Herschel Walker's first step was a bold one.

The former Georgia football star admitted he had a problem.

Bloomberg News

Herschel Walker will be in Athens and Atlanta Friday to discuss his recent book on battling personality disorder.

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In his new book "Breaking Free," Walker describes his struggle with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition in which alternate personalities aid a person who is dealing with or has dealt with traumatic events.

Now Walker wants to help others come to grips and understand their problems by explaining his story and by helping finance the development of several mental health hospitals around the country.

"If they are feeling these feelings I want them to realize 'you are not crazy,' " Walker said in an exclusive interview with the AJC. " 'You are not a loser. You are going through a tough time.' "

For Walker that lasted a long time. For years, particularly after his football career ended in 1998, he said he was confused about whom he truly was. He said as many as 12 different alternate personalities controlled him. Now, eight years after starting therapy, Walker is sharing his story.

"I could have hid all this bad stuff," Walker said. "I could have hid that but that wouldn't have been fair. I have an opportunity to help people that are hurting. There are a lot more than people with DID than want to admit it."

Walker said he is working with medical professionals to set up a network of hospitals. University Behavioral Health in Denton, Texas is the first of those hospitals. Another is scheduled to open in El Paso, Texas in May. Land in San Francisco has just been acquired for a third hospital.

"I get so many letters today from people that are suffering," Walker said. "I can't answer their letters but I can point them in the right direction."

Walker's largest step in his mission to help others was the release of his book this week. The cathartic biography chronicles Walker's years of not understanding who he was and how the different "alters" manifested themselves in his life.

"I used to think 'Am I crazy?'" Walker said.

When the former Georgia running back learned he wasn't and how to cope and deal with his DID he said he immediately wanted to help others.

"A lot of people have said, 'Oh jeez, this is something that is going to be devastating because you are Herschel Walker,'" he said. "I am not sure what they expect. I am a man that admitted that I had a problem. Any man out there, this is for women too, if you get knocked down you get up. That is what makes a man. I look at (the book) as something positive, not something negative."

Walker views the book as positive because it could help other people struggling with the same questions he once had.

The foremost expert on the disease, Dr. David Spiegel, the associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, has opined that about 1 percent of Americans have DID.

Others in the psychiatric profession have dismissed the diagnosis. And it remains a controversial subject within the psychiatric field.

But for Walker it is real. The disease, which Walker said affects him because of verbal abuse he received outside the home as a child, manifested itself in different forms over his lifetime. Walker said he had episodes where he very nearly took his own life and at other times that of his former wife, Cindy Grossman. He would play Russian roulette. He threatened Grossman with guns, knives and a straight razor.

He said he doesn't remember most of those episodes but does believe they happened.

Walker said he had personalities that helped him overcome the odds in football and business. But he said his problem was he couldn't reconcile or control his personalities.

"Think about a person that lives at home and wears a white hat," Walker said. "When he goes to play football he wears a red hat. When he goes to a business meeting he wears a blue hat. And when he is with his friends he wears a pink hat.

"The person with DID starts mixing the hats up and gets confused. They need somebody to help get the hats straight again."

Walker said he found that person in Dr. Jerry Mungadze. The two had known each other in passing since Walker's days at Georgia. Mungadze was an amateur runner and Walker used to see him at national meets.

When Mungadze was recommended, Walker said he went in with skepticism but a willingness to listen.

"He told me, 'Go look at some of the writing that I (Walker) wrote months ago.' And I started realizing some of the content was totally different,'" Walker said.

It wasn't Walker's true voice on the pages.

Walker said that Mungadze suggested he may have been dissociating.

"This man is crazy too," Walker said he remembers thinking.

But Mungadze started to further define the disease. The more Walker said he heard the more he became convinced. A trip to an outpatient hospital in California convinced Walker he had DID. The violent mood swings, the gaps of lost time, the different personalities he displayed at different times were all explained with DID. Mungadze has not returned several messages left at his various offices during the past four months.

"I understood it was coping mechanism," Walker said. "It could be positive or negative."

Walker said his family in Wrightsville doesn't fully understand the disease but is supporting his efforts. He has also been overwhelmed with the letters and calls he has received from people thanking him for his honesty and helping them better understand themselves.

"Does God really care about football?" Walker said. "He cares about helping someone else."

That is what Walker is trying to do now. Walker will be in Athens at the University Bookstore for a signing Friday from 12:30 p.m. - 2 p.m. He is scheduled to give a speech at the Jimmy Carter Library Friday at 7 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.