Yesterday we went to Pinchos for the first time, the food was pretty good. We were there to celebrate our best friend's daughter's 12th birthday. Then we spent the night at her place. We mostly chilled out today, went for a walk with their dog (Hubbe), it was nice because the sun is shining today.

Speaking of dogs, we sent another email to the regional manager where we wrote what the law says and that we had reported the accommodation to the DO. Then we finally got a response, now they will at least investigate the matter... let's see how long it will take. We plan to ask them again on Monday if they haven't responded because we have found a dog combination we like, 25% Mini Aussi and 75% Labradoodle. It will be a dog that likes to work but doesn't shed much. These ones haven't been born yet, they will be born in mid-September. But we don't have high hopes and are just tired of everything. We really want to make a difference, lecture and spread knowledge, but right now it doesn't feel like any of that will ever happen... We actually feel a little discouraged.

Then we have published statistics for how the summer has looked in terms of staff. We have had a substitute on 62 occasions since July 1. That means an average of one substitute every day... There is nothing wrong with the substitutes as people, they are really cute, but how can there be consistent care when you have more substitutes than regular staff. We have a hard time feeling safe with new people and trusting them, we also feel that we have to try to "sharpen" ourselves and help the substitutes who don't know routines or see when we dissociate, etc. But when we are not feeling well, we don't really have the energy to be helpful and nice all the time. Then when not all substitutes have delegation and there are some days there is one regular and three substitutes. One day it was a substitute who introduced a substitute but then I got really angry. It absolutely didn't feel right. We understand that it has been summer, but then half the staff is supposed to be off one period and the other half the next, but it doesn't feel like it has been that way because it has been almost all temporary workers... God, it feels like we are just whining, but we think this is incredibly difficult.

Oh well... life is what it is. Hope everything is fine with you!

I have finally finished reading the book Sensory pathways to healing from trauma by Ruth A. Lanius et al. I have to say that it is one of the best books I have read when it comes to explaining trauma and how trauma affects the brain.

Where previous research has only focused on the five classic senses; sight, hearing, taste and smell, Lanius focuses on three additional senses; interoception, proprioception and the vestibular system. Interoception is our internal bodily sensations such as gut feeling, breathing and heartbeat. Proprioception means that you sense the body's position in space. And the vestibular system is about balance and grounding. Lanius describes how these senses change when a person is exposed to trauma.

The book highlights how trauma creates a profound gap between what the brain perceives and what the body feels. When exposed to trauma, the brain can become stuck in a state of threat, causing impressions from the outside world to either become overwhelming (hyperarousal) or completely shut down (dissociation/hypoarousal).

Lanius traces what happens in the brain's network when threat activation occurs. The focus is on how deep-lying structures (such as the brainstem and the amygdala) process sensory impressions long before they reach our conscious thinking. Lanius also shows how the brain's neuroplasticity can be used as a healing tool. By consciously using targeted sensory interventions, it is possible to stimulate the brain's ability to reorganize and thereby create new, secure connections.

There is much evidence that individuals with PTSD have difficulties with the vestibular system, in that they are unable to register vestibular signals and integrate them with their inner world. This leads to intense visceral feelings (Viceral = An instinctive strong feeling that comes from gut feeling rather than logical thinking). It has also been shown that people with PTSD have more difficulty processing parts that create a sense of body awareness, especially between themselves and others, which leads to difficulties with boundary setting.

People with PTSD are hyperfocused on their surroundings and where they are and therefore have persistent hypervigilance. Lanius shows that vestibular stimulation can help people with PTSD calm the nervous system. For example, sitting in a rocking chair or sensory hammock can reduce the degree of hypervigilance and increase the connection so that patterns in the brain can change. I interpret this as meaning that it is good to rock while processing trauma. This is because rocking makes you calmer and then you can gain distance from the chaos inside in a completely different way.

Many traumatized people are perceived as uncooperative and defensive, which is not surprising when you think about it. Traumatized people are often stuck in a state of continuous Fight and Flight response. Lanius believes that it is important not to view the traumatized individual in this way. Many of them are reacting to underlying patterns and behaviors. The problem is that the traumatized individual does not have full access to their reflective brain, which reduces the ability to make informed decisions.

If Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fusion are exhausted and the threat still remains, an emotional shutdown can occur, i.e. dissociation. Long-term unavoidable trauma can create a feeling of helplessness, apathy and depression that is so often seen in traumatized individuals. Emotional shutdown also causes one's perception to change, which causes dissociation. Dissociation is a psychological, emotional and sensory defense when physical escape is not possible. Traumatized individuals have also been shown to have a higher pain threshold because shutdown disrupts the neuro-pathways that connect the thalamus and cortex. The thalamus is important in emotional learning and the cortex contextualizes sensory inputs.

The brain has different interconnected parts; 1. The survival brain 2. The emotional learning and 3. The reflective brain. These parts need each other to function. Problems with these communications can lead to a feeling of being disconnected from oneself (depersonalization) and from one's surroundings (derealization). But not only that, if one is involved in trauma, the brain gets stuck at stage 1, the survival brain, for example, and never reaches stage 3, the reflective brain. This makes it difficult to deal with everyday life and its challenges.

The tolerance window (if you want to know what the tolerance window looks like, google it):
Within the tolerance window, one is safe and present and can handle emotions and demands. Outside the tolerance window, there are two paths: hyperarousal or hypoarousal. In hyperarousal, the body goes into overdrive, one can often be angry and irritated and there is chaos inside - fight or flight. In hypoarousal, the body shuts down, one becomes apathetic, tired, depressed and dissociates - freeze and freeze. Lanius describes something called "the fluid zone" which means that one is outside one's tolerance window but not so much that one cannot be reached. Lanius believes that "the fluid zone" is the optimal state to be in when doing therapeutic work.

Lanius also talks a lot about children's development and attachment to their guardians. Children need a secure adult to be able to reflect on their feelings and thus stay within their tolerance window. Children cannot regulate themselves and therefore need a secure adult to help them. A securely attached child has a kind of compass that encourages the desire to explore. If the child does not have a secure attachment, they end up in survival instead of development and curiosity. A child with an insecure attachment also has a narrower tolerance window. Furthermore, Lanius believes that play where children can develop their sensorimotor skills is critical for the brain to develop properly.

I believe it is extremely important that the healthcare system intercepts traumatized individuals and gives them the right treatment as quickly as possible. I have personal experience of many years of mistreatment due to misdiagnosis. Often these individuals are called treatment-resistant when in fact they have simply received the wrong treatment.

The vestibular system orients us during traumatic experiences and therefore needs to be involved to reprogram the brain and body during the healing process. The vestibular system influences the hippocampus which influences and frames spatial memory. This allows one to have out-of-body experiences.

Many traumatized people live with a strong belief that they are damaged and defective. This is because the brain has trouble processing proprioceptive, somatosensory, vestibular, and interoceptive experiences. These systems inform us about the body's current capacity and well-being.

Chronic developmental trauma prevents the individual from forming a coherent sense of who they are in the world. Without a sense of who you are, the possibility of a sense of self in the future becomes impossible. I often experience difficulties seeing myself in the future. The sense of one's bodily existence begins to develop already as an infant, when the mother and father or guardian's task is to give the child the basic sense by reflecting the child and its needs. If the child does not receive this, the child will not develop a coherent sense of self. Therefore, childhood trauma affects you more deeply if you experience trauma as an adult.

In the event of trauma in adulthood and where as a child one has had the opportunity to develop a coherent self, the traumatized person often has a feeling of not being themselves anymore.

Individuals with PTSD often have problems with their DMN (DMN = Default mode network) when, for example, they should close their eyes and rest. It has been shown that the brain of traumatized individuals does not rest but is in a state of constant hypervigilance. PTSD causes interruptions in the brain's communication system between past-present-future. The posterior DMN becomes the dominant hub where mental images and emotional experiences related to past memories lack anchoring in the present via the anterior DMN. Instead, the posterior DMN is overactive together with the sensorimotor system, which makes trauma memories real and experienced as here and now.

Lanius says that studies show that the disconnection between the anterior and posterior DMN and the sensorimotor system is associated with increased PTSD symptoms. Losing the anterior hub's connection to the rest of the DMN may make it easier to develop PTSD. This is because it causes the traumatized person to be stuck in a clear past without anchoring to the present and future.

Successfully integrating the anterior and posterior DMN plus the sensorimotor system and posterior DMN may be a crucial factor in being able to reprogram the brain and safely be in the body and remember, not relive, the past.

The book has several good and interesting points and I really felt that I understood myself in a completely different way after reading it. It is extremely important that the process when working with someone who is traumatized takes time. And the second most important thing is to make an individual therapy plan, everyone is different. Lanius talks about how we need to work both bottom-up and top-down, that is, from the bottom-up and from the top-down. In order to understand yourself, you need knowledge and language, this is achieved through the top-down approach, while in order to heal and work with your traumas, you need to go from the bottom-up. This is because you cannot access your reflective brain unless you have first worked your way to it via the survival brain and the emotional brain. How much you need of what is individual. I myself have chosen to work a lot with the top-down approach when I read about trauma and diagnoses as well. I think I would need to work some from the bottom-up as well, but that is where I need the healthcare system and yes... There you can wish for a bit more, if you say so.

But reading Sensory Pathways to Healing from Trauma has given me hope. Hope that the brain's neuroplasticity, together with individualized therapy, can provide a better, healthier life for those of us with trauma.

I could probably sit down and write a whole novel about this book. I hope what I've written feels understandable and not too messy, and that I've included most of it.

All the best to you!

Gosh, I'm so bad at updating here. We've gotten into this bit of a rut with not being in the stables that much and right now it feels right. Yesterday my son started high school. It feels completely crazy that he's 16 in a month, I'm so proud of him. He's a fantastic guy!

Right now I'm in a period where I miss our dog and we're a little bit into trying to buy a new dog to train as an assistance dog. I really think we would feel so much better if we had an assistance dog. The problem is that my accommodation doesn't want to allow us to have a dog, not even if it's an assistance dog. They're actually breaking the law when they don't allow an assistance dog since they're not considered pets but rather as a tool. I'm going to try to argue the issue a little more. We emailed the owner of our accommodation 1½ weeks ago but still haven't received a response. I sent a new email today and pointed out that I sent the first email. I think she can at least answer me...

We enjoy the accommodation and so on, but in the last 6-8 months something has happened to the company. They removed the resource team (permanent temporary workers who work in all departments) and then the company has kind of fallen into free fall. Now they only call in hourly employees and it really hasn't been all that great. There have always been hourly temporary workers too, but not like this. In addition, they don't always take on temporary workers if there is a shortage of one person on staff, so they work three instead of four and it doesn't matter that both the regular staff and the hourly temporary workers are really cute, it shows. My department has gone from having seven residents to nine. Or there are eight living there right now but there is an empty apartment so we will be nine. The fact that they then choose not to always take on temporary workers is super bad. This is the first time in over 6 years that I have been disappointed with my accommodation. The summer has been terribly chaotic and it hasn't always felt safe when, for example, we feel dissociative. I'm going to write an email to the management of the company because the quality is no longer the same and it's a real shame. It's gotten so far that I'm starting to feel like I might as well move to a place closer to my family and friends because the care at my current place doesn't really provide the same highly specialized care anymore. I live like 1-2 hours away from all my family and friends plus transportation is really expensive in the municipality I live in now. I have to pay just over 100 SEK per municipal border I cross so it's 300-400 SEK one way when I go to visit someone, which has made me isolated because I can't afford to go.

Oh, how whiny this turned out, but I (or we actually) are starting to get fed up with the fact that the quality of care is not the same. I definitely don't want to have to move because I otherwise enjoy it and the staff is good, but so much has gotten worse unfortunately.

I've been having quite a lot of anxiety lately and despite heart rate-lowering medication, I'm lying there oscillating between 95-120bpm...

But I'm staying with my sister for a couple of days now, it's nice to hang out with her and her youngest daughter.

Hope everything is well with you!

// Freya

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