On Monday we decided not to continue riding regularly. At least not right now, we'll see how we do later. We thought we'd buy a 10-time card when we can afford it. Then we can ride when we can and we don't pay for when we don't ride. Love the horses but it's just felt like too much all year, hopefully the desire will come back soon.

I have decided to sell my overlock machine (There is a lot to decide now...). I don't use it. It is brand new and just collecting dust. I just use my regular sewing machine.

Otherwise, we've been struggling with dissociations and poor sleep the last few days, but last night we slept pretty well. We've still tried to keep going. Yesterday we walked and went to the gym and today we went for a walk and did yoga. It always feels stressful when we feel dissociative, partly because we don't want to get stuck but also because it's uncomfortable with all the unreal feelings. Sometimes the surroundings become so unreal that it's hard to walk straight up and down. It feels like you're wobbly because it's hard to judge the distance to the floor because the floor moves. Then the fog in the brain and the headache that won't let up plus all the nagging inside. THE HUB is full of opinions and stories and chaos.

It's quite a mess at home right now because they're replacing the roof. It'll take 1-2 weeks of demolition, but it has to be done. We've had enough moisture damage.

Otherwise, we miss grandma a lot... Hope you are well!!

Today is the first of August, I don't want summer to end soon. It's not the darkness that's the hardest thing, but the gray blanket that usually covers Sweden in the winter months. Let's hope that this particular winter month will be nice instead...

I've had a couple of good days but today I feel irritable and down and anxious. Haven't done much today, went for a long walk and cleaned up the pool. They're going to build scaffolding outside on Monday because they're going to change the tiles. It doesn't feel good to have a lot of banging on the roof for a week or two. But it has to be done, otherwise it'll start leaking instead and that's stupid.

The other day I got my new weighted sweater. I would have liked a size smaller as it is quite oversize but it is so comfortable. Weighs 5.4kg. The brand I bought is called Hugz and is Danish. They have the same thing as my weighted blanket, like little grains of sand in it or whatever. It is a little warm when the sun is shining but otherwise so comfortable.

Now I've decided to paint a little to see if I can feel better. The dissociative is probably the hardest part, but also the anxiety. I'm going to paint our latest resident in my department anyway. I usually paint everyone who lives here on a board that hangs inside the shared apartment.

Last Thursday I visited my brother and delivered a birthday present to my niece. I also brought a stack of books by Emelie Schepp. She is a crime writer, I read the first book in 1½ days, it was pretty ok but quite stereotypical but mixed with a little new thinking, I would say. Easy to read and entertaining, the first book was called Marked for Life, now I have started book 2, White Tracks.

I feel dissociative aka feelings of unreality and headaches. We kind of get headaches around the eyes and central forehead. The anxiety comes like a letter in the mail. I don't know if it's a change in direction or if I'm about to get stuck. Regardless of the outcome, it's unpleasant. The fact that I feel down and depressed today doesn't make things any better. Sometimes it can be hard to know what's what... what's depression and what's dissociation.

We are still struggling with the book Sensory pathways to healing from trauma. I tried to open it before but I don't remember anything we read, so it's not easy to try to summarize the book here on the blog. But I'm sure there will be an impulse and desire to do so one day...

Sigh! It's so sad to feel like this... Then I have no desire to continue riding, or cuddling with horses is okay, but everything around me... I have no desire at all and have felt this way since last winter. I've kind of lost it completely. In two weeks the stable starts again so we kind of have to decide now so we can let you know in good time. Then there's a new riding instructor (which definitely doesn't have to be negative) and I can't bear to get to know a new person right now. People have a bad attitude towards safety, especially the kids' groups where both parents and children are usually beginners. I usually try to help and end up being the leader instead of the parent who can't control the horse. I feel so bad for the stable if I'm going to stop... Maybe I can buy a 10x card and go there sometime... I'll see if I can take a break without canceling the place and think about it for a while... Do you have any advice on how we can think?

We've been home for a few days now. I feel low and sad, but that's not surprising. I miss my grandmother terribly, I really want to call and talk to her. Tell her everything that's happened lately and how much I miss her. I don't remember what it was like when my mother and grandfather and my aunt and uncle Bengt died... it was so long ago... I do know, however, that I took my driving theory test two days after my mother died and I passed it with a narrow margin. My mother died in 2005 of skin cancer, my grandfather died in 2012 of lung cancer, my aunt died in 2003 of breast cancer and my uncle Bengt died in 2013 of prostate cancer... Cancer is shit! We've never really been in mourning, or we probably have but we turn off the feelings because that's how we do it. It feels empty and lonely and it feels like that's how it is. It was the same during childhood, the loneliness, the pain and the feeling of being cornered. The panic when you feel crowded is overwhelming.

I try to allow ourselves to be sad and down. You get to feel that way when someone dies. It's normal and not strange. We have a hard time feeling like we normally do, so trying to allow ourselves to feel a little is progress. I'm just afraid of going down again, of needing the hospital again... I'm working really hard to avoid going in there. I really don't want to! It would feel like a big defeat.

I'm thinking about getting out the sewing machine and my fabric and seeing if I can create something. It's been a long time since I sewed... I love sewing! It just feels so hard, having to check my measurements and stuff... Right now we're in a period where we can't handle our bodies. Another thing we could do is write or paint. I think it would help us do something creative. We just don't feel like it right now, we just want to pull something over our heads and disappear. But the solution is not to do what the Darkness wants, the solution is to defy her... If we're going to try to get better, we have to do enough of the things that we know we actually enjoy.

I ordered a new weighted hoodie today. My previous one was cut up by the health care system after a suicide attempt. An expensive thing to have cut up but I guess I have myself to blame... It's black with a zipper and hood and weighs about 5kg. I haven't tried this brand before so we'll see if it's any good. The company is called Hugz. Do any of you have experience with that company? Anyway, we loved the old sweatshirt and have missed it for a year now... or is it two years... I don't remember.

We were actually going to a party because my brother's little girl is turning 6 and his boy is turning 11. But we can't have a party right now. I feel like a failure but I'm thinking I'll go there in a week or so. That way they can get their presents in peace and quiet. The little girl is going to get a pair of earrings from Snålla Alice, I have earrings from there myself and am super happy. They have a flat back, you insert the spike from the back and screw on the bead. They fit really well and you can sleep comfortably with them. Now I sound like an advertising flyer... I'm just happy with the product.

It's been so messy inside since Grandma died... Everyone feels differently and above all, everyone has different ways of dealing with it. I don't think everyone inside knows about it yet... It's so strange to think that she's gone, actually really and forever gone. I get flashbacks from when she died. How she fought back, the last thing she said to me was: "This isn't going to work, Joy." And it didn't either, it happened so terribly fast. She died in like an hour and I didn't have time to call and tell the others to come back. They hadn't made it there anyway... and Grandma wasn't alone, I held her hand as tightly as I could and looked her in the eyes so she would know that she wasn't alone. Or well, we're all alone when we die... because we who are alive can't know what death feels like. We have been so close so many times... I don't know why or how it is that we are still alive... Most people would say that my dead have protected me, that it is not my time yet... But we really know nothing about death. We imagine that we will meet all our loved ones when we die, but is that really so? Some believe in heaven and hell and everything in between... I don't know what we believe... If there is a hell, that is where we will end up... I don't believe in heaven and hell, in that case I would rather believe in reincarnation, it feels nicer.

Why should you believe in a god that is based on a book that was written hundreds of years ago by men for men, so that these men could control others, especially women. I look at all the religious fanatics (not all religious but those who are fanatics) and I just can't believe it... Some say that we are all sinners and we have to cleanse ourselves to get to heaven. For me, it is child abuse, so many people tell children that if they think the wrong thoughts or love the wrong person, they will go to hell... It is so disgusting! Think how scared these poor children are. No one should have to grow up in that fear, it is as bad as being raped over and over again. We cannot control our thoughts and that is a fact. How did I get into this topic now... That was a bit deep of me. But why would a good god allow so much misery to happen?! Why have I gone through all that I have gone through? What have I done to deserve it???! I believe in something but not in what is written in a book, I don't know what I believe in but nothing in this world has given me reason to believe in a god, unfortunately. However, it would have been a comfort to be able to believe and draw strength from that.

What would my life be like now if I hadn't been exposed as a child and sick/injured as an adult? What would I have worked for? Where would I have lived? What would my relationship with our son have been like? It often feels like life is just for suffering, for me then... Everyone has their setbacks and such, but not everyone is actually exposed in the same way. But everyone's suffering is worth the same. Suffering is subjective, not objective. Someone may find pain at level 5 unbearable while another who is in just as much pain can handle it and doesn't think it's dangerous at all. It's so different, but does that mean that one person's pain is worth more than person two? Of course not!

Well, now I have to stop writing. Maybe put on a cup of coffee and think about what I want to do that's creative...

All the best to you!

// Joy

Today I went home, via the counselor, and now the air has completely gone out of me. It's been a while since my grandmother died and I completely broke down at the counselor's. Now I just feel completely under the ice, tired, sad and full of anxiety. It feels like we can't fight anymore... The self-hatred is disgusting and loud and it just feels like we are completely unnecessary and that we don't fulfill any function and that we are disgusting...

The curator thought we should go to the hospital but I really can't bear to go there again and be there for a shorter time (=3-5 days) which does absolutely nothing for us. We are never allowed to be in the hospital until we feel we have finished treatment and then it gives us nothing but stress. The last time we were admitted we were admitted again under protests from the doctor. "Why are you coming back so soon?" "Why aren't you admitted to BI?"... blablabla... I can't bear it!! I came back because I wasn't feeling better and BI does absolutely nothing for me because I get the same help at home... But are they listening? Nope. So why should I apply?! I have also said that we don't want BI precisely because it doesn't give us anything. They treat us badly as EIPS patients, not as someone with recurring depression and DID.

I think we shocked the counselor a bit... He's never seen us in this state as we usually stay objective with him... Or rather, it's not usually me who's in the front but now I am and I hate everything that has to do with our bodies and us. Especially the body, I want to crawl out of it. Break it, jump on it... It sounded terrible but that's how I feel.

It feels like we're good for being exploited, bullied, hurt and all that. What's the point of life then... I try to mantra everything we actually have but it's not going so well for me. It could definitely be going better for someone else inside but now it's me and yeah... I'm a pile of shit. Someone to step on and stomp on...

// Jonas

(I'll at least post a picture of me/us and our dog)

Now there are two days left until we leave our dog with dad again and go home to the shelter. It will be nice to come home but sad to leave Flipp behind. I really don't want to leave him, it has been so wonderful to be able to have our dog for so many days.

Today I've felt quite dissociative and tired, but that could be related to the fact that we didn't sleep much last night. We went to the funeral home and signed the estate registration, so now the house will be valued by two independent real estate agents so that we can know what it's worth. I really hope my sister can buy the house out. We really don't want it to end up with some rich summer guest and you can never come here again.

It doesn't feel like we're doing anything meaningful or have anything meaningful to write about today. Life is empty without Grandma... but now it's been filled with people anyway. My uncles and my family and some friends. Today a good friend of mine came to visit, she and her male friend came by boat. It's been a nice afternoon but now, as I said, we're both tired and divided, my head is a mess. Honestly, I don't even know what I just wrote...

We have at least gone on several lovely walks, we have walked 18000 steps today. Then after the funeral home we went to a restaurant and had lunch, it was really nice. The dog was allowed to come along and they had a menu with dog treats and they brought the treats and water in a bowl. So cute and the food was good.

Well, now we're going to bed. Hope you have a good night!!

Today, or actually yesterday, we visited one of my best friends. We were out in their boat and tried to fish, but we had no luck. It's now past one in the morning but I can't sleep. I'll try to sleep again in a little while.

I've fixed an English-language version of our website with blog and everything. It feels great! Now my English-speaking friends can read our blog.

Grandma's funeral went well, it was beautiful and nice. A little dissociative but it went well anyway. I had my family and friends around me and that meant a lot. At least it was a nice moment, grandma got a good farewell.

I love my twin sister more than anything, but every time we see each other I get body anxiety. She looks like I did before, before all the medication and hospital visits, before I got fat. I feel terribly uncomfortable in my body. I could even say that I hate it. The body that has been exposed to so much, the body that I should probably respect and take care of but that feels so wrong because we don't recognize ourselves in it. The fact that different parts then feel different and identify differently doesn't make things any better.

Today one of my best friends has been out here at grandma's house to visit, because we are staying out here for a few days and it feels mostly good but also a little hard. This afternoon and evening I feel dissociative. There has been so much this past week. It still feels completely okay depression-wise and that's nice. The weather has been fantastic but today in the afternoon it has brought some rain but it is needed after several days of full sun and warmth. At least it was nice to have my best friend with family here.

My brain doesn't really work but it's not that strange. I've figured out that I... well what have I figured out... I lost that at the time of writing. At least I brought my dog ​​out to my grandmother's and it's so cozy. He's the one in the picture... I (and others inside) are so bitter that we weren't allowed to bring our dog to the shelter. I had started training him to be an assistance dog, which was the goal when I bought him, but the shelter I'm at now said no even though he was actually considered an assistive device. If I had pushed it further, I would have won but I couldn't handle it plus I was afraid they would throw me out of the shelter if I argued about it. I had to choose between living in a good shelter where I wasn't allowed to have my dog ​​or another, perhaps less good shelter where I was allowed to have my dog. I ended up being left without a dog. However, he had been a fantastic assistance dog, he is so responsive and willing to work and sticks to me the whole time when I have him. The most interesting thing is that he has lived with me for 2 years and dad for 6 years, and yet he always goes with me when I am at dad's or someone else is staying with him.

I have somehow managed to damage my left foot, or rather overexert it. I feel so weak, my uncle's wife and I were out climbing in the mountains and then I somehow injured my foot. Then my legs have been swollen and sore for several days, which is disturbing. It could be because it has been very hot and because I haven't followed the LCHF diet for the last 3 weeks. I have been eating carbohydrates and sugar and losing all the weight I have managed to lose by eating LCHF and it feels like crap. We can't afford to eat sensibly at all because we are fat and disgusting. Forgive me for my pessimism but I feel terribly uncomfortable in my body. It's so unfair because I have to take my medications and they are destroying my metabolism. And now, after the latest hospitalization, I have also been given Olanzapine when needed when I can't sleep and Olanzapine is a medication that makes you gain a lot of weight. It's one of the things that caused me to gain weight. But it helps me sleep when I haven't slept in a few nights... although not always because if we feel bad enough we don't sleep anyway... But the main thing is that we don't take it every day, but only when needed.

It is very common to have pain in the body in various ways when you have trauma diagnoses. Comorbidity in both psychiatry and also somatic diagnoses is almost always present. Weight gain and such is also very common when you take psychiatric medications and it is so incredibly frustrating. Now I sound very superficial, I have absolutely no problem with how others look, it is my appearance that is wrong. I have deliberately not gone down and swam because I am ashamed of how I look even though the swimming spot is 20m from the house... Pathetic but the shame takes over.

I thought I'd make a page here about my possible lectures. I just don't know how to write it... It should look a bit professional but not too stiff. I have ideas for lectures from a patient perspective about; What it's like for me/us to live with Dissociative Identity Disorder, What it's like to live in a psychiatric hospital, Being a mother and living with DID and Being in psychiatry and especially inpatient care. What do you think about those topics? Do you think there's anything that would be interesting to listen to? Feel free to write in the comments.

All the best to you!

// Freya

Today I was discharged from the inpatient psychiatric ward and it feels really good. I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the world again.

Yesterday I called the insurance company to ask about possibly being able to lecture. When we spoke to a nurse on the ward, she said that you can "work" a little, she had her own experience of this and that gave us hope. Lecturing when we can is something we have wanted to do for a long time, it has been a dream but only that. But the person I spoke to at the insurance company said that I can do job-like things 5 ​​hours/week and that as long as we stay within that and that we announce when we are going to lecture, it is ok to do it.

I feel so happy about this and at the same time I have the sadness that grandma is no more... It's strange to have two such opposite feelings at the same time. But one doesn't have to exclude the other. Imagine if I could actually lecture when I feel good. Although that assumes that someone thinks what I have to say is worth listening to... But it would have been fun and rewarding and developing.

There are a lot of people coming to the funeral, over 60 people, which has meant that we have to move to larger premises... I don't know what to think about it. It's nice that everyone who comes wants to remember grandma but I'm afraid I'll dissociate because it will be too much... Oh well, it will be as it is because it will be anyway. I've packed for the coming week anyway, there was a lot but I don't really know what we might need and it's hard to decide. I painted my nails in a fringe manicure on both hands and feet before, it turned out nice.

My sister and her children have come here. We are going out to pick blueberries tomorrow before we go down to Grandma's. It will probably be nice. There are lots of blueberries in the forest here.

Hope you have a nice day!

// Freya

Many people believe that Dissociative Identity Disorder means that one's personality has split due to trauma and that there is a specific core personality. It doesn't work that way, at least not for us.

This is how I have understood it after observing myself and reading research and talking to others who live with DID. When you are a child (before the age of 9-12 years) you are unintegrated. You are therefore born in an unintegrated state and then grow together, that is, integrate your experiences into a self, a sense of being a whole person. If you are exposed to long-term repeated trauma before the age of 9-12 years and you have the tendency to dissociate, it can happen that the brain develops a dissociative problem such as OSDD and DID.

To develop Dissociative Identity Disorder, the trauma needs to occur before puberty (approximately 9-12 years), because after puberty, most of one's experiences have been integrated into a whole, i.e. a sense of self.

The brain is amazing and plastic. If you have developed DID, it means that the brain has used a defense mechanism in the form of dissociation. Dissociation means to separate or disconnect. You mentally shield yourself from your experiences, feelings and memories, which means that you have, among other things, feelings of unreality, memory gaps and a feeling of seeing yourself as if from the outside. The brain sets up amnesic barriers around the traumatic events, which means that you cannot access your memories. The memories are not gone, but the brain has put them in another filing cabinet.

Somehow, don't ask me how, a feeling of being multiple personalities in one body develops. This is because the barriers mean that our different parts of the personality cannot be integrated and become one self. Some sub-personalities can carry trauma, meaning they remember trauma and feel after it, while other parts have developed to function in everyday life. It is quite common for these parts not to access the trauma memories.

DID is a very covert condition, that is, secret. It can take years to discover DID because the person living with the syndrome is extremely effective at hiding the fact that they feel that they are multiple inside. Often the brain hides DID so effectively that they do not notice or understand themselves. They have amnesia that they have amnesia. But the hiding goes to a certain limit and eventually they can't take it anymore and go into a wall. It is common to seek treatment for depression, anxiety or other psychiatric diagnoses, especially since many people don't even know what dissociative identity disorder is. I had no idea what it was until my psychologist started explaining what dissociation and splitting are.

There are those who are more overt (opposite of envelope) but the most common is that you are envelope. Then it also depends on whether you are in a safe environment, for example at home or if you are out in a less safe place. When we switch to, for example, younger parts, this usually happens at home, but has happened elsewhere as well. Jonas (16 years old) and Nathalie (12 years old) are good at masking but they don't like not being allowed to be themselves. Ella (6 years old) on the other hand is terrible at masking, she runs her race, loves puddles of water (which can sometimes trigger her) and drawing and crafting. Unfortunately, I have been bad at buying crafting supplies for home but there are drawing supplies and such.

Back to the purpose of the post. It took many years in psychiatry before we got the right diagnosis/s and could begin to understand ourselves. The DID diagnosis explained most of the strange things that happened to me and that I experienced and still experience today.

I don't know exactly how personalities are formed, but I think (I'm not sure here) that they are only formed when there is trauma and not when you are safe. But as I said, that's a guess. I think that most of the parts develop in childhood and that you then have the ones you have, provided that you don't experience new traumas, because then you should be able to develop new parts because the brain is programmed to react that way when there is trauma and strong stress. The reason that new parts can "appear" is because they make themselves known, not because they developed right here and now. Then parts can kind of go dormant, they kind of disappear and can be gone for a really long time before they show up again.

The goal of therapy is primarily to integrate or even achieve fusion. This means that you manage to tear down all the barriers and the parts merge into a feeling of being a whole person. It is very difficult to achieve and requires long-term intensive and regular therapy. Not everyone can succeed with fusion, and not everyone wants to achieve fusion because they are afraid that they will disappear, but the parts do not disappear in my opinion. All parts are part of the whole self and you cannot erase a piece of your personality. We do not know how we want to do it, we want the goal of fusion but not necessarily end up there. We would probably be quite satisfied with good integration and that the amnesia and dissociations decrease. We can dissociate in different ways and for different reasons, so it is probably difficult to get rid of them completely.

As it stands right now, we are not interested in trauma therapy and that is because we do not feel the need to dwell on and repeat all that terrible thing that happened. We got some out of it when we wrote our book (She Falls Heavy) and it was hard enough and not something we want to have to experience again. We have also had trauma therapy once, it was when we were in a treatment center and it was terrible. Firstly, we were not ready, it was way too messy both around me and inside. We were too unstable, but they still chose to start with both PE (which stands for prolonged exposure) and exposure training. They put out yellow juice in unexpected places and in therapy I would tell about an event and record it and then listen to the recording twice a day until the next therapy session and then tell it again and record it etc... The result was an even more unstable and re-traumatized me. At that time we had not received our DID diagnosis either, but they began to notice that I was actually dissociating a lot, for a long time and often.

How do I know who is inside? For several years we have documented, written diaries and notes and used apps that have helped us. Now we mostly use an app called Daylio to log what we do and who is there, etc. So it is not thanks to the healthcare that we get to know ourselves as a self and a whole. It is thanks to the fact that we got a place in a psychiatric residence (a BMSS = Special Support Residence) that has helped us to control our everyday lives. Less chaos around us has led to less chaos inside, even though it is a long way to go until we can say that the chaos inside is gone.

It's difficult when there are many wills and everyone can't cooperate or even communicate with each other. I believe that when it comes to trauma patients, you shouldn't just throw them into therapy. Their everyday life and inner life must be given the chance to find stability first and that can take time, a long time, and then it has to be done. I understand that the healthcare system thinks that people should get well as soon as possible, but when it comes to trauma patients, that's often impossible. You have to hurry slowly if you want this group of patients to get well. This group needs to be approached with a holistic approach, meaning you have to have a holistic perspective.

1. Security and predictability.
2. Time. It must take the time it takes.
3. Read up on your diagnosis(es). I feel that it has helped me a lot to learn about myself, my diagnosis(es) and my difficulties.
4. Write and write some more and draw etc. be creative and find an outlet for everything you carry.
5. Work on body and mind at the same time.

So, now we've lost track of what we were going to write about from the beginning, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, these are some thoughts from us...

Hope you have a nice day!

// Freya

I was discharged on Tuesday (7/7) and went straight to my grandmother. We had a conversation with the priest who will be conducting the funeral. It felt good, we were told who my grandmother was. Then I went home. Actually, I should have stayed a couple more days in the hospital, but it's the doctors who decide, not me. The doctor actually wanted to discharge me on Monday, but then I protested, so I was allowed to stay one more night. You can't discharge patients (at least not me) the same day you get the news, then we panic. I've never understood that they have to discharge patients before you feel like you have some hope for the future.

Once home we struggled, but yesterday (10/7) we went in again. It didn't feel safe to be home when half of my head isn't on the notes. So now we're in the hospital at least over the weekend. My goal is to be discharged by Tuesday at the latest. This morning I had a great conversation with a nurse and I feel a little more upbeat now. My/our dream is to be able to start lecturing about mental illness and more specifically about what it's like to live with trauma, dissociation and being a mother while living with mental illness. It's really needed in those subjects. There's so incredibly little knowledge about trauma and dissociation in inpatient care. I went in and checked my medical record and they wrote Dissociative Personality Disorder as the diagnosis... There's no such thing as that, it's called Dissociative Identity Disorder. When even the doctors can't write the right diagnosis, then something is very wrong.

It's so difficult with the insurance company's rules and what you can and can't do. I can't work because of dissociations and amnesia, but my hope is that I might be able to give a lecture someday, maybe once a month or something. It's not about the here and now, but in the future, but the more we learn about ourselves, the better it will be. I really want to feel like I'm doing something useful. Something that helps people and makes a difference. The only reason for having our social media is so that we can feel like we're doing something that makes a difference, even if it's small, but always something. Constantly feeling like a burden, someone who doesn't contribute anything, makes us feel worse. It's a balancing act because we can't handle pressure or stress, or when it gets a little too much, we collapse... but still being able to do something sometime would have felt so good in our whole being.

Now I'm tired, I didn't get much sleep last night and all the thinking and all the wills flying around inside my head make me both exhausted and quite happy. It still feels a lot better now after that conversation. We're going to get out of this! It's been a tough six months with grandma who steadily got worse and died a couple of weeks ago. It feels so sad, she was so frail at the end, but she still lived to be 95. But dying the way she died is so unfair. She fell in the hall and broke her hip but she was too frail to have surgery and her kidneys also shut down. She died just over a day after the accident. But everyone close to us in the family was there to say goodbye and I was with her when she died so she was never alone. I don't think she really understood that she was going to die until maybe the last hour. It's doubly so because she didn't have to lie down and suffer, she could just as easily have been lying down for three weeks and feeling bad. A quick death is better even if it comes as a shock to those around us. My mother died of malignant melanoma (skin cancer) and my aunt of breast cancer. It was long and drawn out and really hard for everyone. You went around wondering and worrying about what would happen when they died. Especially my mother, who you saw every day. My aunt's death was tough, but I didn't see her as often as my mother. So when my mother died, it was a kind of relief, that waiting is really tough. It was a relief that she didn't have to suffer anymore and you didn't have to worry about what it would be like. It's absolutely one of the strangest experiences ever when someone dies. You sit there waiting for the next breath to come but it never comes... and then the person is gone...

I'm not afraid of death but I want it to be quick. Mom always said death was so peaceful. That made me angry with her when she died, because I didn't think death was peaceful at all. Death is horrible, ugly and painful... Maybe not if you die in your sleep but mom drowned because her lungs filled with fluid and grandma she fought against it until the very end... But maybe it's peaceful once you die. I haven't experienced anything when I've had a cardiac arrest. Some people say they experience spiritual things but for me it's just been black and then you come back.

Death is so definitive. It's really a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The problem is that it doesn't feel temporary when you're in the middle of a depressive period or when destructive parts just want to get rid of all the pain. Because that's what I think it is, that they can't handle the pain and the memories and the depression. I usually can handle things, but not always. If it gets too messy and some parts are on the move then yeah... Then it gets kind of dangerous sometimes.

I promised myself one thing when my grandmother died. To never try to take my life again. To never expose my son to the possibility of me disappearing. Then I ended up here because my brain was in chaos, but I'm here because I promised, to get help and stuff. We will get through this, we will come out into the light again and we will survive. Our traumas will not be allowed to dictate the rest of our lives, they have ruled our lives for far too long. It won't be easy but we will get through it.

I am not interested in digging into my traumas. I, or actually we, are not interested in dwelling on and reliving them, but we want to have better internal communication with less amnesia and dissociation. When we were in the middle of the most chaotic period, we were in a treatment center, where we tried to do trauma therapy (PE, which stands for Prolonged exposure). PE means that you tell a traumatic event and record it. Then you have to listen to the recording twice a day until the next therapy session and then tell it again and record and listen, etc. It was absolutely not good. We were completely re-traumatized and became very deteriorated. We do not want to experience that again. After we wrote She Falls Heavy, we have no need to stir up even more. It feels like we gained a completely different insight when we wrote, we gained a different distance from it all. When we wrote, we twisted and turned certain parts of our past and after that we do not have the same need for trauma therapy at all. However, we do need to work on ourselves as a system. That's where I feel we need help from an outsider, aka a therapist who understands and knows both trauma and dissociation.

All the best to you who reads! I hope you have a nice day.

// Freya

We are still in the hospital but last night we had leave with our brother who lives quite close to here. It was fun to meet them! My brother has two great kids, an 11 year old and a 6 year old. It's a bit of a breath of fresh air when you're feeling unwell.

We sleep very badly or not at all. Dream nightmares and such. The other night was horrible, we sweated so much that the bed and I were soaked. But we had a trauma dream and then we often sweat. This time there was also a little urine, which can happen when you are traumatized and a younger person is fronting. It happens extremely rarely for us, but we had to change the sheets and clothes and also threw the clothes in the laundry. I have a really hard time writing about this because it feels incredibly embarrassing, but this is also part of living with a trauma diagnosis like DID. We sat up for a couple of hours talking to the staff before we made another attempt to sleep. Often we need time to come back to the present and get the stress out of our bodies in order to even think about sleeping again.

At night we almost always have unpleasant, stressful and trauma-related dreams. Sometimes we can wake up, locate that we are in our own bed and then fall back asleep, while other times it is as described above.

Right now we get:
- Melatonin 15mg
- Alimemazine 80mg
- Propavan 50mg

These are the sleeping pills we have at home. Now the hospital has also added:
- Olanzapine 10mg (but all tablets that end in zapine make you gain weight so we shouldn't continue with it)
- Oxascand 10mg (which we have when needed but take in the evening now too)

And yet we don't sleep... It's incredibly frustrating. It's a combination of medications that can knock a horse out, but is Joy sleeping? No...

But on to a more fun topic. We have posted a little on Life as Plural to try to get out of our listlessness and anxiety and do something we think is fun. And we have gained many new followers, it feels great to reach out to more and more people. That is the whole point of Life as Plural. Dissociative identity disorder is a difficult diagnosis to live with and just as difficult to grasp, so what we want is to reach out with what it is really like to live with DID. Now, everyone is different who lives with DID, some have a symptom that bothers them a lot while another may not have that big of a problem with it at all. We can only base our opinions on ourselves and on literature we have read about trauma and dissociation.

Several people have asked about our book. It is available as a regular book, e-book and audiobook. It is called Hon faller tungt and is available on, for example, Adlibris and Bokus as well as on streaming services such as Storytel, Nextstory and BookBeat. It was written over a long period and published in 2024 (the audiobook in 2025). Writing has been incredibly therapeutic and healing. When we wrote, we had to do a lot of digging because we/I don't have many memories from childhood and adulthood. So we have read old diaries, taken out and read 10 years of hospital records and the records from social services, plus we have read several books about trauma, psychology and Dissociative Identity Disorder. We have slowly tried to piece together what our lives are and have been like. It also took time to piece together the different experiences of different parts, not everyone has been involved in writing, but several have. It has helped us with our inner communication and understanding of each other and ourselves. We still have a long way to go before we can say that we have good communication, but we have still managed to understand our diagnoses and a little more about ourselves, which makes life a little easier. It was messy to write because I didn't write everything myself, but we had to sit and puzzle, read and rewrite all the time. It was also incredibly difficult to remember and read everything and it was only afterwards that we realized how sick we are and above all have been. We have been in very, very bad shape.

If I had written the book today, it would have looked different. I have more experience now than I did then and I would have written even more about what it is like to live with DID, more examples combined with facts. But the book is a state of affairs report, it may feel a bit messy at times, but that is because life was (and still is, in broad terms) messy. We also wanted to try to convey a sense of the mess that was. Now, two years later, we have even more experience and have developed further. So I don't know, the book will be what it is and yes... I/we are quite proud that we dared to write and even prouder that we actually took the step and had it published. There may be another one or two in the future, but then with more focus on recovery and faith in the future, how to live with DID and how to work with yourself.

All the best to you!!

I shouldn't be there.

I should just die.

Disgusting, ugly and fat

Stupid and uncaring

Many are so much better

Than me who is so wrong

Why should I live?

When everything is dark with more

It's hard to be good.

And sufficient and so

When you just feel

That you still make mistakes

All the difficult memories and

All of us together, we form something

Special, a whole and a bunch

I know many people love

Us deeply and sincerely

But I don't understand why, no

Just one little piece

Why should I exist, I do

Nothing good. Nothing productive.

And valuable that contributes to something good

No, why should I exist?

That question is so big and difficult

But now I'm putting down my pen

Although thoughts are spinning around

About living or dying...

On Monday it was decided that we would go to the hospital and closed psychiatric ward. So now we are here... Will be here for a few days stabilization. Some parts that are quite destructive were/are on the move. That's how a lot right now... We were quite low before grandma died but now we're quickly diving down. I had absolutely no desire to go to the hospital, but it's for the best.

It becomes dangerous to ourselves when destructive parts wants to hurt us. I usually am quite destructive but I have become calmer, but when the system becomes depressive while some parts are ravaged, it becomes more difficult...

Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder is difficult. explain. What fascinates people the most is this feeling that you has multiple personalities. And I understand why, it's an incredibly complex and interesting and weird diagnosis. It's hard to grasp, how the brain instead of to be integrated into a sense of wholeness continues to be fragmented. It is a controversial diagnosis that unfortunately many doctors don't believe exists. When we were at the hospital once the chief physician sat down and told me that DID does not exist. Can you understand how offensive it feels when someone sits and tells you that your experiences and your way of being does not exist. Thank you for it as well…

In any case, I think these self-proclaimed experts should think again. Anders Hansen is another doctor who is in the media and says that DID does not exist. He believes this because one cannot forget memories, but when you have DID you haven't forgotten your memories, they belong to a other part and is thus not available to other parts. It sounds twisted but between parts there are amnesiac barriers that make it seem like the memory is gone for other parts. But with the right conditions, the memory is there Hansen believes that you can't "forget" your childhood... but I have very few memories from my childhood, it's like a black hole of nothingness. Some parts have a few memories but I don't own them. I know a lot that happened, things that are in photos and that have been retold to me, but it is not a memory which is available to me.

When we wrote our book, because there were several of us who had to be helped ate, so we wrote down pieces of memories in a document. So the one who fronted right then and wanted to write wrote down his thoughts and memories, plus we used us from the medical records and social services. So writing was a big puzzle. Today I would have written differently because I now have a couple of years more experiences... The book may feel messy in parts, but that's because life was messy then. It was total chaos. The chaos consisted, among other things, of not being able to believed in my/our experience, we still have to fight against prejudice and ignorance every time we seek care. It's incredibly frustrating. There are lots of research into dissociation problems and there are logical explanations to why the brain does what it does.

There have been two camps within psychiatry, those who believe in our experience and those who don't. It is possible to trace DID as far as back to the 14th century (I think it was, I can't bear to double check right now). The diagnosis/experience has been around for hundreds of years but under different name. Today we know more about how the brain reacts to trauma, especially in childhood. I'm reading a book about this right now (but it's taking a while time because it is difficult to understand what I am reading right now). In trauma, the experience of moving from the reptilian brain to the thinking and reflective part of the brain. You could say that memory gets stuck at a stage which means that the brain does not understand that the event is not happening now, this is because the memory never reaches the reflective brain that can make one understand that it is not happens now, that it is just a memory. These memories have an easier time coming up to the surface when they have not been moved to the memory bank/long-term memory or whatever now I'll call it. It stays and if you're reminded of something/triggered, then you get flashbacks. Flashbacks can be like a movie, but also a smell, a feeling, a fragment, etc. It may be that in the middle of a happy moment you feel Great fear and insecurity, although you don't know why.

Now I've lost the point of my wordplay... I I think the idea was to describe that DID is not just about different parts of a whole (because all the parts form the whole) but it is primarily about living with severe trauma. All research indicates that one must be involved in repeated long-term trauma before the age of 9-12 years to develop DID. This is because as a child you are divided, it is only after the age of 9-12 that one begins to integrate all one's experiences into a whole. Trauma makes (as I wrote earlier) that you cannot transfer experience to the thinking person the brain and therefore it is not possible to integrate the traumatic event into a sense of wholeness. The divided child remains divided.

In order to live and survive, the brain creates amnesiacs barriers between their memories and experiences, which makes separate personalities develop independently of each other. Some parts take on the trauma so that some other parts can function in everyday life. The parts you live with can be anything from fully developed and functioning parts to fragments, a feeling or a behavior. Some parts only appear in specific situations while other parts function more generally. Some parts function in everyday life while other parts only work inside. At least that's how I understand it that after reading many books about trauma and dissociation.

Dissociative Identity Disorder is so much more than just a feeling of being several inside. As the name suggests, you also have big problems with dissociations of various kinds. You can have depersonalization, derealization, dissociative amnesia, etc. Feelings of unreality of various kinds. For example, sounds may feel like at a distance or the volume is turned up and attacks you. We can get stuck still for hours, unable to move or speak. Many times we feel foggy in the head and everything seems to be in slow motion, we get a headache and it kind of tightens over the forehead and eyes. A dissociation can mean that we is about to change personality, but not always. We can feel that way otherwise also.

A shift can be fast or slow. In the case of a fast shift It's hard to keep up and it's impossible to predict or prepare. Slow shifts are a bit more difficult because you can feel mixed/blended for a long time. It becomes difficult to mask and we lose the words or what we were talking about or doing. Almost all exchanges take place on based on various triggers. It can be something positive or negative for the part that is ahead or the part that takes over. We kind of have a place in the head where several people can stay and we have named it the Hub. In the Hub you can the parts are co-conscious, i.e. peeking at what is happening with the body. But here it is also complicated, some parts do not know about each other or will do not agree. We have mapped the parts we know exist by comparing different parts made themselves known in various ways. For example, by writing, leaving messages or entered in our diary that they had arrived, etc.

When you live with DID, you always have complex PTSD with everything. what it means. It can often be difficult with relationships, fluctuating moods, flashbacks also continue. A great many are misdiagnosed before they get a DID diagnosis, often with Emotionally unstable personality syndrome (EIPS) as well called borderline. DID, cPTSD and EIPS have many of the same symptoms but there are different reasons for the behavior/symptom. That's what bothers me incredibly, that an EIPS diagnosis is often made without doing proper investigations. At least that was the case for us, they haven't done any investigation for EIPS, they only diagnosed me because they thought my behavior was appropriate in. But the reason for the problem is something else entirely. It has taken years to reduce the impact on how we are treated because the hospital made the EIPS diagnosis before we received an investigation that later turned out to give us a DID diagnosis and complex PTSD. But now I won't whine more about that... but unfortunately you often get treated badly when you have EIPS in the journals.

The last thing I want to say here, because now the post is starting to get... very far, is that you often have comorbidity when living with DID. We have to example recurring depressions (although I'm starting to wonder if it's not constant depression because it feels like it), self-harm, anxiety, eating disorders and a likely anoxic brain damage after multiple suicide attempts. So it's complicated and It's hard to know exactly what's what always. But the dissociations and The splits come from the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Thank you for taking the time to read this novel. Have you any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to write in the comments and we will We will try to answer. Have a nice day!

Today my best friend and family visited. We went swimming in the pool, went for a walk and had chicken salad. Now I'm lying down listening to the Green Party's Almedal speech and I have to say that it's the best speech so far. Significantly better rhetoric than KD, SD and L who spent more than half their speeches smearing S, V and MP. Yesterday on the way home I listened to SD. What a fucking crap speech. I don't understand why politicians are allowed to stand there and outright lie and then everyone else who goes along with the crap. You can't improve welfare without money, money comes in through taxes. Lowering taxes as the right wants will worsen welfare. It's not possible to have a good, equal school, health and care without taxes. Solidarity in society has disappeared and polarization has increased. Us and the judgmental thinking that the right is driving is dangerous. We who are rich against you who are poor, we who are native Swedes against you who are immigrants, etc. No society is good for that attitude; a good society is built on solidarity and a "we are together" mentality.

Does Sweden have problems? Yes. Do these problems need to be solved? Yes. Is the right way to point fingers and blame each other? No! Sweden needs solidarity and strong welfare. I would gladly pay 100 SEK extra in taxes if schools and healthcare were better and received more money. You can't suppress the sick and vulnerable, in our real Sweden we are in solidarity with our neighbor, we help each other and build a strong country.

Now it got very political 🤪 but politics is so important. Politics affects our entire society and therefore our lives. In Sweden we have a democracy. In a democracy you have rights but also obligations. One such obligation is to vote, because without elections we have no democracy. If you don't know what to vote for, you vote blankly, but you should vote. I think it's terribly bad of people who don't vote. Sorry but it's lousy, especially if you then sit and complain about your life. So regardless of whether you know what you want to vote for or not, go and vote, because as I said, you can vote blankly.

Now I've written so long that I'm going to listen to Magdalena Andersson, the Social Democrats. So far, her speeches are better than those right-wing populists who want to turn Sweden into a mini-USA. And you know, the USA is a very dysfunctional country.