October 28, 2024 • 21 mins
Maggie Bell joins us to discuss Maggie's Music, sharing her powerful journey of healing through music and opening up about her life with dissociative identity disorder.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Maggie, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
So I'm Emily. This is Gaily. Hello, and we do
the breakfast show on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Okay, great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, love it to meet you too.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
So we're going to record this and play this another time.
If there's anything you don't like in the questioning, you
can just say you don't want to answer it. And
if there's anything in retrospect, you just let us know.
We can take it out of the interview. Okay, sure, yep, perfect,
All right, here we go and we say good morning
to Maggie Bell.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Good morning, Maggie.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Your story is extraordinary to regular normal people like us.
You have a documentary coming out. It's called Maggie's Music
and it's the world's first feature length documentary to explore
the use of musical composition that heals trauma and comes
to terms with disassociative identity disorder.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So can you explain what that is?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Okay? So the ID which this disassociative identity disorder was
previously known as multiple personality disorder.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So you have so you have multiple personalities?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, I do. I've got approximately sixty. I don't know
how many different personalities I have, but it's a minimum
of sixty. What the idea actually is, it's site of
fragmented personality with numerous self states, that is, having a
(01:38):
presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states
the take control of an individual's behavior, accompanied by amnesia
that is two extensive. I suppose to be explained by
ordinary forgetfulness.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
So do you forget what one of your identities has
done at any given right?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Absolutely, I can go shopping and not remember that I'm
I've got why I've gone to the shops, what I've
gone to the shops for. I can get home with
groceries not even knowing that I've been shopping. I used
to sometimes turn up to my psychologists. I then go home,
(02:28):
but I'd wake up after a nap and phone her
to apologize that I had for not turning up to
the appointment, and she'd say, actually, Maggie, you have been here.
You were wearing X, Y and Z, so no, you
were definitely here and that was a half hour drive.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
So I actually got into the car, drove there, had
the session, drove home, had no recollection of doing So.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
How important is the psychologist to you going through this
such a complex life.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Without her help, I would be dead. That's the crux
of it, because I had no idea how to navigate
what I was going through. I didn't really I hadn't
accepted that I had the ID until I was working
with the current psychologist I've got, and I was I've
(03:25):
been the term seventeen or eighteen years now prior today.
I only got diagnosed when I was forty so and
before that I did not know what was going on
in my life. So life was extremely complicated, and I
was constantly full of anxiety because I just didn't know
(03:50):
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Maggie, are you talking to us now? Or is it
a personality talking to us? How do you be you
when you're trying to promote a few and there not
be another personality? If that's not too a confusing question
to answer it, I'm very curious about it all.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Whoever needs to be out when they need to be
out normally just emerge. I don't have control over who
does what and when. And it's something i've had, really
like my view started when I was five years old,
so I've had and I'm now sixty four, so I've
(04:32):
had this for a very very long time, not knowing
any different is just how life has been for me.
So if I get into the car to drive, I've
got drivers who do the driving and they will just
take over because they're very skilled at what they do.
(04:52):
If I need to talk to people about what's going
on regarding the documentary or this interview, there's a different personality.
I come out and try to navigate as best I
can about five of us who do that area and
even between now I've had two switches already from the
(05:13):
beginning of this interview.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Oh wow, they've been very subtle. I've got to admit because.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
No, And that's the thing because growing up, especially as
a teenager, and I was switching so much. I didn't
realize I was switching. I didn't realize what was going on.
I was just having gaps of time. But because I
didn't want to be bullied or it's sort of picked
(05:39):
on you as the idea person, you learn to hide.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
It and so that they have names, Maggie, like if
you're driving a car, are you driving as a Matilda?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Driving as a driver?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Just driver?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So that's got driver one, two and three. Okay, yeah,
I've got I did have a mapping. There's a lot
of names. There's Magda, there's Topsy. I'd have to look
them all up because I just I think I've named
(06:22):
about sixty or seventy of them with different names, and
it just but they're they're names that are use internally. Okay,
there's there's sort of for an internal and I didn't
even map there. It's called mapping, and I didn't even
map them, probably until about ten years ago with my psychologist.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Has this all come about from an event in your life, like,
was there a trauma in your life that triggered these behaviors?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yes. In my case, I had really was unrelenting, an
unreprepared trauma from from the age of five, and it
was in the context of an extremely hostile relationship between
my brother and also probably with my mother. My brother physically, sexually,
(07:13):
and emotionally abused me from the age of five through
to twenty two. So it's resulted in a long life
struggle to try and cope with the consequence of that trauma.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Well, understanding why he would do such a thing is
probably one of the first things for you that would
create anxiety, because you just don't know why someone would
do that.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That's exactly right. And I don't know why my mother
condined it. You know, she never ever ever tried to
stop it, and to this day she is always she
is still supporting my brother, and she has totally excluded
me from my whole family, including my children. So you know,
(07:57):
I know I can't understand any mother or any human
being just going okay, no, thee important golden child's boy
is all this important? And how dare I ever put
a word wrong about him or against him?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Does she believe believe you? Or does she know that
it's happened but she's turning a blind eye.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
She saw it happen. Oh goodness, yeah, she saw it happened,
and I had Yeah, she'd opened the door, see it happening,
and close it, walk out and close the door.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Shame on her. Honestly, you poor thing. The one person
you expect to actually support you and protect you has
just left you like that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's absolutely that.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
I would imagine you've gone through some sort of self blame,
but please, like honestly, you're doing a lot of work
with psychologists and psychiatrists, but that's none of your fault.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Maggie, Thank you, thank you for acknowledging that, and I
thought my father knew about it, because I just assumed
he knew. But he was the one who stopped it
when I was twenty two, when he found out when
I finally told him.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
At least she had someone in your corner.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I did, and he, you know, he was just wonderful.
And you know, I became quite emotional with his response
because I just thought, Wow, he's listening to me, and
he's believing me, and he stopped it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Maggie, you said you've got children. Is it hard to
maintain a relationship with d id?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It had its tricky moments with the children, But once
they became adults, my mother has made sure that they
have no contact with me. You know, she's alienated them
against me because of how I have spoken out about
my brother and her.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
How was she able to do that? Because obviously you
would expect, I would expect the loyalty from your children
would be to you. She sounds like a very manipulative person.
But how was she able to do understatement?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, Okay, we can't prove this, but she's certainly got
all the chaits of being, of having a narcissistic personality
and Narcissists have a way of talking and talking and
talking until people believe their word without proof against other people.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's very scary.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
That's devalue and discard.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Well, the reason why we discovered you, Maggie, is because
of this documentary, and it was so intriguing because one
of your personalities is a composer.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Many of the words, oh sorry, there was just a
sorry about that. You'll have to edit that then out
in many of my parts are actually composers. And we
discovered composition when I was about twelve or thirteen, and
(11:22):
unbeknowns to me, it was something music has always been something,
an especial composition where I could just escape into my
own little world and create things and you know, create
beautiful sounds. As I grew up, I continued on my
music journey, not always totally successfully, but I continued on
(11:48):
the journey. And then about nine or ten years ago,
I went to a concert and heard a Beethoven septet
and I heard in my mind each of the instruments
playing independently, and normally he will just hear the overall
(12:10):
effect and you'll hear sort of different lines. But I
was actually listening to each instrument independently. So I was
getting very curious at that stage and talking about it
with my psychologist, and she was also getting curious. And
I thought, I wonder if I could compose like that,
because I'm hearing it like that in my brain and
(12:30):
I had now accepted that I had the ID. So
sure enough, I had several personalities who just came and
they did their own little melody I'm going. I put
all of those melodies together and out came an orchestral
work and it worked. It sounded good. So I then
(12:53):
decided to do my masters, and I'm now doing a
PhD in music composition and exploring all of the different
parts creating music about their trauma, about what they went through.
So it's a way of getting out my trauma through
(13:19):
music without me actually thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Can I ask a question with the fact that they
all came up with different sounds and different music together,
so would you say that it's a collaboration of the
personalities that are bringing this music together.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It has developed into a huge collaboration. I think it
was less collaborative once when we first started, but what's
happened now is they are actually working together to create
these sounds. Even though they're still saying, oh, well, we
want this melody here, and we want this melody. We're
(13:59):
using this instrument here, they'll put it all together and think, oh, okay,
well we can tweak our little bits here and there
so very very much. So it's got a collaborative effort,
which is wonderful.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Oh this is just it's so cool, Maggie. You've managed
to turn something that I'm sure has been just a
lifetime of difficulty into magic.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah. And I think since I've embraced having d ID
and since I've embraced the fact that we can compose,
I've just flown with it. And I think it's done
my health, mental health a lot of good.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
What message would you want for people to take away
both from your music, you know, the opportunity how to
speak out about DID and anybody else that might be
struggling with it or mental health themselves and trauma.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I think what the main thing I'm the whole reason
I'm doing the documentary is to help other people, you know,
So hopefully my music is going to be able to
resonate with some of those people. Also, it might get
other people talking about incest and sexual abuse. It's a
(15:11):
taboo subject sadly, but you know, and as soon as
someone hears that you've had sexual you've been sexually abused,
or a victim of incest, they change the topic. They
want to get onto something else, and they won't actually
confront the elephant in the room. So my journey is
(15:31):
to help others.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And Maggie, you're dealing with it with music. Do you
ever deal with it with humor?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Or?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Is it too hard to be humorous with what's happening.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I did used to have a sense of humor. My
sense of humor is slightly going not because of the trauma,
it's because of other things that are going on in
my life. I would love to get my sense of
humor back, but in my psychologists and I still have
some sort of rapport, but I'm too insecure. I suppose
to sort of take that many for look. Hopefully I'll
(16:06):
get it back. It's not the end of the world,
but I'll keep working on it. I want to have
positive messages. I've also there's also a podcast out there
called of No Laughing Matter is going to be released.
That's a serious fibe and that's going to be released
(16:26):
soon with my music and some of my stories about
the music. So I'm wanting to be optimistic. My music
always ends on a positive note because it's we've got
to have hope and optimism. You know, there's too much
of this, you know, conspiracy of silence going on, which
(16:50):
we've just got to get rid of.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
The only reason I asked that question is I would,
you know, have a personality for all the things I
don't like, so I wouldn't have to go grocery shopping.
I would let that personality go do that. That personality
over there is doing the cleaning. That personality over there
is packing the school lunches, so that I never felt
like I was doing all the stuff I didn't like.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, hey, that'll be easy if we could do that.
But I don't have a choice.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
We can't click a switch. I know.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I wouldn't it be great if we could. Yeah, you
know that we'll deal with you know, we'll just sit
down quite me and have a drink water. Cleaning gets done.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, I like the amnesia part. You said that you
don't remember that some of the stuff that you do.
I'd like to forget a few things here and there.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, Yeah, Maggie. Is there ever a chance that through
healing and through work that this combination of personalities will
diminish a little bit? Like or are you? Is this
your whole person now and will be forever?
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I don't know. Look some of my parts having to
but I made the conscious choice not to be fully
integrated because I enjoy my composing and I enjoy having
the different versus our realities. It's some people choose to
be integrated, and I'm sure some of my personalities will
(18:19):
integrate further as this journey continues, but it's not something
I'm going to force.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Well now, just out of interest, you mentioned in the
middle of the interview, that's a few people, A few
of your personalities had already changed and appeared in the interview.
How many would you say in our chat now have
we been talking.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
To at least seven?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Oh my goodness. And what personalities have they been?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Well, there's been the Chatterbox. She just comes out every
now and again. We had about thirty seconds of Party Girl,
so we've had just music. Maggie has come out and
music nearly has come out. They've discussed some of the music.
Then there's Maggie. I suppose people call me the host.
(19:15):
There's also been all the driver was talking about what
she was doing. Who else I couldn't I couldn't tell
you near the names of the others.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
That's just fascinating, honestly, And look, we're standing here probably
gobs backed a little bit because it's just something that
a lot of people don't have to consider or deal
with until we get to speak to someone that's so gifted,
like yourself, and also dealing with what you've had to
deal with. So in amongst it all, you are an
(19:46):
inspiration to people, and this is something that people have
had to deal with and most likely from trauma. So
you being a profile in this space is probably helping
so many other people. So congratulations to your that.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Thank you very much. Because the percentage of incest is
quite high, and the research suggests it might be as
much as one in three to four women. So the
conspiracy of silence goes on and more children are going
to going to be raped, and more pedophiles are going
(20:21):
to walk free, and we need to change this. So
hopefully me speaking out is going to help getting the
story out there, getting conversations started, you know, so something
can be done.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Absolutely Maggie, Thank you so much, and you are right.
You know, I'm a regular Aussie woman and I have
a friend who's been through something you've been through, and
you wouldn't know it. You know, you wouldn't know it
because it's not spoken about. So well done for providing
a platform for many.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Thank you, and thank you so much for wanting to
talk to me get it out there.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
When it all came through, we just went we've got
to We've got to have a chat to you about this,
because it's not every day you have an opportunity to
speak to someone with multiple personalities or d id and
yet we see so many jokes about it, you know,
me and my personalities and all that kind of stuff
that floats around on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But underneath all of that is a very serious issue.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Well, thank you, Maggie, and we wish you all the
best with the documentary. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Thank you so much. I generally appreciate you funny.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
And at the same time, we need to say goodbye
to party Girl, Chatterbox Music, Maggie Music, Nelly and you're
exceptional driver.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I need that personality because I am a terrible driver.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I'm sure you're not. Women are much better drivers than men.
Didn't you know that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I don't know which personality said that, but I like them.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Nice to meet you, Maggie, Nice to
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Meet bye mate, B.
Maggie, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
So I'm Emily. This is Gaily. Hello, and we do
the breakfast show on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Okay, great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, love it to meet you too.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
So we're going to record this and play this another time.
If there's anything you don't like in the questioning, you
can just say you don't want to answer it. And
if there's anything in retrospect, you just let us know.
We can take it out of the interview. Okay, sure, yep, perfect,
All right, here we go and we say good morning
to Maggie Bell.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Good morning, Maggie.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Your story is extraordinary to regular normal people like us.
You have a documentary coming out. It's called Maggie's Music
and it's the world's first feature length documentary to explore
the use of musical composition that heals trauma and comes
to terms with disassociative identity disorder.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So can you explain what that is?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Okay? So the ID which this disassociative identity disorder was
previously known as multiple personality disorder.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So you have so you have multiple personalities?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, I do. I've got approximately sixty. I don't know
how many different personalities I have, but it's a minimum
of sixty. What the idea actually is, it's site of
fragmented personality with numerous self states, that is, having a
(01:38):
presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states
the take control of an individual's behavior, accompanied by amnesia
that is two extensive. I suppose to be explained by
ordinary forgetfulness.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
So do you forget what one of your identities has
done at any given right?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Absolutely, I can go shopping and not remember that I'm
I've got why I've gone to the shops, what I've
gone to the shops for. I can get home with
groceries not even knowing that I've been shopping. I used
to sometimes turn up to my psychologists. I then go home,
(02:28):
but I'd wake up after a nap and phone her
to apologize that I had for not turning up to
the appointment, and she'd say, actually, Maggie, you have been here.
You were wearing X, Y and Z, so no, you
were definitely here and that was a half hour drive.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
So I actually got into the car, drove there, had
the session, drove home, had no recollection of doing So.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
How important is the psychologist to you going through this
such a complex life.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Without her help, I would be dead. That's the crux
of it, because I had no idea how to navigate
what I was going through. I didn't really I hadn't
accepted that I had the ID until I was working
with the current psychologist I've got, and I was I've
(03:25):
been the term seventeen or eighteen years now prior today.
I only got diagnosed when I was forty so and
before that I did not know what was going on
in my life. So life was extremely complicated, and I
was constantly full of anxiety because I just didn't know
(03:50):
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Maggie, are you talking to us now? Or is it
a personality talking to us? How do you be you
when you're trying to promote a few and there not
be another personality? If that's not too a confusing question
to answer it, I'm very curious about it all.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Whoever needs to be out when they need to be
out normally just emerge. I don't have control over who
does what and when. And it's something i've had, really
like my view started when I was five years old,
so I've had and I'm now sixty four, so I've
(04:32):
had this for a very very long time, not knowing
any different is just how life has been for me.
So if I get into the car to drive, I've
got drivers who do the driving and they will just
take over because they're very skilled at what they do.
(04:52):
If I need to talk to people about what's going
on regarding the documentary or this interview, there's a different personality.
I come out and try to navigate as best I
can about five of us who do that area and
even between now I've had two switches already from the
(05:13):
beginning of this interview.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Oh wow, they've been very subtle. I've got to admit because.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
No, And that's the thing because growing up, especially as
a teenager, and I was switching so much. I didn't
realize I was switching. I didn't realize what was going on.
I was just having gaps of time. But because I
didn't want to be bullied or it's sort of picked
(05:39):
on you as the idea person, you learn to hide.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
It and so that they have names, Maggie, like if
you're driving a car, are you driving as a Matilda?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Driving as a driver?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Just driver?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So that's got driver one, two and three. Okay, yeah,
I've got I did have a mapping. There's a lot
of names. There's Magda, there's Topsy. I'd have to look
them all up because I just I think I've named
(06:22):
about sixty or seventy of them with different names, and
it just but they're they're names that are use internally. Okay,
there's there's sort of for an internal and I didn't
even map there. It's called mapping, and I didn't even
map them, probably until about ten years ago with my psychologist.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Has this all come about from an event in your life, like,
was there a trauma in your life that triggered these behaviors?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yes. In my case, I had really was unrelenting, an
unreprepared trauma from from the age of five, and it
was in the context of an extremely hostile relationship between
my brother and also probably with my mother. My brother physically, sexually,
(07:13):
and emotionally abused me from the age of five through
to twenty two. So it's resulted in a long life
struggle to try and cope with the consequence of that trauma.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Well, understanding why he would do such a thing is
probably one of the first things for you that would
create anxiety, because you just don't know why someone would
do that.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That's exactly right. And I don't know why my mother
condined it. You know, she never ever ever tried to
stop it, and to this day she is always she
is still supporting my brother, and she has totally excluded
me from my whole family, including my children. So you know,
(07:57):
I know I can't understand any mother or any human
being just going okay, no, thee important golden child's boy
is all this important? And how dare I ever put
a word wrong about him or against him?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Does she believe believe you? Or does she know that
it's happened but she's turning a blind eye.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
She saw it happen. Oh goodness, yeah, she saw it happened,
and I had Yeah, she'd opened the door, see it happening,
and close it, walk out and close the door.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Shame on her. Honestly, you poor thing. The one person
you expect to actually support you and protect you has
just left you like that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's absolutely that.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
I would imagine you've gone through some sort of self blame,
but please, like honestly, you're doing a lot of work
with psychologists and psychiatrists, but that's none of your fault.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Maggie, Thank you, thank you for acknowledging that, and I
thought my father knew about it, because I just assumed
he knew. But he was the one who stopped it
when I was twenty two, when he found out when
I finally told him.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
At least she had someone in your corner.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I did, and he, you know, he was just wonderful.
And you know, I became quite emotional with his response
because I just thought, Wow, he's listening to me, and
he's believing me, and he stopped it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Maggie, you said you've got children. Is it hard to
maintain a relationship with d id?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It had its tricky moments with the children, But once
they became adults, my mother has made sure that they
have no contact with me. You know, she's alienated them
against me because of how I have spoken out about
my brother and her.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
How was she able to do that? Because obviously you
would expect, I would expect the loyalty from your children
would be to you. She sounds like a very manipulative person.
But how was she able to do understatement?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, Okay, we can't prove this, but she's certainly got
all the chaits of being, of having a narcissistic personality
and Narcissists have a way of talking and talking and
talking until people believe their word without proof against other people.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's very scary.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
That's devalue and discard.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Well, the reason why we discovered you, Maggie, is because
of this documentary, and it was so intriguing because one
of your personalities is a composer.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Many of the words, oh sorry, there was just a
sorry about that. You'll have to edit that then out
in many of my parts are actually composers. And we
discovered composition when I was about twelve or thirteen, and
(11:22):
unbeknowns to me, it was something music has always been something,
an especial composition where I could just escape into my
own little world and create things and you know, create
beautiful sounds. As I grew up, I continued on my
music journey, not always totally successfully, but I continued on
(11:48):
the journey. And then about nine or ten years ago,
I went to a concert and heard a Beethoven septet
and I heard in my mind each of the instruments
playing independently, and normally he will just hear the overall
(12:10):
effect and you'll hear sort of different lines. But I
was actually listening to each instrument independently. So I was
getting very curious at that stage and talking about it
with my psychologist, and she was also getting curious. And
I thought, I wonder if I could compose like that,
because I'm hearing it like that in my brain and
(12:30):
I had now accepted that I had the ID. So
sure enough, I had several personalities who just came and
they did their own little melody I'm going. I put
all of those melodies together and out came an orchestral
work and it worked. It sounded good. So I then
(12:53):
decided to do my masters, and I'm now doing a
PhD in music composition and exploring all of the different
parts creating music about their trauma, about what they went through.
So it's a way of getting out my trauma through
(13:19):
music without me actually thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Can I ask a question with the fact that they
all came up with different sounds and different music together,
so would you say that it's a collaboration of the
personalities that are bringing this music together.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It has developed into a huge collaboration. I think it
was less collaborative once when we first started, but what's
happened now is they are actually working together to create
these sounds. Even though they're still saying, oh, well, we
want this melody here, and we want this melody. We're
(13:59):
using this instrument here, they'll put it all together and think, oh, okay,
well we can tweak our little bits here and there
so very very much. So it's got a collaborative effort,
which is wonderful.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Oh this is just it's so cool, Maggie. You've managed
to turn something that I'm sure has been just a
lifetime of difficulty into magic.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah. And I think since I've embraced having d ID
and since I've embraced the fact that we can compose,
I've just flown with it. And I think it's done
my health, mental health a lot of good.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
What message would you want for people to take away
both from your music, you know, the opportunity how to
speak out about DID and anybody else that might be
struggling with it or mental health themselves and trauma.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I think what the main thing I'm the whole reason
I'm doing the documentary is to help other people, you know,
So hopefully my music is going to be able to
resonate with some of those people. Also, it might get
other people talking about incest and sexual abuse. It's a
(15:11):
taboo subject sadly, but you know, and as soon as
someone hears that you've had sexual you've been sexually abused,
or a victim of incest, they change the topic. They
want to get onto something else, and they won't actually
confront the elephant in the room. So my journey is
(15:31):
to help others.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And Maggie, you're dealing with it with music. Do you
ever deal with it with humor?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Or?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Is it too hard to be humorous with what's happening.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I did used to have a sense of humor. My
sense of humor is slightly going not because of the trauma,
it's because of other things that are going on in
my life. I would love to get my sense of
humor back, but in my psychologists and I still have
some sort of rapport, but I'm too insecure. I suppose
to sort of take that many for look. Hopefully I'll
(16:06):
get it back. It's not the end of the world,
but I'll keep working on it. I want to have
positive messages. I've also there's also a podcast out there
called of No Laughing Matter is going to be released.
That's a serious fibe and that's going to be released
(16:26):
soon with my music and some of my stories about
the music. So I'm wanting to be optimistic. My music
always ends on a positive note because it's we've got
to have hope and optimism. You know, there's too much
of this, you know, conspiracy of silence going on, which
(16:50):
we've just got to get rid of.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
The only reason I asked that question is I would,
you know, have a personality for all the things I
don't like, so I wouldn't have to go grocery shopping.
I would let that personality go do that. That personality
over there is doing the cleaning. That personality over there
is packing the school lunches, so that I never felt
like I was doing all the stuff I didn't like.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, hey, that'll be easy if we could do that.
But I don't have a choice.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
We can't click a switch. I know.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I wouldn't it be great if we could. Yeah, you
know that we'll deal with you know, we'll just sit
down quite me and have a drink water. Cleaning gets done.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, I like the amnesia part. You said that you
don't remember that some of the stuff that you do.
I'd like to forget a few things here and there.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, Yeah, Maggie. Is there ever a chance that through
healing and through work that this combination of personalities will
diminish a little bit? Like or are you? Is this
your whole person now and will be forever?
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I don't know. Look some of my parts having to
but I made the conscious choice not to be fully
integrated because I enjoy my composing and I enjoy having
the different versus our realities. It's some people choose to
be integrated, and I'm sure some of my personalities will
(18:19):
integrate further as this journey continues, but it's not something
I'm going to force.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Well now, just out of interest, you mentioned in the
middle of the interview, that's a few people, A few
of your personalities had already changed and appeared in the interview.
How many would you say in our chat now have
we been talking.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
To at least seven?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Oh my goodness. And what personalities have they been?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Well, there's been the Chatterbox. She just comes out every
now and again. We had about thirty seconds of Party Girl,
so we've had just music. Maggie has come out and
music nearly has come out. They've discussed some of the music.
Then there's Maggie. I suppose people call me the host.
(19:15):
There's also been all the driver was talking about what
she was doing. Who else I couldn't I couldn't tell
you near the names of the others.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
That's just fascinating, honestly, And look, we're standing here probably
gobs backed a little bit because it's just something that
a lot of people don't have to consider or deal
with until we get to speak to someone that's so gifted,
like yourself, and also dealing with what you've had to
deal with. So in amongst it all, you are an
(19:46):
inspiration to people, and this is something that people have
had to deal with and most likely from trauma. So
you being a profile in this space is probably helping
so many other people. So congratulations to your that.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Thank you very much. Because the percentage of incest is
quite high, and the research suggests it might be as
much as one in three to four women. So the
conspiracy of silence goes on and more children are going
to going to be raped, and more pedophiles are going
(20:21):
to walk free, and we need to change this. So
hopefully me speaking out is going to help getting the
story out there, getting conversations started, you know, so something
can be done.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Absolutely Maggie, Thank you so much, and you are right.
You know, I'm a regular Aussie woman and I have
a friend who's been through something you've been through, and
you wouldn't know it. You know, you wouldn't know it
because it's not spoken about. So well done for providing
a platform for many.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Thank you, and thank you so much for wanting to
talk to me get it out there.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
When it all came through, we just went we've got
to We've got to have a chat to you about this,
because it's not every day you have an opportunity to
speak to someone with multiple personalities or d id and
yet we see so many jokes about it, you know,
me and my personalities and all that kind of stuff
that floats around on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But underneath all of that is a very serious issue.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Well, thank you, Maggie, and we wish you all the
best with the documentary. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Thank you so much. I generally appreciate you funny.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
And at the same time, we need to say goodbye
to party Girl, Chatterbox Music, Maggie Music, Nelly and you're
exceptional driver.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I need that personality because I am a terrible driver.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I'm sure you're not. Women are much better drivers than men.
Didn't you know that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I don't know which personality said that, but I like them.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Nice to meet you, Maggie, Nice to
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Meet bye mate, B.
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