I've had some easier days but yesterday and today have been a bit like that. Hopefully it's just a temporary dip. But it's so nice to be home again in my own apartment. I'm tired, I barely slept last night. I finally got to bed sometime after four. It's so hard with broken sleep or no sleep at all.

Yesterday I found mine; Letter to staff, which we usually take with us to the hospital. Read through it and changed what has changed in life now. It is good to have a letter like that when you go into the hospital, the staff does not always read the letter, it depends on the attitude on the ward, but then we have still done the best we could but to try to explain how we work and why. I also got inspiration and looked through our emergency bag. The emergency bag is in case something happened and we go to the hospital urgently and there is no time to pack properly. Usually we pack another bag, what is in the emergency bag is stuff we do not use very often. However, we have not had to use the emergency bag for a long time and that is good.

A few weeks ago, a reporter from Swedish Radio was here for the program Verkligheten in P3. It was fun, we talked about Dissociative Identity Disorder. The program will probably be released soon, I think, but I'll shout when it's published. It's so good that information about DID is being released and spread so that more people know what it is.

Dissociative identity disorder is a very invisible syndrome that about 1% of the population lives with. So in Sweden there are about 105,000 people who suffer from and struggle with DID. The vast majority of people who live with DID are covert, which means that they hide from others that they have DID, consciously and unconsciously and sometimes even from themselves.

Hope you have a good day!

// Freya

Today I'm having a pretty good day. It's sunny outside and we've finally moved back into our apartment after three weeks in another ward.

I was at VCT this morning and had my liver spots checked. Everything looked good so that was nice. I usually check my liver spots regularly. Partly because you should do it and partly because my mother died of malignant melanoma aka skin cancer.

Otherwise I've had a quiet day. I've put the stables down because there's been so much going on this week with moving and stuff, and tomorrow I'm going to university so I need to be a little rested. So the quiet day has consisted of a little bit of fun at home. Changed the sheets and cut the grass. It's nice to just do things without demands sometimes.

The move was a pain in the ass. Started moving down on Monday and continued yesterday (Tuesday). On Monday we broke down at times. I really hate moving, it's so stressful and messy. But now we've gotten pretty organized. So today it's relatively calm inside after a few days of chaos, which is nice because it gets so incredibly tiring when it's messy both inside and out.

I've been trying to find out which hospital I belong to now if I need inpatient psychiatric care. Had to change my address to the address of the accommodation because it's apparently illegal to be registered in one place but live in another. I still belong to my previous municipality when it comes to outpatient psychiatry and social services but it's different when it comes to inpatient care apparently... My counselor has called around and my doctor but haven't gotten any good answers, I called 1177 and they didn't know either but thought we might belong to the inpatient care that my new municipality belongs to. So that's probably where we'll go next time, although we hope we don't have to go next time.

Hope everything is well with you!

// Joy

11:30
We are back home, tired but in good spirits. Today is Sweden's National Day, so congratulations to Sweden and all Swedes!

This morning we went for a long walk, did yoga and showered. So now we feel fresh and that's always nice. It's supposed to rain this afternoon, a bit sad but we can only hope for better weather in the future.

15:00
It's been quite a mess inside so far today, with many changes. This made us so tired that we fell asleep for an hour. We almost never allow ourselves to sleep during the day, even when we haven't slept at night. But the tiredness that comes with changing a lot can't be rushed. You kind of fall asleep standing up... I don't know if it's like that for everyone, because no one with DID is the same as the other. We are just as different as everyone else but have different ways of dealing with it.

I try to stay positive and try to look forward, but I don't always succeed. I hope my posts aren't too negative and whiny anyway, because that's not how I want to be. I want to convey how we live and feel and above all, what it can be like to live with Dissociative Identity Disorder, PTSD, recurrent depression and a few other diagnoses.

It often becomes a bit double to pursue Life as plural when we are not just or want to be a sick person, someone who is just their diagnosis. I hope it becomes clear that we are not just a diagnosis. The diagnoses dictate a part of us but it is not us. The diagnoses put spokes in the wheels in between but then we get to get back up and keep going, keep fighting and live the life we ​​want to live. A little winding road but it is our road.

// Freya

Today I'm at one of my best friends' and have been cuddling with her little guys. Feeling better today, had a couple of tough days but now I've had a couple of ok days.

Was out and about the other day apparently. Ending up in a state where we just wander off is called fugue. I think it's hard because you never know where you've ended up when and if we'll switch to someone sensible again. It's a strange state where we kind of lose ourselves, I don't know who or who is fronting when it happens. Regardless, it's scary. This time the accommodation found me again so that was good.

Yesterday we were out among the chickens, cleaning and letting them graze on grass. It was sunny and warm and we really enjoyed it. We have really focused on taking it easy and that the hard things usually pass after a while. We also went fishing in the rapids nearby, it was nice to sit there and just enjoy it. I almost caught a fish but I got a little too excited and pulled too fast and then it let go.

Now I'm frying crab cakes because we're going to Universeum tomorrow with the kids. It's going to be fun, I just hope there aren't too many people there... But it shouldn't be, it's not school holidays and it's the middle of the week and in the morning...

I mostly wanted to update with something positive. Last post we weren't feeling well at all.

Hope you have or are having a good day!!

// Joy

It's been a while since I wrote. I feel like I'm okay... but I've been really tired lately. Trying to do things that make us feel good. Struggling a lot with the feeling of being worthless, unnecessary and that we'll never be anyone. We were someone as long as we had our son, an education and a job. But what do we have now? Like nothing... We try to create a sense of meaning but it never seems to be. We struggle with our social media but feel like we don't have anything important or meaningful to contribute anymore. We have a hard time feeling like we're fulfilling a function, but we're really trying to create meaning in our lives. Right now we're missing most of it, it feels like...

It's so hard to know how and what to do with everything. I don't want to throw away the work we've done to get information out about Dissociative Identity Disorder. We thought it was so important, but the thought of how stupid I am for admitting that we live with DID sits like a splinter in my heart. We try to shake it off, but we shouldn't have to get worse care just because we want awareness of DID and trauma to increase. But apparently you can't be open about that kind of thing... I get so tired of the hospital and their attitudes towards patients, especially with certain diagnoses. Constantly having to assert yourself and explain and describe is so tiring. We just can't take it!

It's at least good that we don't have to assert ourselves where we live or among our friends or to our counselor and doctor. But who knows, maybe we're just disturbed and will always be disturbed. It's so hard to swing between feeling crappy and not functioning to feeling pretty good and being very well-functioning. Always having to fight your own demons is so tiring. Logically, I know that it's just bullshit in the brain in situations like this, but it's not so easy to work away or ignore.

30/5

Didn't publish the post yesterday because I didn't feel ready. Right now we probably feel like it would be best to just try to exist. We are working really hard to accept that we don't have anything that makes us feel valuable right now. The thing is that it's not our job, what we can and can't do, or how we live that determines our value. Logically, I know that we are just as valuable as everyone else and that it's society that is built on career and what you earn that matters. We've come so far since we got sick, but we also lost so much when we kind of collapsed.

It would have been so nice to be able to work, to be able to keep a higher pace and to have kept our fantastic apartment. The best thing of all would have been to see our son grow up and develop on a daily basis and not every week. I feel so bad about how my son's life has turned out. When he was born we promised him a good, stable and safe upbringing but we have failed miserably. The only positive thing is that we are aware of it all and that we actually feel crap about it.

It feels so unfair that we were the ones who got sick, that we were the ones who failed miserably in life. And there is so much left in life... Suicidal thoughts abound but we have decided not to go that route, at least right now. We don't want to leave everyone, make everyone as bad and as sad as you feel when someone dies. Above all, we don't want to do that to our son, even though he doesn't want to hear from us right now. But the worry creeps up your spine because when you end up in that depressive and suicidal state, you lose all logical thoughts. You lose track of everything that makes sense and become hyper-focused on just dying. But like I said, we're not there yet and hopefully we won't get there either. I hope not, at least because it's incredibly scary to end up there, both for me and for everyone around me.

Living in this mess of thoughts, feelings and parts is so incredibly tiring. Living with parts can be great in some situations but most of the time it's just messy and difficult. A constant struggle that never ends...

We try anyway and it's always something. We want to have a good life, a life worth living, but sometimes the drive and energy disappear. Then you have to try to take a step back and heal yourself and then take a new approach. Life is an eternal cycle.

// Joy

We have taken a break from TikTok for an indefinite period. This is because we feel that there is so much crap there, of course there is a lot of good stuff too, but we have always struggled with our feeling that TikTok is not sensible or good. The reason we started publishing on TikTok was to be a counterpoint to everyone there who portrays DID in a way that reinforces the stigma and ignorance. At the same time, we are constantly worried that we will be associated with that kind of account. We think that we can keep Instagram, at least right now, but that we will not publish as often and that we will invest a little in our YouTube and here on the blog instead. Right now we are in some kind of feeling that trying to push for the destigmatization of DID will bite us in the ass. Because generally speaking, those with DID should just sit at home, hide and be ashamed of themselves. It didn't feel good that the doctor at the eating disorder unit commented as she did... "Now that you've come out with it." They always write that we are a difficult patient and that we have a long history with many and long hospitalizations... And yes, that's true, but it feels like we are burned out, that we are a lost cause for them.

It feels like we're just in the way and that no one believes in us and that we'll never be anything else, sick and helpless. I get so sad when I think about all the years that have just disappeared, where we haven't done anything sensible and have tried to kill ourselves countless times. Can't we then be allowed to spread knowledge when we can? Can't we be allowed to feel necessary for once, like we're actually needed in this world? Because we can't work, we can't have our son with us (and our relationship has been quite strained lately), we can't live alone full-time and we can barely cope with our everyday lives. A little too much at once and we shut down, get tired and have dips. Right now is one of those times, I'm really tired but it's too late to go to bed and sleep during the day...

I'm really tired after all too much away from home but tomorrow we turn 40 and on Saturday there's a party for my nephew who turned 10 a couple of weeks ago. Well, we've made a pretty negative post but that's kind of how our thoughts are going right now.

// Freya

We haven't really been able to care about our social media for a couple of weeks. We've tried to post a little but there hasn't been any motivation or energy as a lot has happened lately.

We can start with the funniest news. The other day, the LVU for our son's placement was lifted and he is now on a SoL placement. It feels so good, a victory, a milestone passed. Finally! I have had several good conversations with social services before this. The cooperation that did not work a few years ago is now working perfectly fine. As we mentioned in previous posts, we have been very ill and at that time we were not suitable as parents, we could not make good decisions even though we wanted to and tried. Now, with more facts in hand, it looks completely different.

Otherwise, we have tried to focus on not getting back together again. We have painted our backside and had a barbecue with one of our best friends and family. Got the amazing tie from my friend Viveka Gren . It all has a funny story behind it. Viveka is an amazing artist who makes wearable art from recycled fabrics and things. It was one night a while ago that I dreamed that she had made a pink tie with a rabbit on it, when I woke up I went to her website ( www.vivekagren.com ) to check and there was a pink tie with a rabbit on it. I just had to buy it! As the amazing woman Viveka is, she also sent us a pair of matching sunglasses (see the picture).

When we were at the eating disorder unit on Wednesday, the chief physician mentioned the article in GP. She wondered who was fronting and such. Now that you've brought it up, she said... It was actually this doctor who in 2014 was the first to write that I changed personality... Now at least the chief physicians at the hospital have something to talk about... I don't know if it's good or bad but yes, what's done is done. I don't regret the article even though it partly gives us anxiety, anxiety about being seen, anxiety about not being believed and at the same time some people inside don't care at all about what people we don't know think. But the chief physicians at the hospital are still working on the diagnosis of EIPS. I can't bear to argue with them right now... They can continue to offend us by ignoring our investigated diagnosis. It was partly a statement to come out with it in the media in and of itself. We are so incredibly tired of being mistrusted and mistreated. The head doctor on the ward claims that we don't have DID and I wonder what planet she lives on. At least she has started writing OSDD (the diagnosis just before DID which has similar symptoms but not amnesia). We wrote a long letter to the head of the ward about this last time we were admitted. And that she has threatened us that we will not receive care if we harm ourselves or attempt suicide on the ward.

There was an incident at the hospital during our last admission when the head doctor was away. We were admitted due to suicide plans and something happened in our lives so we kind of gave up... Anyway, the doctor who covered us up put us under constant supervision. We hate constant supervision, it means you can't even go to the bathroom without someone watching you. We had a doctor's appointment the next day, where I said I wanted to be discharged. The doctor finally agreed, so we went to the room to call the accommodation so they could pick us up. Then she came running in after us and said she would prefer us to stay, to which I wondered why. She said she wanted us to stay, so we chose to stay. Then she said she would put us under constant supervision again... I wondered why, to which she said it felt best that way. So we'll stay a few more days with constant supervision until we have a discharge interview, something earlier I think, but a couple more days, or if it was the case that we had a doctor's interview with the regular doctor when he came back. In any case, the chief physician says when he comes that we stayed in the hospital because we got constant supervision. Then we went crazy, a fucking lie. We only stayed because the doctor asked us to and that deep down we knew we needed it. Also, she said that about constant supervision after we agreed to stay. We wrote the long letter to the head of the department where we, among other things, mentioned that incident and others and the whole thing about them using EIPS and not DID. We submitted it on the last day, before our discharge interview. At the discharge interview, the chief physician threatens me, he says that he has lost trust in us and that if anything else happens, we will have to go to another hospital where they provide worse care in worse facilities. We don't know if she can do that... because we belong to her hospital according to the population register. In any case, we didn't realize what she said until we were in the car on the way home. We told her and the staff who drove us home reacted that it was a threat. Which it actually was, but we were so upset and worried that we didn't really take it in. So now we don't feel welcome in the hospital and even less if the doctors are going to talk crap about us and so on because we did the GP interview. Constantly having threats of discharge in the event of a suicide attempt or self-harm is incredibly difficult and stressful when we are actually admitted because we are not safe at that moment. The hospitals claim that there is no such policy and yet they treat patients this way. The chief physician also asked if my reaction and my actions were proportionate and there was only one right answer in her world... so we said no... But at the same time it kept nagging in my head that we should try again.

Oh, that was long, I hope you managed to read this far. To wrap things up, we felt that the chief physician at the eating disorder unit thought it was stupid to go to the GP and it was obvious that the chief physicians and the staff at the hospital had discussed me and the article. Which can be both positive and negative... Positive because they might discuss the diagnosis a little and negative that we are not allowed to come to the hospital. They are not allowed to refuse care but it feels like they will do it the next time we need to be admitted. It will make us even more reluctant to seek treatment, which is not good. The staff on the "floor" are fantastic and do their utmost, it is the doctors' strange attitudes that are haunting.

Sometimes (for example right now) we wonder if we should continue to run our social media and the whole thing about spreading knowledge. It feels heavy right now but at the same time it usually gives us energy and so on. I think it feels extra heavy because it feels like people are judging us. But at the same time, why should we care?

Now I'm going to round off for this time.

// Freya

(Jonas wrote this so I added it, or rather left it there)

I was at the eating disorder clinic on Wednesday. It was really hard, they didn't say anything we didn't know they were going to say. Eat more, I'm really panicking, I've been trying it for a couple of days now and the result is a really bad stomach ache... Breakfast, Snack, Lunch, Snack, Dinner and Supper. Seriously!! I just can't eat that much... I've finally managed to lose a little weight and now we're definitely going to gain it back. I don't want that! I'm tired of us being so damn fat. The doctor mentioned the article in GP and started asking who was there, Freya said it was her but I listened then we switched. The staff who were with me noticed it but I didn't want to say it was me...

Last Friday, the article about Dissociative Identity Disorder came out in GP's paper magazine. The article even got to be on the front page. Great that DID is finally getting some attention. In general, knowledge about DID is incredibly poor, especially among the general public but also within healthcare. A friend of mine told me that she had told her therapist that she knew someone with DID, then the therapist had said that she absolutely could not do that because it is sooo unusual = ignorance. DID has a prevalence of 0.5-1.5% so about 1%. Schizophrenia has a prevalence of about 0.8% but the knowledge there is significantly greater.

There is such terrible ignorance even in psychiatry. We who live with Dissociative Identity Disorder are invisible in society. We exist and we are here but we go under the radar very often. It is not good! The comorbidity is high and many people feel very bad, the suicide risk with DID is high and the misdiagnosis is even higher. Being misdiagnosed is dangerous and not being believed is dangerous. Being mistrusted gives a feeling of hopelessness and hopelessness is a feeling that rarely leads to anything good.

The article in GP was good, just like when we were on the radio, the reporter was genuinely interested. It was good that they brought an expert too. It wasn't just a focus on personalities, which we felt was important, because DID is so much more. DID is a difficult diagnosis to live with, but it has allowed me to continue living despite all the terrible things that happened. Childhood trauma combined with too little support can be devastating and it can take many, many years before the facade cracks. For us, the facade cracked badly in the fall of 2014, but it took until the summer of 2019 before we received our diagnosis.

Speaking of something else. A friend with DID and I have started pulling strings to possibly make a documentary about DID. If you are interested in helping in any way, please contact me. We wanted to include both the patient perspective, the family perspective and the healthcare perspective. But above all, to shed light on what it can be like to live with DID. You can contact me at livetsomplural@gmail.com.

// Freya

Sorry, but we have to vent a little...

Right now it's terribly turbulent both inside and in real life, we can't go into everything but I hope we can convey our feelings right now. Outwardly we try to keep up the facade while inside it's total chaos. We feel alone in everything. I know we have friends and family but the loneliness eats me up anyway. We don't want to be the one who has to be strong all the time, especially when we feel this bad inside. We wish everything could just be good, that we never got sick, that we could have a normal life like most others. A life with our son, a life where we took care of him, where we got to feel like we were actually mothers. Now it just feels like we've lost our son. Especially when we look at old pictures from before everything became chaos, from when we got to be mothers and nothing else. Now it mostly feels like we're an amoeba that no one wants. Now I'm not writing for everyone inside but some of us. We want to be mothers but it's not easy when the distance and other things get in the way. We hate all of this, we hate ourselves and hate the situation. Why do we have to live like this, it feels like we have no meaning and that feeling is terrible to live with. Everyone says we're doing everything so well but why doesn't it feel that way inside? We meet family and friends who all get to have their children with them, it's really nice to hang out, we love it but afterwards we get sad and depressed.

Now it's Easter and we're at grandma's to have a good time. We have, it's great fun to meet everyone but we miss our son who chose not to come this time. Not unexpected that he chooses his friends over his family, but it hurts. It feels so terribly unfair but we can only put on a smile when we sit here with anxiety from hell and tears in our throats. We can only accept what he wants to do because we mean nothing. His voice and the opinion of social services weigh more than mine because we are just mentally ill... Should we just sit here and wait until our children decide to choose their family over their friends? Shouldn't we be able to make some demands on a 14-15 year old? That sometimes the friends have to wait a bit. Think, for example, of grandma, she's 94 now, she won't live forever... That thought also gives us anxiety. I can't help but see that it's all my fault. If we had been better, if we hadn't gotten so sick, if we hadn't been useless, we could have been full-time moms. Darkness, Kenneth and Chaos are in the HUB a lot and cause it. More self-harm impulses and other bad thoughts come then. WE just don't see why people around us actually like us...

While all this is happening, we are outwardly trying to keep our heads high and keep working towards our goals, the ones that make us feel like we might have a little bit of meaning. We are trying to be patient and wait and not do things too hastily. We hope and dream of feeling like a mother someday, we dream of giving lectures and that real information about our main diagnosis will come out and reach people so that the stigma and ignorance around mental illness will decrease and preferably disappear completely.

The other day GP was with us to do an article about Dissociative Identity Disorder. It will probably come out tomorrow but we are not entirely sure. The reporter said that it could possibly be moved to another day. But yes, if you want to read it, keep an eye out on GP's app or website or why not in the physical newspaper.

We have such a hard time seeing that what we do has meaning even when things are going well. We try to enjoy that feeling when we get it but at the same time there are others sitting inside and making us feel worthless anyway. Sorry for a completely unnecessary post really but I want to show how difficult and complex everything is and then this is one aspect... If you have come here then thank you, thank you for taking the time to read our little blog. We wish you a good day!

// Freya

We have finished building the grow boxes on our patio and we are so happy. Knowing that you created it all yourself is so fun!

Yesterday I watched one of the most liberating videos about Dissociative Identity Disorder in a long time. There is a clinic called "the CTAD clinic" and they have a really good youtube page. So if you are good at English, it is a great tip to go to their youtube page. The video itself was an interview with a girl called Amanda and she told me about her journey with DID and getting a diagnosis. Her story was so similar to ours.

We were diagnosed when we were 34, so quite late, and our problems started to become noticeable when we were around 27-28. We had no idea that we were multiple inside before then except that we had voices in our heads sometimes, but we thought this was completely normal, that they were thoughts. We have always been very active in both club life and school and work. We started working when we were 14 and worked every holiday until we got our teaching degree at university when we were 23. We went straight in and worked full time plus a big commitment to club life (both in theatre and training). Being still hurts so that's why we have manically kept going, but eventually reality caught up with us...

When we were 29 years old, we crashed completely and were admitted to inpatient care for the first time. There was chaos inside and the amnesia and the switching between parts began to be noticeable. We have always had amnesia but we have had amnesia about having amnesia so that is why we have not noticed it. When we were admitted for the first time, the chief physician wrote that we seemed to be changing personalities but then they did not go further with this and gave us the diagnosis of Depression and then Emotionally Unstable Personality Syndrome (without doing any investigation). When you live with DID, the symptoms can be similar to EIPS but the cause of the symptoms is completely different). After just over two weeks of hospitalization, they gave us ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which made us even worse and completely confused. We switched back and forth and lost track of time and space. Now we have learned that you should absolutely not give ECT to someone with PTSD, DID and other trauma-related diagnoses.

We have always been very active and when we get into something we do it 200%. But when it stopped in 2013-2014 we couldn't really finish things because it stopped, our brain stopped working. We have always been doing a lot of theater and film but suddenly we couldn't memorize our lines, most likely because the one of us who has that interest wasn't there that much at the time. We have an incredible work ethic and if we promise to do something we usually do it, almost always actually would. We would rather take the hit afterwards, we often crash after we have given our 200%.

When we feel bad, we become manic in our actions. We can't handle feeling bad, emotions are overwhelming and we usually turn them off. We can certainly feel turned off or that we feel good, because we shut out everything that's bothering us. Especially because someone who either doesn't feel the emotions is fronting or someone who doesn't know that we're feeling bad is fronting. Unfortunately, it often works out that several people are depressed at the same time because in the HUB (the HUB is our place in the head where different parts communicate) the parts affect each other both emotionally, mentally and in terms of opinions. It can often be dangerous for us because self-harming and suicidal parts like to come out when it's hard. Unfortunately, we can't control who fronts and who doesn't, we know that some can do it and that some can train themselves to do this, but we can't or haven't succeeded so far. Parts are triggered in different ways.

Finally getting a diagnosis we recognized was a revelation, to suddenly feel that we are not just crazy but that there is an answer to what is "wrong" with us. I think the problem for us is that we are incredibly good at masking so that people don't notice that we have Dissociative Identity Disorder.

We have always been structured and, as I said, worked a lot. We need structure to function and when we got sick it became very difficult to maintain the structure, the facade cracked and everything became chaos. Now we get help with the structure by living in a psychiatric facility. We work very hard to maintain our structure but as soon as we feel worse it becomes chaos and structureless instead.

So how is it that we could go for 28 years without noticing our illness. The answer is amnesia and manic-like, when we could do no more, because it stopped, everything fell apart and now life is what it is. We need a lot of help and support in everyday life but still hope to be able to continue spreading knowledge about Dissociative Identity Disorder through our social media and by giving a few lectures. We feel that someone needs to be there and show that we are not dangerous, that we are just ordinary people with a few problems. We want to end the stigma and ignorance around mental illness and especially around Dissociative Identity Disorder.

We (some of us anyway) have decided that we will start signing with our own names here on the blog. We feel that we would like to be able to express our different opinions and some are much better at running our channel. Some of us are extremely committed to running our social media to end the stigma and ignorance around Dissociative Identity Disorder. Most will not want to join in, but yes, it will probably be a little more dynamic if we can express ourselves separately too... It could also be a pancake because I can't promise what others will write but everyone must have space to express themselves.

// Freya