes

In her work, Maggie consistently engages with tough, complex themes with deep commitment to making art out of the difficulties she's lived through. I have no doubt readers will benefit from her insight into issues that many people have struggled with but remained silent about. Her writing can do much good in the world.

-- Lee Kofman

A rare and fascinating journey into the origin and turmoil of living with Multiple Personality Disorder--a candid, often harrowing account of the enduring power of the human spirit. Sometimes shocking, often enlightening, always compelling.

-- Michelle Tom

An unflinching, exquisitely written memoir revealing an extraordinary way of being in the world.

-- Anna Featherstone

SPLIT is a book to inspire and inform every trauma survivor who doubted they had a future, every family member or supporter who wondered what they could do to help, and for anyone wanting to understand and reduce the stigma around mental health struggles.

-- Alan Close