Herschel Walker Says Personality Disorder Led To Playing Russian Roulette

Last January Former NFL Star Herschel Walker revealed that he suffers from multiple personality disorder. In his recently released book "Breaking Free," Walker, who served as an Olympic torchbearer last week, discusses his condition and some of the more severe dangers it brings.

Asked how many different personality facets, or alters, he has, Walker replied: "To be honest, I have no idea." But in the book, Walker talks about a dozen. They're described by their roles or function: the Hero, the Coach, the Enforcer, the Consoler, the Daredevil, the Warrior, to name a few.

Some of these alters did a lot of good, he said. But others led to some extreme and violent behavior, most of which Walker said he doesn't remember. As a result, the disorder, or DID, led to the breakup of his marriage. "I lost the person that was like everything to me," he said. "I lost my wife and that's totally, totally devastating to me."

Walker said a competitive alter caused him to be a danger to himself, playing Russian roulette more than once. In the book he describes another incident, the very late delivery of a car, that made him so angry he had thoughts of killing someone. It was the moment he realized had to seek help, he said, which ultimately led to his diagnosis.

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Comments

[kellygrrrl]

Actual MPD (a la Sybil) is extremely rare and usually caused by extremely severe long-term abuse.

[LawOfAttraction]

He needs to get a hold of Tony Robbins REALLY QUICKLY.

Using NLP, Tony can reintegrate his personalities and restore to him his sanity.

Or he needs to at least see a licensed NLP practitioner that specializes in abnormal psychology.

[DickTater]

I have a lotta love and respect for Herschel also. However, as a viking fan, I cannot recommend trading the whole team for him.

[dora_rice]

amazing . No wonder he was good in football, baseball, sledding.....seemed a little odd how he could switch from one sport to the next and be successful. Sorry Hershel, we always will like you and that will never change. You were a super running back for the cowboys. I still remember it like it was yesterday.
How you jumped over the opponents landing a touchdown. I see it right in front of my eyes. Hope you feel better and don't worry. I also hate inefficient service people. I had many times wishing them hell on earth. They had to change the new carpet in my house twice, the Kitchen they had to redo three times. You can't good help these days. To wish them nothing good is normal.

[Obama2008]

Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder is not a personality disorder. The two are completely different.

You may want to review the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) to see how significant the differences and therefore the treatment is.

[kellygrrrl]

I was thinking the same thing. A lot of people think MPD is the same thing as schizophrenia, when they are not all the same and certainly not treated the same.

[sa]

here's the kicker:
it was ghost written by himself.

(written by a gator who still remembers his
heroic goal line vaults with georgia that beat our ass.
an awesome athlete. total respect).

p.s. and the immortal lindsey scott run.

[zendem1]

I witnessed the Lindsay Scott dash..It completely killed my buzz.

[Puller58]

I hope he does have a handle on his problem. Some celebs just go over a cliff when they have problems of this nature. It would be nice instead of pouring money down a rathole like Iraq, we were trying to help people with mental illness.

[kellygrrrl]

true! especially since we are going to have a great number of vets with mental illness when they finally get home. An entire generation is going to live with the effects of this for a long time.

[UpstateSC]

Good luck Herschel with your recovery. Like Tejano1 wrote, you are a class act and brave as well.

[Tejano1]

i loved herschel. a class act on and off the field. i hope he's turned a corner on his psychological problems.