It's New Year's Eve and I write a lot of summaries about the year. I have a hard time summarizing the year because there's a lot I don't remember. But with the help of my diary and social media, it becomes a little easier. I want to start by saying that just being here now and existing is the greatest thing you can achieve. To live! Society's demands on how things should be are often brutal and you know what? It's okay not to follow the norms! It's okay to live your life in a way that makes you feel good (as long as you don't hurt yourself or others, that is).

Our year has been very up and down. We have had some goals that we have tried to follow and it has gone quite well so we are pursuing similar goals next year as well. New Year's resolutions are not really our thing, it feels better with goals.

We entered January but I don't remember what it felt like. But I edited the last part of our book. It felt exciting and scary to publish an autobiography. We got great support from our publisher LAVA. We oscillated a lot between having good self-confidence despite the book and doubting ourselves, because who would want to read about us? In any case, it became a book in the end and we haven't regretted it. Now we just hope that it is spread so that as many people as possible can learn more about mental illness and Dissociative Identity Disorder. We would very much like to publish the book as an audiobook and that should be a goal for next year.

In February and March we were hospitalized a lot. We were really down after a traumatic visit to the hospital. We still tried to keep our spirits up and built a big, nice cage for our hamster Bosse. It was fun to build and Bosse was really happy for a bigger cage. There was a lot of snow and cold. Winter is probably not really what makes us down, but when you don't see the sun for several weeks because of gray weather and rain, you get depressed.

April and May were exciting months. I got my books printed and we were very pleased. The front cover is really nice, just the way we wanted it. During this period we felt a little better. May tends to be nice weather-wise and spring is in full swing.

Summer is often hard for some strange reason. I think a lot of it is because there are so many summer temporary workers at the shelter. We have a hard time trusting new people and the temporary workers are generally worse at sensing our signals, it usually doesn't go well. I spent some time with my fantastic grandmother, we like to be there. In August we were admitted again for a couple of weeks. Then we haven't really come back, but autumn and winter have been hard. In October/November we were admitted again for a couple of weeks. We also picked lots of mushrooms, about 12.5kg of funnel chanterelles and a couple of kilos of yellow chanterelles. The first time we went out to pick chanterelles we didn't find any mushrooms at all, well a fly agaric... So we won't go there again. But place number two was, as I said, a gem.

Bosse (the hamster) unfortunately passed away. But that's the way of life, he was a pretty big hamster so it wasn't surprising that he didn't get very old. In November we were at Liseberg. It was terrible, I have a hard time with crowds but still force myself to go out, especially for my son's sake. But it was Halloween and there were so many people that we had to queue between the attractions. I really hope that Liseberg doesn't take in so many people again. I know people who were there all day and managed to ride two or three attractions, there was at least an 80-100 minute queue for all the attractions including the eateries. So Liseberg is getting backed up there, it's not fun for the visitors when you cram so many people in. It's also not safe, how is an ambulance going to get there?

We finally got new chickens. I was so sad when we had to kill our old chickens. We have also been in the stables a lot during the year, for us it is calming to be in the stables. One of our goals for 2024 was to continue and develop Life as a plural. We have been working on this, it is going quite slowly but it doesn't matter. We have also worked on not feeling like we have to update every day. It is okay to take breaks.

We also had the goal of being able to give a little lecture together with the accommodation. We've done that a couple of times and it's really great fun. Had a kind of discussion group with some students who visited the accommodation not too long ago. Managed to get through two groups before my brain gave out but that doesn't matter. That's one of our problems, that we can't cope when it gets too much and we become dissociative.

Our Christmas was really cozy. It was spent with the family at grandma's. There were quite a few of us with all the children and each of the sisters and brothers. It was quiet and that's it anyway and we went to bed and slept for an hour when our brains shut down and we couldn't take it anymore.

One thing that has changed for us is that writing has given us a completely different perspective on existence and life. Being able to write and articulate what has actually happened has been incredibly useful for us. We have also learned a lot about ourselves, which has been good. Right now the idea is to continue writing. Maybe even be able to put together another book later in time. But that depends entirely on how we feel and so on. In that case, that book would focus on what it is like to work in therapy and different treatment methods, etc. She Falls Heavy is very much in the past, what happened and what it led to, plus a chapter on Dissociative Identity Disorder.

We want to wish you a happy new year. We're just going to take it easy on New Year's, we'll probably sleep in the new year. The most important thing is that you feel okay, there's no right or wrong way to celebrate or not celebrate. You should take care of yourself and take with you that you are valuable! Really, you ARE valuable even though you may not believe it right now.

//Joy

Before I got sick, life was very different. Or, well, I've actually been sick the whole time but managed to hide it. In 2013 my facade started to crack and in 2014 I collapsed completely. Then it took just over 5 years in psychiatry before I got the right diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder.

But I thought I'd tell you a little about what life was like before the collapse. I mostly have some fragmented memories but I've documented a lot with photos and writing, which has helped a lot. I thought I'd tell you about the time after high school until we collapsed and were hospitalized the first time.

I graduated in 2004 with pretty good grades. During high school I studied theater as a major. I love theater and film. I love being on stage or in front of a camera and playing a role. And I was good at it, people around me said anyway. My free time consisted of acting (theater and film) and participating in medieval events. My cat, Nightwish, and my dog ​​Albin were also present at many of my antics.

After high school, I took a temporary job as an assistant in a store where we sold mobile phones and accessories. Throughout my teenage years, I worked extra hours at the store, so when a temporary job became available, I thought I might as well work there for another year.

2005 was an eventful year. During the summer, my mother died after a two-year battle with skin cancer. I still haven't been able to grieve for her, I've kind of shut down everything that has to do with my mother. Two days after my mother died, I took the theory test for my driving license and a couple of weeks later I drove up and got my license. I also got into university, the teaching program, and started studying.

2006 I moved in with my then boyfriend. We had previously lived together at my parents' house. I moved back home in the winter of 2004 to help with my mother. Through school I traveled to Ghana for three weeks to study their school system. In parallel with my studies and extra work, I went all in as an actor, a great interest.

In 2007 I had my second miscarriage (the first in 2006) and my relationship slowly fell apart. I panicked when I was intimate and touched, neither my partner nor I understood anything. My panic attacks, flashbacks and outbursts eventually resulted in us choosing to go our separate ways.

2008 I graduated as a teacher and finally started to admit that maybe I wasn't feeling my best. I was with an acquaintance in the emergency psychiatry department and then decided to apply myself too. After about ten minutes with a doctor, the doctor thought I might have borderline... Need I say more? Since then, that diagnosis has haunted me and I hate it. Hate what it means to be accused of having a stigmatized diagnosis that you don't have. I got a psychologist who I didn't click with at all, I went there three times before we panicked and never went there again. I got my first teaching job in a preschool before I even graduated.

I have always felt that life is messy and hard to get a grip on. I have always found it difficult to see how I got through school and university and even more surprised that I seem to be managing to teach my amazing students anything.

Over the years I have acted and directed theatre as well as acted in extras and played roles in films. It went quite well for me and if I hadn't gotten sick I would have wanted to continue. For whom?! Who wants a ripped, fat, mentally ill person in a theatre production or film...

2009 I don't have many memories of. The whole year feels empty, like a vacuum. At the turn of the year 2009/2010, to my great surprise, I became pregnant again with a man I had met and started dating. It had been many years since I had a partner and with pressure from people around me, I tried again. I became pregnant completely unplanned. The man I met said he wanted to keep the baby and I wanted that too. Regardless of whether we were going to live together or not, I wanted the baby. Around week 18-19, at the routine ultrasound, he pulled out. He just ran off and changed his phone number... In a way, I wasn't surprised and it later turned out that he had another child who was born in the summer of 2009 (and he also had a child in April 2011). So in three years he had three children that he doesn't take care of. I wasn't worried though, I knew that I would cope with motherhood perfectly with or without the father.

Pregnancy was terribly difficult. Not recognizing my body gave me a lot of anxiety and panic attacks and the birth itself was long and drawn out and ended with having to use a suction cup because my son got stuck. I don't remember much from the birth, I had few to no pauses in labor and the epidural they put in worked for about half an hour. When I finally pushed, I felt that nothing was happening, my son was stuck. It took a while but I finally managed to get the midwife to understand that he was stuck. This is the only thing I remember, how I screamed for them to take him out because he was stuck. I was injured quite badly and lost a lot of blood which resulted in me being wheeled off to surgery. My sister and one of my best friends were left with my son. My son was perfect, he was lying there looking at his surroundings and taking in the world even then. He weighed 4300g and was 54cm long. I love him so much. I always get really sad when I see old photos of what our life was like before the disease.

My son was supposed to have a perfectly trauma-free life... but it didn't work out that way. I was a good mother, a committed and present mother. So that my son wouldn't have to live in the suburbs where we lived, we moved back to my father's house to save up for a down payment. In August 2011, I interrupted my maternity leave to start my new job as a teacher in grades 1-3. My son started with a daycare. Life went on, the students seemed to like me and they learned amazing things, but I never understood how. It always feels like I'm standing by and watching. Like I'm not the teacher and mother. Like I'm something strange and unlovable.

My son and I did a lot together. We went to baby swimming, went for walks to playgrounds, we visited my grandparents and my grandfather's brother (who had no children of his own), we were with my family (my twin sister had a daughter just three months after I had my son) and we met friends and the moms' group. We were in a single moms' group and worked out at the gym. Life simply rolled on, my head was a mess and life felt like it was running around me.

2013 was also an eventful year. Thanks to my grandfather's brother, who lent me money for a down payment, I was able to buy my first apartment. It was perfect. I loved it, centrally located in the city and just the right size. Two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and toilet. I also started my dream job, as a teacher in a class 2-3 at a Montessori school. I was already working Montessori-inspired in my previous class and with my son. I felt happy and content with a perfect son, apartment and job, but everything just kept spinning faster and faster. My mood started to catch up with me and after my then three-year-old son was abused, my life fell apart. My PTSD hit me harder than a freight train, my flashbacks and body memories were brutal. I contacted my doctor and thus received conversational support through the health center. I went there for about a year (even though you didn't really get more than ten sessions), until I completely collapsed in October 2014. A colleague drove me in from work and my sister picked up my son from preschool. I was admitted to inpatient psychiatry for the first time.

While I was extremely ill, I couldn't stop thinking about my son and what was best for him. I did everything with him in mind, even though it might not always be the best, but I tried anyway. I got him placed via the Social Services Act (SoL) which was then (when I was at my worst) converted to an LVU. Now we have come to the point that the LVU will be converted back to a SoL placement and it feels absolutely wonderful. So that was a "short" account of my life before I got sick. I don't know if I managed to convey everything I want to convey, but the strongest feeling of my life is that I live in a tumble dryer.

If you have any questions or concerns, you are welcome to ask them! I have added some pictures from my antics as a youngster. They are ordinary photographs and photos from one of the many theater productions I have been in.

Have a nice day!

//Joy

I want to start by saying that in this post I will talk about self-harm and suicide. If this is something that triggers you, I ask you not to read any further in this post.

Now, during the festive season, many people are feeling worse. We have been feeling unwell for a while now but can't directly link it to Christmas. We mostly have good experiences of Christmas. However, we feel a little stressed because we have to feel good as well. We want Christmas to be as good as possible for everyone, but especially for our son and nephews. We don't want our bad mood to spoil Christmas.

I discovered the other day that we have been self-harming again. We haven't hurt ourselves by cutting ourselves for a long time, we're talking many months. I don't know what we have hurt ourselves with. Regardless, it's not good, it's incredibly difficult when the self-harm and suicidal impulses are strong. We often get scared that something will happen.

Self-harm in trauma, PTSD and complex PTSD happens quite often. Most of what you read about self-harm is that you harm yourself to regulate emotions, either too much emotion or that you don't feel any emotion at all. It is often taken for granted that people have EIPS (Emotionally unstable personality syndrome) but self-harm also appears in other diagnoses and it is important to remember.

For us, it's usually about punishing ourselves and punishing our bodies. We're also having an extremely hard time with food right now. Breakfast usually goes well, lunch not at all, and we have to force ourselves to eat dinner. Not eating is actually also a way of self-harm.

It's hard when you get stupid impulses. At its worst, we can't see a knife without having the impulse to hurt ourselves, and ropes or cable ties become even more dangerous when the impulse to commit suicide arises. When logical parts are co-conscious, there is no greater danger because these parts contribute to being a counterbalance, but when only chaos, darkness and a few others are present, the situation can become really dangerous. That feeling of hopelessness you can get in combination with destructive thoughts is not good.

We often get confused when we are always asked if something in particular happened that contributed to us feeling bad or self-harming, etc. But for us, it just happens at regular intervals. Of course, if something negative or difficult happens, it will certainly affect us, but most of the time it goes up and down without any direct reason. There are indirect reasons, however. We have nightmares and flashbacks and things like that quite often and this can contribute to us feeling bad. Feelings of hopelessness, that things will never get better, often cause us to end up in a negative spiral. It is lucky that we have so many wonderful people around us, who can motivate us to feel better, who make us want to fight.

I mostly want to talk a little about these impulses because there is so much taboo and shame around these feelings. Many people seem to think that the problems increase when you talk about it. I would probably say that it is important to talk about it. If you keep the impulses inside and don't share them with anyone else, it usually gets worse. It is very difficult to tell what you are thinking and so on, but shared burden and someone else's input can make it all feel less logical. Because when you get the impulses, it is very logical to harm yourself in different ways. The brain doesn't think clearly or objectively, the brain becomes extremely simple-minded and subjective. So if you are a relative or friend of someone who has these problems, dare to ask. Dare to be uncomfortable and pressure the person with self-harm or suicidal impulses so that they can try to put it into words.

Then it is important to remember that thoughts, impulses and plans are different levels as well. "Just" having thoughts is not an emergency. I don't want to belittle thoughts but it is kind of the lowest level of these three. Impulses, this is where it starts to get dangerous and there is a greater chance that something could happen. With plans, especially suicide plans, it is urgent, when someone has plans it is definitely time to go to the hospital if you haven't done so before. Dare to ask about the plans! When, how, where also further. Listen and confirm the feelings the person has without judging. It is scary with self-harm and suicide, especially suicide as this tends to be permanent. Self-harm can also be life-threatening even though the person in question may not have intended to hurt themselves so badly, it can happen.

Suicide is often impulsive but it is also planned. The brain sort of plans what to do, when and how, but the action itself is still impulsive. You think you want to die but most of the time it's just that you can't take it anymore, you don't see how life is going to get better and then you just can't take it anymore. The brain is farcical and crazy sometimes, that you can become so insanely dysfunctional. You become completely self-absorbed with these thoughts and impulses. They spread like poison and block out logic.

We often oscillate between being high and low functioning. We oscillate between being clear-sighted and sensible to being completely illogical and far from sensible. The brain is a farcical organ. What you have to understand is that self-harm and suicide are not something you choose. It is something that just happens. I know that many people believe that self-harm is for attention, and of course there are those who self-harm easily because of this, but they are not many. No one who is feeling well wants to harm themselves!

Think about what you say and how you say it when you discover self-harm or suicidal attempts. For example, don't say that it's "just" a scratch or not that deep/serious. This feeds the already dysfunctional thinking. It often leads the brain to think that it wasn't good enough or bad enough. It can lead to the next time being worse, deeper and more serious. For example, you can say; "I see that you feel bad." instead of comparing with others. It's like with food, so many (including us) who don't get the right help with their eating disorder because they're not underweight. You can die from malnutrition even if you don't look like a skeleton. It's dangerous not to eat properly as it creates an imbalance in the body which can lead to organ failure, among other things. Don't point out people's weight or bodies.

Well, we've talked a lot about this, but I still felt it was important to write about it. I hope you learned something from my blog post, and remember, there is help available!

// Joy

Some important phone numbers:

- In case of emergency life-threatening situations, call 112
- Priest on duty, call 112 and ask for the priest on duty.
- Police 114 14
- Suicide line 90101 or chat at mind.se
- BRIS (for children) 116111
- BRIS (for adults) 0771-505050
- Family helpline 0200-212019
- National helpline 90390
- Women's Peace Line 020-505050
- On-call fellow human being 08-7021680

P.S. Feel free to comment if you have any questions or just want to write a little!

Today is the 1st Advent so we have cast candles for the first time (I think). It took us three hours to figure out how to do it but then we had some colorful candles. It was pretty fun but we have a pretty busy afternoon.

Right now we have a lot of physical symptoms. We have like lightning bolts in our bodies. Imagine lots of single jolts throughout our bodies. It probably has to do with all the anxiety, worry, dissociations and the fact that it's messy inside. If I had to guess, I would have guessed that it's mild dissociative seizures or functional seizures. But I don't know... I haven't had the time to look for it. I asked the doctor when I was admitted and got like zero response or yes, he said something about anxiety as a cause, and that could also be the case, but considering that I live with DIS, I believe it's some kind of combination. She also pointed out that a dissociation is more like an absence seizure, but in my opinion and from my own experiences, I would say that a dissociation can look and feel in several different ways.

Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not particularly good at dealing with dissociation, especially the most severe forms, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DIS) and Unspecified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD). It's sad because they could have identified and treated the dissociations instead of ignoring them or blaming them on something else. You can dissociate with many different diagnoses, but not to the same level as with DIS and OSDD.

It is often lonely and tough to live with a relatively uncommon (about 0.8-1%) diagnosis and it becomes even lonelier when you constantly have to explain to the healthcare system what it is, plus you are often treated as if you are lying and making things up. It is incredibly sad, but we live in the hope of being able to spread knowledge and remove the ignorance and stigma surrounding DIS.

We run a Facebook page for those of us with Dissociative Identity Disorder (other dissociative syndromes are also welcome there). There you can seek support and get confirmation of your symptoms and experiences. Recognizing yourself and doing so means a lot when you feel bad. Just finding out that you are not crazy in your experiences is incredibly nice.

//Joy

We were never discharged yesterday but had to go on leave over the weekend instead. It felt good because we really don't feel well and now we get to try being home instead. We have been very unstable for several days.

Last time we wrote, we were in the psych ward. We then went for a walk and called our accommodation and broke down on the phone. The accommodation didn't think we should be out for a walk by ourselves in that condition at all and managed to get us to go back. They also called the ward and talked to them. Once back on the ward, one of the staff sat down with me for a long time and talked to me. Apparently there had been chaos as two of the staff had had to go down and help in the emergency room and one was awake, so you can understand why no one came. Didn't make me feel any better though...

Overall, the staff on the "floor" is great. Most of them are committed and caring. On my "home ward" (i.e. the ward we belong to when we are admitted) things have become much better than they were a couple of years ago, but that is largely due to the doctors being a bit better. However, we would have liked them to be even more responsive and maybe stop writing the wrong diagnosis and making diagnoses without investigation... Well, you can't be too picky...

Tomorrow we were supposed to meet our son but they are a little sick and I am not feeling well so we have decided to cancel. Together with the residential staff we also made the decision to go back to the hospital. The staff do not think we are ourselves and that is probably true. We feel depressed and have dark thoughts and impulses.

//Joy

We have no plan for what to write today, but we need to write... Today we had a doctor's appointment, it went well and we will be discharged on Friday, after which we will have been in the inpatient psychiatric ward for nine days. We went to the hospital because we were feeling worse and because we had not slept properly for a long time. Right now, as I write this, we are sitting here crying and don't know what to do. The mood swings and it is difficult to look ahead. What is the point, anyway??

We know we have a lot of points actually, it's just hard to see it when you're dipping...

To control anxiety and dangerous thoughts, we have knitted and knitted and for a change, knitted some more. We have finished knitting a woolen hat with an autumn pattern on it and finished fixing the wrist warmers we started, they have the same pattern and color as the hat (See the picture). Just today we have had quite a lot of anxiety and have been dissociative, felt that the dissociation is underway and we have therefore tried to be out in the day room as much as possible. When we feel like this we feel slightly manic or hysterical, whatever word you want to use, and then we crash or dissociate anyway in the end. Today we broke down and have sat in the room and cried for a long time. Tried to tell the staff that I felt terrible, was promised that someone would come but now 2 hours later we are still sitting alone. So we decided to write a little...

It's always scary when destructive parts get going and want destructiveness. It has happened many times that a destructive part takes over and harms us in different ways. It's scary to lose control of them and then come to your senses and something stupid has happened. Many parts don't want to harm us, not even when they feel bad. But then there are some that are really dangerous...

Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder is often confusing and messy. We have been through a lot lately, sometimes with amnesia (meaning I don't remember what another part has done and said) and sometimes some have been co-conscious (that several parts can see and hear what is happening and where we are doing). Being co-conscious is not easy for the parts that are co-conscious tend to nag and make demands all the time. We call the space in the brain that we are in when we front or are co-conscious the HUB. It's kind of a hub so we thought it would fit best.

Right now we are sitting here doubting ourselves, me and the others in NAVET are fighting so that we don't end up in the dark too much. We are not allowed to eat, we are too fat, we are not good enough people or a sufficient parent. We are not good at running our social media and we have not succeeded in anything... The one who is the quietest is the ghost, she is usually quite quiet. A couple of the little ones are crying and are sad and a couple of destructive parts think we should harm ourselves or, yes, stop living anymore. I know that if we sit down and make a pros and cons list, we will make a hole in all that, but it is not that easy. So many desires, so many feelings and thoughts and opinions. I don't know what to do with it all!

We find it so difficult to communicate how we feel and what it is like, largely because many parts of us cannot, are not allowed to or do not want to talk. When we say we feel bad, it is normally really bad and we need support. But not everyone understands this even though we often tell ourselves that it is so before we have difficulty expressing ourselves. It is really strange, how we can be so incredibly high-performing and "good" sometimes and then become a wreck who can barely communicate. Or when you look at how we function and take into account that we feel that there are many of us in this body, it is not strange. But it is really hard no matter how much we know about our diagnosis and ourselves.

We've just been pouring out our hearts for a little while now. Hope you're okay! If you have any questions or concerns, please write in the comments, we really appreciate it.

//Joy etc.

PS. We actually have holes in our socks so we'll probably have to throw them away later...

What is the prognosis for someone living with Dissociative Identity Disorder? Can anything be done to become healthy and free from their problems?

To receive a psychiatric diagnosis, you have such major problems in everyday life that it becomes a disability. When you live with Dissociative Identity Disorder, you experience that you have multiple personalities, that is, that you feel split, you have major problems with amnesia (i.e. memory loss) and you dissociate often and a lot in different ways. You are also extremely uneven and fluctuate a lot between being high and low functioning.

You can be free from many dissociative symptoms and you can feel like a whole person again, but this requires intensive long-term therapy. In order to start therapy, you must be safe and secure. Therapy is usually divided into three phases:

1, Stabilization phase,
2, Therapy phase and
3, To look forward and prevent the relapse phase.

After over 10 years in psychiatry, we are still in the stabilization phase. So we have been so bad and have been so dangerous to ourselves that we have not been able to start a safe and secure therapy. Over the years, people have tried to throw us/me into therapy far too quickly and too early. When you are thrown into therapy without having stabilized, you become extremely dangerous to yourself.

Because they initially gave me the wrong diagnosis, they also put me in the wrong kind of therapy. It started with us receiving DBT; Dialectical Behavior Therapy. DBT is a form of therapy that has proven to be very effective for people with personality syndromes, such as Emotionally Unstable Personality Syndrome, Antisocial Personality Syndrome, etc. We first went to regular DBT for two years and thought it was interesting and such, but we kind of got nowhere. What we learned was nothing new to us, but more of a given. When we went to DBT at its most intensive, our self-harm decreased somewhat for a period, but otherwise we stood there stomping and getting nowhere, and in retrospect it was not strange since we have DIS, not EIPS. After two years of DBT via outpatient care, we were sent to a treatment center for nine months. They had a DBT focus. So even more of something that didn't work.

At the treatment center, we also started PE (Prolonged Exposure), a form of therapy where you talk about the trauma while recording yourself, then you have to listen to this twice a day until the next therapy session. This made us a lot worse and more dangerous to ourselves, we became re-traumatized and started to dissociate even more. PE probably works great for many people, but it didn't work well for me, at least not right then and there. We were far too unstable.

A form of therapy that we have started talking about is called EMDR. EMDR involves, among other things, using eye movements to reprogram the brain, so that you understand that the memories you get as flashbacks are not happening now. As I understand it, it is based on the fact that when you have, for example, DIS or PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), the traumatic events/memories are stuck in the short-term memory of the brain. Normally, the day's new memories and experiences are moved to long-term memory during the night when we are in REM sleep. REM means that the eyes move back and forth and this helps the brain sort the experiences. If you have been through something traumatic and develop PTSD, it means that the brain has not managed to move those experiences to long-term memory. They are thus stuck in short-term memory. EMDR is based, among other things, on similar eye movements being made at the same time as you think about and remember a traumatic event. If it works properly, the memory is moved to long-term memory and the brain can then understand that the event is not happening now, but that it was then. In this way, PTSD can heal.

With Dissociative Identity Disorder, it is more complicated than with PTSD. Here, each part needs to be allowed to take its place and process its traumas. The most difficult thing is probably that you have amnesic barriers between your different parts and experiences. It is only when all parts are allowed to exist and can process their traumas that you can tear down the amnesic barriers and only then can you do a fusion. That is, the parts merge together and form a self. For all the parts that are inside actually form the self, it is just that it is amnesia that makes you feel divided. And this defense is helpful when you are exposed to repeated traumas, but later in life it becomes more of a hindrance than a help.

So the short answer is that yes, you can become "free" from your DIS but it requires a lot of work. It should be added that not everyone can manage to get to the point (fusion) where you become or get a feeling of being a SELF. The step during fusion is to get good communication in the system and to reduce the amnesic episodes. This can be done in many different ways, for example by keeping a diary in different ways and to kind of get everyone on board. The difficult thing is if some people have no insight into the fact that there are several of you or that you have amnesia.

It should be added that just because you succeed in a fusion does not mean you will never have DIS again. The brain is programmed to react to strong stress and trauma by splitting. If new trauma occurs, there is always the risk of splitting again.

Our goal to start with is to have better communication, so that life doesn't become as confusing with memory loss and time jumps. But our wish is of course to be able to feel a SELF and not a split like now. But we have a long way to go, we don't have particularly high hopes but still have a wish. We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes and that's nice. Many people feel a fear of fusion, we also do in the meantime but from everything we have read and so on, no one disappears, all the parts remain but the barriers disappear. All people have different parts or roles or whatever you want to call it, but not everyone has problems in everyday life because of the parts.

We are admitted to inpatient psychiatric care sometimes, when we dip and it becomes dangerous. We live in a psychiatric home. There is staff there 24/7 and we have our own apartment with the possibility of going to common areas. For us, it has been a lifesaver. With the help of the accommodation, outpatient care and inpatient care, we have stabilized so much that we sometimes see a future, and that is to come a long way when you know how terribly ill I have been for 10 years. That is what has worked for us. Everyone is different, some live at home with a supportive family, others live at home with housing support and the like or you can live in a psychiatric home according to SoL (Social Services Act). But what is common is that if you have DIS, you have many problems that you need help and support with.

I hope this hasn't been too confusing and that you find it useful. Feel free to ask more questions if you have any!

// Joy

Many people ask and want to know about us inside, who we are and so on... We thought we would try to describe and tell a little. We are over 20 parts that have been identified through patience and detective work. We don't know if there are more because not all parts know about each other and some parts have probably not made themselves known. However, many are starting to have a pretty good awareness that we are more than one. Not all parts are fully functional in everyday life. Some parts are while others are just a feeling or a memory.

By keeping a diary, we have identified parts. We keep a diary in an app called Daylio, it is the first diary that has worked for us in the long term. Otherwise, we have tried in batches but have not succeeded. In Daylio, we can click when we are there so that you can then see who or who has been in the Hub. The Hub is the part of the head where different parts can meet and discuss and so on.

Parts inside can have different names, ages, genders, interests and handwriting styles. As you can see in the picture, we have collected the written names of different parts. The difference between parts can be large and it can be small. It is often difficult for others to notice when a switch occurs (that you change the part that is in control), this is because Dissociative Identity Disorder is a trauma diagnosis that in many ways is that no one (not even yourself) should notice that you have the diagnosis. You get DIS in order to cope with the terrible thing that happened. By some parts taking on the trauma, other parts do not need to remember the traumatic thing, in this way the child can continue their everyday life as if nothing terrible is happening. Because it is usually in childhood that Dissociative Identity Disorder develops.

Dissociative identity disorder usually develops before the age of 9-12 years. Before the age of 9-12 years, the child has not developed the ability to feel like a whole person. Actually, you can say that all people have parts, but if you develop DIS, you get amnesic barriers between the parts. Amnesia is memory loss (not to be confused with ordinary forgetfulness). When you are around 9-12 years old, the hemispheres of the brain begin to communicate properly and this normally means that you develop the feeling of being a whole person, that all the parts become a functioning person. If you have been exposed to severe repeated trauma and have developed Dissociative Identity Disorder, you are prevented from having a sense of wholeness because you have amnesic barriers between different parts. Then it is not possible to have the feeling of being a whole person. You therefore experience that you are multiple personalities, but all the sub-personalities form a whole, so you are not actually multiple personalities, you just experience it that way.

All people have different parts, you can have your work role, your sports role, your professional role, your different friend roles (depending on which friend you are with) and so on. This is completely normal, if you have developed DIS, amnesic barriers are formed between these roles, which means that you cannot remember what another part or role has done. This is why you dissociate often and a lot. Everyone does dissociate sometimes, but with Dissociative Identity Disorder, the dissociating becomes pathological, that is, sick. Daydreaming is an example of mild and completely normal dissociating, for example, driving a car on a route you often drive and that you are suddenly there, but you cannot remember how you drove, then you have also dissociated and this is also completely normal. When you live with DIS, you dissociate so much and often that it becomes an obstacle in everyday life. Dissociation is found in many psychiatric diagnoses, such as PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), ADHD/Autism, severe depression, EIPS (Emotionally unstable personality syndrome) and so on. But with these diagnoses you do not have multiple sub-personalities with amnesia in between, you can however feel fragmented and confused about your identity.

We hope we haven't touched on it when trying to explain what Dissociative Identity Disorder means when it comes to identity confusion and identity variation. You are more than welcome to ask questions if you have any questions.

For us, we have over 20 parts inside. The ones who are most present right now are Joy, Maraya, Freya and Jonas. We have different roles and are good at different things. For example, Maraya is good at managing finances (something that is often difficult in DIS, as some parts have zero financial thinking), Jonas is 16 years old, he is depressed and has difficulty eating (eating disorder in other words), he is also a memory keeper which means he has traumatic memories. Freya is also a memory keeper and finds food a pain. Some parts log when they are present but not all of them and then it is difficult to know that they were present.

We often feel confused about our identity in different ways and that we don't recognize ourselves. It is rarely quiet inside our heads, usually someone else is also in the Hub and is disturbing, commenting or just observing. We basically use the name Joy exclusively externally, as it is easiest for everyone including ourselves. We also want to point out that this is our experience of living with DIS, it is different for everyone how they function and what personalities they have.

Some parts don't want to have anything to do with our social media parts and we have to respect that, but there are several of us who run our various social media. Those of us who do think it's important to spread knowledge about Dissociative Identity Disorder and mental illness. Why should I/we hide and not be who we are?! We also think it's important to share because it makes others (and often ourselves too) not feel so alone.

//Joy

This weekend we picked 7.3kg of chanterelle mushrooms in 1 hour. We found lots of mushrooms. In the end we simply had to close our eyes and leave. The whole of Saturday evening and Sunday morning was spent cleaning mushrooms and during Sunday afternoon we dried, pulverized and crushed all the mushrooms. So it took a while. In the middle of everything we got really tired and had to lie down and rest for 1½ hours. But enough about my little mushroom trip, today we thought we would write a little about healthcare. Especially inpatient care and their knowledge gaps when it comes to mental health diagnoses, especially dissociative diagnoses.

We have long wondered why there is such poor knowledge of trauma diagnoses in inpatient care. Very often they do not know how a traumatized brain works and in almost all cases they have no idea about dissociative diagnoses and what they mean. They choose not to link the behaviors of many patients to trauma, instead they make arbitrary diagnoses, especially Emotionally Unstable Personality Syndrome, based on behavior that fits into several different diagnoses. In many cases, receiving an EIPS diagnosis is devastating for someone who is traumatized.

An EIPS diagnosis, also known as borderline, usually means that the patient is treated really badly. The patient is treated and assumed to be making up, exaggerating and behaving in certain ways because they want to seek attention. It is terrible that psychiatry still has this outdated and untrue attitude, because a patient with EIPS lives with a difficult and disabling diagnosis. A diagnosis that affects the patient's entire life.

There are departments for psychosis, eating disorders, general psychiatry, substance abuse and self-harm. But there are no departments with a trauma focus. Why, we wonder... There are so many trauma patients in our country. Patients who need highly specialized care where the staff understands and can treat the patients in the right way. The general psychiatric departments can in many cases make the patients sicker than they are. These patients are often treated with prejudices that create dysfunctional behaviors.

Many symptoms, such as self-harm, irrational and impulsive behavior, self-harm, feelings of emptiness, depression, etc. are found in several diagnoses and the healthcare system must therefore carry out proper investigations to determine why the patient has a certain behavior. After that, a diagnosis can be made. This is rarely the case, especially not if the patient has self-harm behavior, in which case an EIPS diagnosis is immediately made. To receive the diagnosis of EIPS, it is required that 5 out of 9 criteria are met, it is often self-harm and suicide patients do not meet that many criteria but the EIPS diagnosis is made anyway. This means that these patients are treated in a brutal, callous and incorrect manner.

There are more trauma patients than many people think, and those who often need such highly specialized care that inpatient care is required are very sick. The diagnosis of complex PTSD and various dissociative syndromes are common in severely traumatized people. Diagnoses such as EIPS, simple PTSD, and higher suicide risk, etc. are also found among trauma patients. My point here is that you cannot make diagnoses just based on symptoms you see a patient have during a severe crisis.

If there had been specialized trauma departments, we believe that more people could have been helped more quickly and effectively. If there had been a more humane view of those who are hospitalized in inpatient psychiatry, many would probably have gotten better faster. As it is now, trauma patients are often treated with enormous prejudice because hospitals fail to recognize that the patient has a trauma diagnosis. They assume that traumatized people have other psychiatric diagnoses and then treat the patients in an ineffective and incorrect way. Today, traumatized patients are often treated as if they are reacting irrationally and strongly because they want attention and because they want to irritate the staff. Patients are often treated as if they are making things up, lying and exaggerating, when in reality the patient is only reacting from a traumatized brain.

A traumatized patient needs to be treated with calm and security, they need to feel believed. A severely traumatized person has often lost trust in both the outside world and themselves. They have poor self-esteem and a host of strange symptoms precisely because the body is still alive in the trauma period. The only way to help trauma patients is security and predictability combined with a good treatment where the patient is involved in their care and feels listened to and respected. For this to happen, the treatment of patients needs to be improved and prejudices broken down.

The healthcare system's prejudiced treatment of severely traumatized patients must end!

What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to write in the comments!

//Joy

Today I listened to Sveriges Radio P1 - Kaliber, about how inpatient psychiatry discharges patients who have attempted suicide or self-harmed on the ward. It was like listening to a piece of my own history in inpatient psychiatry.

My journey in inpatient psychiatry started in 2014. When I was in inpatient care for a couple of years, two senior doctors came to the department I belonged to with exactly the attitude that is talked about in Kaliber's review. Today, fortunately, there is another doctor on the department, but he also has the attitude that people are discharged immediately in the event of suicidal or self-harming acts.

We have been talking for years about this insane policy, which also has no scientific basis. It is only the opinions of doctors who want an easier work environment. It is clear that it will be easier for the doctor who does not have to deal with highly suicidal people in his department. In my book, She Falls Heavy, we address this very problem. That we have not died, that is, "succeeded" in taking our own lives, is a miracle given the many times we have been treated.

One example was when we were urgently taken to the hospital closest to our psychiatric residence (so we were not taken to our "home hospital"). When we were not okay at the somatics department, we were taken to the psychiatric emergency department, even though we did not want this. We clearly said that we did not want to be admitted there and that it was just stressful for us. Then they issued a medical certificate, aka we were forced to go to the ward. It was around two or three in the morning when we got to the ward. At nine the next day we were picked up for a doctor's appointment. The doctor on this ward is unpleasant, rude and does not listen to me as a patient at all. She does not even ask how I am feeling, her first sentence to us was that we were now discharged and could go home. When I ask why, the answer is that it is not good for me to be admitted. The day before I had made a serious suicide attempt.

Even the doctor at our home hospital is based on this absurd policy. She assumes that we have the diagnosis of Emotionally Unstable Personality Syndrome, also called borderline. A diagnosis that one of these write-out-as-punishment doctors put on us WITHOUT INVESTIGATION. They assumed our irrational and impulsive behavior was due to EIPS when an investigation a few years later showed that we actually had Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Our perception of how to treat patients with self-harm and suicidal behavior is that it is nonchalant, prejudiced and downright unpleasant. It is assumed that the patient has a diagnosis of EIPS, even though several diagnoses can actually be the reason for this kind of behavior. I do not think that any patient should be treated in this way, not even if they happen to have EIPS. You cannot get healthier when you are judged and treated incorrectly. No one wants to live in a hospital. When you are a difficult patient and really need to be protected from yourself, you are sent back and forth between hospital and home in a way that is downright life-threatening.

One of the senior doctors at our home hospital wrote a lot of pure crap in our medical record. It was written that I committed parasuicidal acts. This means that the senior doctor considered that I attempted suicide on purpose, as if I was staging a suicide attempt to get attention... Who would commit suicide on purpose?! She also wrote an entry in my medical record that always came up at the top when someone opened my medical record, which said that I had EIPS, that I was attention seeking, that I self-harmed for attention, that I threatened to harm myself (as soon as I admitted that I had thoughts of self-harm or suicide) and that I attempted suicide on purpose. Absolutely life-threatening!! This has meant that I have been extremely close to death several times. Not taking these patients seriously leads to people dying!

Another time they let me have a break (to go out without staff) even though I am very suicidal. I choose to take a string that I bit off from my hospital pants with me so I can hang myself in the woods. When I get out of the hospital, I give all my money to my dad so that he can afford to finish my future house. I go for a walk to the woods that are right behind the hospital and then go into the woods where no one can see me but I can see the hospital. It is dark and cold. I am gone for a long time and do not answer when anyone calls. The department is not the ones who finally find me, it is my dad and my brother who find me lifeless after they figured out that you can track my phone via my tablet. They got an approximate location and started searching. My brother performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. I do not wake up until I am in the ambulance. A very serious suicide attempt that could have probably been prevented. I remember that I was discharged the next day due to my suicide attempt, which resulted in another attempt and new admission to the ward.

The doctor who works in my home ward now cares about his patients BUT he also has this "policy" that self-harm and suicide attempts on the ward lead to immediate discharge. You are not in the hospital because you think it is fun, you are there when you are very sick and often need to be protected from yourself. You are often there because you do not want to live. It is not a joke, it is serious! Unfortunately, we could have written pages and pages with events like these. It is frightening that it happens so often and a lot, it is like an accepted truth even though it has not been established by research. When will the chief physician and the psychiatry department realize that this is nonsense and madness. Throwing out a seriously suicidal patient never leads to anything good.

We really hope that Kaliber's review can put an end to this insane fabrication! We hope that this will cause inpatient psychiatry to be reviewed and that changes will be made. We will not go into this now but in another post, but inpatient and outpatient psychiatry are extremely bad at dealing with dissociative syndromes. Especially inpatient care, they barely/extremely rarely know what dissociative syndromes are and what they mean.

If you want to listen to Kaliber's review, you can click on the link in this sentence.

//Joy

I am a mother.

Being a mother and living with a psychiatric diagnosis is not easy. When I got pregnant, I didn't know I had a mental illness. Getting pregnant wasn't planned, but oh how much I wanted my son. His father didn't want to be a father and chose to pull out about halfway through the pregnancy. I wasn't worried, though. I knew I could handle being a mother myself and that I would do it as well as I could. I was a trained teacher and had a steady job like this.

My son would not experience trauma, my son would have a good childhood with a committed mother who could give 100%. A mother who made sure to give her son the best conditions to grow and develop. It didn't quite turn out as I planned when I was waiting and longing for my son.

In September 2010, my amazing son was born. A son that I am so incredibly proud of. It was a tough birth and one of my best friends had to take paternity leave because the son's father didn't want to be in the picture. We moved pretty soon from my apartment in the suburbs to my dad's in a smaller town. I didn't want my son to grow up in the suburbs, which were already starting to get messy. Dad lived alone and needed to share the rent with someone, so we chose to move there instead of looking for our own apartment at that time.

In August 2011, I changed jobs to a school near where we lived and my son started with a daycare. Life went on, I was on the move a lot and never stopped to check in on how I was actually feeling. When a Montessori school nearby had a job opening, we applied for it, we have always liked that pedagogy, and got the job. So in January 2013, we changed jobs, a dream as a teacher came true. At the same time, my son got a place at the school's preschool (I put him on the waiting list for that school when he was only three months old). With a new job and better pay came new opportunities, in 2013 we bought our own apartment. So many positive things happened pretty quickly.

My son enjoyed preschool and I enjoyed work. I worked full-time for a year and a half before everything fell apart. My son was abused by an older child in the summer of 2013. He doesn't remember the incident, but for me it was a disaster. I started having flashbacks, I thought I was going crazy because I didn't know what to do with it. I contacted the health center where I was given a conversation partner. I was diagnosed with PTSD.

One day in October 2014, I collapsed and was rushed to the psychiatric emergency room by a colleague, while my sister picked up my son. I remained hospitalized for a little over three months. A new chapter in our lives began. Everything collapsed!

I have been very ill, very very ill. The fact that I am alive is a miracle. After the first two weeks (during this first hospitalization) the chief physician wrote that I had changed personalities and that I could become childlike in my behavior. I didn't know what was wrong with me, I have memory gaps from most things (both before, during and after I got sick), probably because I changed so much and that those who were "at the forefront" had some part I didn't share memories with. The healthcare system chose not to do anything about my personality changes and went on a completely different path. They diagnosed me with severe depression and emotionally unstable personality syndrome, without doing any investigation.

My son's entire worldview was demolished. His safe, predictable existence with his mother disappeared. During the first time of this first hospitalization, my son lived with my sister. He became aggressive, angry and desperate. In December, my son moved in with one of my best friends, who was on paternity leave, and when I was discharged at the end of January, he moved back home. I fought, I really tried, but it was so difficult. I was unstable and my son was unstable, in the end I went to social services and asked for help. I wanted relief but was offered parenting courses. I have never had a problem with how to be a parent, I have this both naturally and because I am a trained teacher. What I needed was to rest up so that I could be a good mother. In the end, they offered me to place my son in accordance with the Social Services Act with a family in the same municipality where we lived. In March 2015, my son moved to his first family home and I was once again admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward, something I ended up being in on and off for both short and long periods of time.

I asked social services for help, which resulted in a lot of headaches for me. The first woman I got, who was supposed to investigate us, immediately started threatening to send us to the juvenile detention center if I didn't agree with them about what to do with our son. She was also the one who sent us to a parenting course that was unnecessary for us. Despite everything social services put me through, I would do the same thing again. When you are sick, so sick that you can't take care of yourself, you have to realize that you can't take care of a child. I didn't want my son to see me when I was at my worst, I didn't have a father for him who could take care of him and no one in my family had the opportunity. Then there is only one way out, ask for help from society.

The trips have been many, the social services are terribly prejudiced when it comes to psychiatric illnesses. I felt like a little piece of shit, something to be trampled on, and like the worst mother in the world. My self-confidence disappeared completely. The social services have basically zero knowledge about my diagnoses and are therefore even more prejudiced. I can't remember them genuinely asking me how I function and why.

The son thus lived in a foster home from the spring of 2015. He was their first child placed in a foster home and they misinterpreted everything, absolutely everything. If the son got sad when I left him after visitation, it was reported as if I had done something wrong during the visitation. The fact that the son's whole world was upside down and that he might have preferred to live with his mother was not taken into account. So the son was on and off in this foster home until they resigned at the end of May 2017. I asked the social services to find a new foster home but was told that there were none and that they were on vacation so I had to solve the summer myself.

I got through the summer the only way I could. My son had to stay with me for a few days and with different friends or relatives for a few days, if necessary. Absolutely not the best, really bad actually, but what can you do when you have no other option. In August it all ended with me in the hospital under LPT (compulsory psychiatric care) at the same time as my son was placed under LVU (the Act on the Care of Young People). They now considered that I was so sick that my son needed to be protected from me. Something I agree with, my son needed to live with someone else, I was extremely ill at the time. But I don't think it would have had to go this far if the social services had made sure to find a family home for my son before they went on vacation.

The son stayed with a friend at the time for almost nine months and I was hospitalized for several months during LPT. They medicated me heavily, so heavily that I couldn't walk or talk properly, I slurred my words. This meant that restrictions were placed on my son so that I was neither allowed to see nor talk to him for about six months. It was terrible not being able to have contact with my son and the only thing I could think about was how abandoned my son must feel. Where my son lived was far from ideal, he has said that the man in the family was sometimes threatening towards him. Fortunately, they were not approved as a family home and the son was put on hold for a new family. However, the social services made a mistake by telling the son that he was not allowed to stay with the people he had known for a long time, just over five months before a new home was actually found.

Once a new family was found in April 2018, I was moved to a treatment center. The new family has been a turnaround. They are fantastic, committed people who treated me like a human being and not like I was a child abuser. Because that's how it had felt up until then, both the social services and those he lived with (for longer periods) treated me as if I had somehow hurt and mistreated my son. Something that is not true. Until I got sick, I was a good mother and after I got sick, I did everything I could to ensure that my son was well taken care of when I couldn't or didn't have the energy to be a mother. There were many conflicts with the social services as I felt judged and suspected by them all the time. It felt like they didn't listen to my thoughts and opinions while telling me that I was just a mentally ill person who was incapable of making my own decisions.

I think a lot of my bad mood after that was about the way social services treated me in combination with a crazy messy psychiatric care. Despite four years in psychiatry, the care had still not done an investigation into what was wrong with me. They assumed that I had a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality syndrome, still without an investigation. However, I did not have EIPS but a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. I was diagnosed with DIS after an investigation at the outpatient psychiatric clinic in 2019. Even though my life had been messy and difficult regardless, the stress of contact with social services made everything even worse. I have always, no matter how sick I have been, been very concerned that my son is doing well and is well taken care of. I have not wanted to let my son go because I was convinced that he would have been even worse without his mother. Today I am more uncertain, my irrational and unpredictable behavior was probably not the best for my son. The fact that I was there sometimes and then gone to the hospital again was probably incredibly confusing for my son. And when I was at my sickest, I had no insight into my illness or insight into what I could say in front of my son. I often hurt myself and made countless suicide attempts, my son saw the damage from my attempts. Even though I tried to hide my wounds and bruises, it didn't always work.

My son felt really bad about the situation and self-harmed by, for example, banging his head against the wall and pulling a skipping rope around his neck. I don't know if he got ideas from me, but I have never self-harmed when I had my son with me, it wouldn't occur to me. All I wanted was for my son to be well and worry-free. My son still lives with the same family since 2018. It has been going well until now, they are fantastic. Ever since my son moved in with them, we have had regular contact.

Now I don't know what to do anymore. I feel confused in my role as a mother. As if I don't know my son at all anymore. As it is now, we meet for three to four hours every third weekend. Now that my son has entered his teens, he has started to withdraw, he is angry and probably disappointed in me, in all the adults who have failed to give him a safe and trauma-free upbringing. I actually don't know what to do other than try to stand my ground and still exist. For the past six months, my son has been rude to me and the last few times we have met, I have had panic attacks afterwards. I feel inadequate and worthless, but at the same time I think my son has every right to be angry and disappointed in me. For everything I haven't been and everything that has gone wrong.

I have really tried and will continue to try. As long as I live, I will try to be a mother, try to be there for him and not give up. I honestly don't know what I can do to make my son feel good. He claims he is doing well but his behavior says otherwise, so I don't know what is what anymore. It feels sad that the nice contact we still had over the years has been blown away. To make the messy situation more understandable, I wrote two children's books for my son; Kotten's mother gets sick (around 2015) and Kotten doesn't live with his mother (2017ish). It helped him for a while at least...

It's so hard to feel lost and worthless both as a mother and a person. I think my son has every right to be angry and sad with me. He has a lot to process and it's only now that he's starting to get big enough for everything to catch up with him. That he's now starting to understand how messy and unfair his life has been and will continue to be. He's probably deeply disappointed in me, in everything he didn't get and I understand him. The plan to give him a good childhood free of trauma has completely failed. It started well, we had four great years together before all hell broke loose. At least I think I was a good mother then. Unfortunately, I have so many memory gaps both about my own upbringing, my adult life before I became a mother and after, and when I hit a wall and got sick.

I hope that you who read this do not judge me too harshly. It is difficult to be a good mother in normal circumstances and almost impossible when you become as sick as I have been. Now, after four years in a psychiatric hospital, I am starting to become more stable. Now I have a much better understanding of the disease. We have really tried to do everything we can to make our son feel as good as possible. To some extent we have succeeded, we asked for help from the very beginning. We always have and always will have our son's best interests in mind, even though it may not always succeed.

We hope that our son will find himself and that he will find his way back. One fear we have is that he will not want to see us anymore, that he will just think that we are a lousy parent who has only done wrong. We hope that he will ask us why, why things have become the way they have become, so that we can tell him and explain. We hope that he will start talking so that we can help him understand.

I am so eternally grateful to have my amazing, wise son. I am so incredibly proud of him for how he has done in life. I love him so much!! Love you R.

//Joy

Yesterday we went out to grandma's via our one best friend (we have two). It's so nice to be out at grandma's by the sea. We usually feel calm when we come here, but it's far too rare as it takes us over two hours to get here from our accommodation.

Right now it feels like we're just standing around and stomping around with our social media. Sometimes it's hard to know what to write and talk about. We want to find a balance between our everyday lives and embedding what it's like to live with our diagnoses and information/facts about, above all, Dissociative Identity Disorder. Is there anything you'd like to see more or less of?

Right now it's part of our agenda and next week too. I feel tired and stuff but it'll probably go well. Sometimes there's a lot to do and then we have to try to keep up the pace. We often have fluctuating energy levels and stamina, it feels sad that we often can't even keep up a half-assed pace or, above all, stress. When we have stamina, life feels easier and more fun.

Something we would like to be able to do is lecture. We have lectured at the folk high school (for future social educators) together with our accommodation and we love it. We have sickness compensation but on that you are only allowed to do things five hours a week. We usually don't have the energy to do structured/planned things that much during the weeks but sometime every now and then it would be fun. I had planned to have a tab here on the website about lecturing but then the website looked a bit too professional, as if we had the energy to lecture a lot and that's not the case. But I don't know... maybe we should have it anyway... We just don't want anyone to be able to misunderstand either. But I would have liked to have a tab if it was because our hope is to be able to do more the more we recover.

We have lectured about what it is like to live in our psychiatric facility and a little about what Dissociative Identity Disorder is. We would also like to lecture about the treatment provided by healthcare and about what it can be like to have your child placed in a foster home/social services. I want to learn more about methods for recovery and treatment of DIS and other trauma diagnoses. But we will see... small steps forward, although we often want things to happen quickly and now and get very involved and then crash because it becomes too much. So we are trying to hurry this along slowly, we kind of want to be able to cope in the long run.

Well, we don't know what the future holds, but you can hope for something better than the past. We've been very sick, from having zero insight into illness to actually having a decent insight into illness. We're having a hard time with food again... but that's probably going to change soon. I thought I'd try to write a little about being a mother and sick at the same time... Is that something you want to read about?

Hope you have a good day!!

//Joy