Walker ‘Breaking Free’

As a football player, Herschel Walker had several identities and incarnations.

A running back with uncommon power and speed, Walker was an instant All-American at Georgia in 1980 and a Heisman Trophy winner two years later. He left school early to join the fledgling U.S. Football League — a shocking move at the time — and then played for the Dallas Cowboys, for whom he had one notable season before going to the Minnesota Vikings in a blockbuster trade for several draft picks. The deal helped the Cowboys build a dynasty, while Minnesota, for whom Walker proved serviceable but unspectacular, went nowhere. He finished his career as a backup with three other teams, including Dallas again.

That was the Herschel Walker familiar to the public — one of the greatest college players ever, merely a solid pro. But there were other versions of Walker, many others, known only to a select few. It was because of a mental illness called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

During the last few months, Walker has discussed his battle with DID, formerly known as multiple-personality disorder, to raise public awareness and promote his book, “Breaking Free,” which he co-wrote. The book details his struggles with DID, including how he played Russian roulette several times and considered killing a man.

His ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, also went public, discussing how Walker put a gun to her head, threatened her with razor blades and knives and choked her. Walker doesn’t disavow this but said he recalls none of it.

Why share such a story and its disturbing personal details (which have since provoked a measure of ridicule)? Walker said it helped him come to grips with his problem. And, he said, the proceeds from the book will go toward building or converting hospitals in San Francisco, Dallas and El Paso, Texas, to help those suffering from mental illnesses and substance abuse.

But mainly, he intends to enlighten and educate.

“My life is not complete yet,” he said. “I’m as proud of this book as I was of playing football. I think it can help a lot of people. If one person can draw inspiration, if they have a drug or an alcohol problem and they see that I come out and tell my story and they say, ’I want to get there, too,’ this book is worth it to me. This book is for people who are hiding, who are ashamed. I had a serious problem. This ain’t no joke. This is real.”

In recognition of his efforts, Walker will be honored today during a National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day event at the Lincoln Theater. Held by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the event includes dance, music and poetry performed by local high school students.

“He’s using his celebrity to ultimately help other people,” said Dr. Gary Blau, chief of the adolescent and family branch at SAMHSA. “Because of people like Herschel Walker, people might have the courage to make that phone call.”

Walker, 46, who lives in Dallas and runs a food manufacturing and distribution business, said he tries to explain DID in simple terms “so that people can understand it.” This, he said, has upset some in the psychiatric community because it is, in fact, a complicated and often misunderstood illness. He is not taking medication, instead relying on the counseling of Jerry Mungadze, a psychologist.

Blau and others familiar with DID say 85 to 95 percent of the cases are the result of abuse, usually sexual or physical, during childhood. Not Walker’s. While growing up in a small town in Georgia, he said, his parents were supportive and did not abuse him. But he had other issues. His peers ridiculed him for stuttering and being overweight. He was afraid of the dark and suffered through nightmares.

By the summer before ninth grade, “enough was enough,” he said. “I almost built this alter ego that could do almost anything. “Sit-ups, push-ups, reading.”

That might have been the start of it. Walker said he since came to learn he has more than a dozen alter egos, or “alters,” each with its own distinct traits. Among the alters he describes are the Hero, the Judge, the Shadow of the Warrior, the Daredevil and the Frightened/Wounded.

Some of his alters, he said, are positive and served as “coping mechanisms” to help deal with the bullying, the nightmares, the anger.

“If I’d gone through life with that, not being able to handle that, maybe I’d have been in a home, maybe I would have killed myself,” he said. “Yet I did all these other [positive] things.”

Said Blau: “It’s a protective device. The whole point of this disorder is to help somebody cope with all their life’s stresses.”

But the negatives, such as the games of Russian roulette he played in 1998 after he retired, proved destructive. He insists these were not suicide attempts but a manifestation of the Daredevil alter. A devout Christian, Walker said it was Satan trying to pull him into darkness. He accomplished so much, “the only thing left for me was to take on death,” he said. “It was the ultimate game.”

Walker was prone to anger and mood swings. He attacked his wife. To settle a dispute with someone he believed “jerked me around” over delivery of a new car, Walker grabbed his pistol (for which he had a license), got in his car and imagined killing him. He said it would be no different from shooting targets, “except for the visceral enjoyment I’d get from seeing the spray of brain tissue and blood.”

That did it. He often was out of control, and he knew it. The incident, in 2001, motivated him to get help.

“Something was clearly wrong with me, and I had to figure out what it was,” he wrote in his book. “And quickly.”

Although he can’t remember many things, he takes full responsibility.

“It’s very hard to look at myself and think I could be like that,” he said. “I’m ashamed of it.”

Walker is one of a handful of athletes who publicly have acknowledged a mental illness, but that came after his retirement. It took a major incident during Super Bowl week in 2004 for it to come out that former Oakland Raiders center Barrett Robbins suffered from a bipolar disorder and depression. A stigma still exists.

“There’s a degree of shame,” sports psychologist Richard Lustberg said. “Not just with athletes but with all people.”

As part of its player assistance program, the NFL, like the other major professional sports leagues, has a mechanism to assist those with emotional and mental disorders. According to a league spokesman, at least three mental health professionals are available to each team.

Not only are players worried about public perception, but the lack of job security in the NFL for many might keep someone worried about his job from getting help.

“These players need an independent place to go,” Lustberg said. “If you’re classified as a head case, they’re gonna get rid of you. If you have two equal guys with the same ceiling level, of course you’re gonna get rid of the guy with problems. That’s totally human nature.”

Walker agreed.

“How many people are gonna give endorsements to someone who’s seen as weak?” he said.

No longer an athlete, Walker considered it necessary to admit his problems.

“That’s what I should have done,” he said. “It’s my responsibility to do it. If I didn’t, I think I’d be like a liar.”