They Try To Cheer Me Up By Saying I Did Once Live A Functioning Life

Female voice 1: Yeah, well, the ups and downs were insane, it could vary within an hour. Just like that it could change. I think most of the time I thought it must be very hard for you, since your state of mind could change so fast, like in every change you would... yeah, that it was just an amazing capability out of this world to turn like that somehow.

Female voice 3: I go in and out of the hospital. The fall and winter just disappears. Spring comes again, and summer, then fall. I manage to get to the phone one night and I call a night-open bakery, order cinnamon buns for the whole ward. At home, in the ward, at mom's place. Nothing works. I haven't payed my bills in months. nurse takes me to the welfare authorities. Installment plants, cause of 'special circumstances". They try to cheer me up by saying I did once live a functioning life. It is like they're talking about someone else.

I have a family now, soon to be my second child. I am the one they should always be able to trust. I know what it is like to have a parent that suddenly changes. I know what that does to you, how you always have to on your toes. How you always have to a___yze each situation and be prepared for disaster to hit. But what if you, yourself, are that disaster?

January 1st, 2001, my last day at Katarinahuset. I started therapy. friend moves in with me. I got a contact at the hospital a while a back; someone I report back to and just talk to. I don't really have those ups and downs anymore; mostly just downs. I live at home and I am afraid of going out. I go jogging with my contact at the hopital once a week in the Hellas area, he picks me up with his car. Sometimes he brings his dog. I've started employment training, a measure to get me back to normal life, as a tutor in a school for a few hours a day. year goes by, but I still see my contact weekly. We have coffee or go jogging. I study part-time at the university. I get a scholarship and go to Gotland to write, but I mostly just take long walks and go to the local pool. Karle-Ove calls me, he says he is moving to Stockholm for a while. Asks me if we can meet when I get back. It makes me happy; I spend the rest of the day thinking about him.