Christina Herrströms blog

Dear child has many names!

On Friday, my play Mein name ist Erling premieres in Hamburg, at the Winterhuder Fährhaus Theater and as a playwright I enjoy the sudden luxury of being able to travel there plus two hotel nights – paid! I'm taking a good friend with me, who also speaks fluent German.

It is of course fantastic fun that people at this well-known theater have found and become attached to my play, and I have the publisher in Berlin to thank for that, Ulrike Hoffman. I have not crossed two straws for this fun, it came as a surprise.

Erling, or My name is Erling I originally wrote for the radio theater and Peter Schildt directed. The initiative was Gerd Hegnell's and Per Oscarson's, they wanted me to write a piece for them and the idea was that they had a love story when they were young.

To be asked by these wonderful actors was very honoring but I couldn't come up with anything other than fairly conventional ideas like yes, they have had a love story and in the old days they meet again. Men … since then?

Fast one day, when me and my ex-husband were on a years-delayed honeymoon trip to Amsterdam and I discovered for the first time that beer could be good and now lay in a bathtub with my ex-husband and didn't think at all, then the idea came. And so it often is. The ideas come when we are not chasing them. They just kind of fall down, melts into one, like a snowflake, in the moments when you have no defense, or any effort of thought and will.

The idea was quite strange, but you also don't need to have answers to everything when you write. No one has all the answers!

Quite short, Erling is the child they dreamed of together when they were in love, a symbol of their desired future together and the love they then never lived, and all the cozy moments they never had with the dream child. Men, as so often, they did not leave the dream, although in every way they left each other. And as so often, have they nurtured the dream, protected it, hid it and had it as his refuge. ”Där, with THEM I would be much more loving, much more present, much more open, more fun, warmer”, type.

Sometimes incomprehensible things happen. And the dreamed becomes body! Thirty years later. Ett mirakel!

Now the two are standing , who long ago loved each other, but for various earthly reasons opted out of each other, before the materialized dream; Erling.

What will happen? Ja, you have to see the play to get an answer to that.

Erling, in reality, was a white bull calf that I took care of when I was quite young. He followed me everywhere and he understood when I was sad, just like dogs do. Then he came and buffed me with his smooth mule. He had big brown eyes, long eyelashes and white fur with beige spots. When it rained, I put a raincoat over him and sometimes we even cuddled in the grass. When he was two years old, he was a badass with dangerous horns. In his smallest movement there was such force that one could be knocked over. But he came to me when I called out and pressed his forehead against me, stayed with me for so long, we together, man and bull.

Then he was transported to the slaughterhouse. But the farmer had spared him an extra long time. Very sad. He was a miracle. Like all other animals. Which we use in different ways, without perceiving …. the miracle.

I have seen the play Erling in Spain, German, Uruguay and Colombia. It has also been played in France and Brazil. It is very exciting to sit in the audience and follow the reactions. There is a lot of laughter. Det är meningen. Men sedan, suddenly , sadness falls down, the pain and the sadness, the realization of how bad we are at actually expressing love, act in love and be in our now. Afterwards, people rush home, reawakened in their appreciation of what they have in their lives, which they forget to see, forget to even perceive. As it is for all of us.

At the premiere in Montevideo, Uruguay, a famous psychologist told me that I had managed to describe life's big questions in an hour with this strange story. ”Jaha?” I said surprised. But then I thought about it a bit and yes, maybe that's right.

But that happens best when you don't look for it. I don't think the story would have been possible if I had thought in advance that I had to write something about life's big questions in a single hour. That's not how it works.

Sometimes I wonder what will happen to all the people who have all their attention in their mobiles.

If you sit on the subway and watch the others: everyone sits with bowed heads engrossed in their mobiles. in principle all!

In the playgrounds, parents stand and rock their toddlers, while behind their backs they stare into their mobiles. When the children go to school, they go and look down at their cell phones. When people are out walking their dogs, they look at their mobile phones. When people have outings, they look at their mobiles. If they sit together and have coffee, they look at their mobile phones. If they have a break on the construction site, they sit quietly next to each other and look at their mobile phones. When they ride their bikes, they look at their mobiles, when they drive, they look at their mobiles, when they lie in the hammock they look at their mobiles.

Small children sitting in prams look down at toads or at mobiles. It looks like everyone is sick and chained to a vital instrument that gives them the power to walk around. That's probably what you would think if you saw them from the outside and didn't know. As if everyone were unfit for life and therefore of necessity had to focus on their mobile drop positions.

Why are they walking around like that?, all with bowed necks, out of reach for his now? It's sad to talk about it, about how brains are affected by it, how life in its entirety and extension fades and shrinks and mentally becomes crippled. We know that the brain is triggered by it, that the brain's reward system is falsely rewarded, that our curiosity is kidnapped. We are brainnapped.

It also seems rather boring. What do we live for??

In Sweden, digitization is successful, so we will be extra stupid here. There will always be children who develop into a kind of elite and these will be the individuals who have limited their screen use and not become addicted. It will be those who are trained to write by hand, in preparing works with paper and pencil, those taught by dedicated teachers present who can answer questions or show how to find out what you want to know – without always referring to google – while they will be trained in dealing with the digital world. All research shows that learning and memory work many times better if the entire process consists of listening, reading and writing down by hand with body and brain is activated than if you read things on a screen. With the senses of one's body, one also conquers theoretical knowledge and when one's being is engaged in this way, the feeling of satisfaction also rises, desire and curiosity for more. It is simply active, instead of passively. It will be those who live with adults who actively wonder how their days have been, who speaks to them, adults who together with their children share each other's thoughts and experiences – PRESENT. The benefits and qualities that these children will receive – which have hitherto been natural in being formed into man – will be impossible for the others to grasp.

The future elite will also have greater access to independent work, in the form of the art of using paper and pencil, also be those who exercise their body. Those who dance, practicing sports, springer. And those who play. Who use whims and ideas that come to them as they play. Who experiences the desire, the togetherness, breathing, the scents, the substrate, matter, the air, the exhausts, the physical touches – in the game. And it will be the children who learned music. Learned to sing, learned to handle an instrument. When the municipal music school existed where you had a place secured semester after semester, an invaluable foundation was laid for many children , a foundation of self-confidence and insight into the power of boring repetition to achieve goals and enjoy that work. The children who are allowed to stay in these arenas, will be armed.

The children who are deceived by their parents' mental presence will find their escape routes from an incomprehensible reality into the worlds of the screens. According to research, a childhood with a physically present parent who is mentally absent is in their screens, as harmful as growing up with an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent. They are there, but they are still not there at all. Can you imagine anything more eerie, for a small child?

The children are at risk of losing in a long series of areas that I don't want to enumerate, it's just something to think about. What paths do they take as adults? What crises of alienation and emptiness will this deep screen addiction create? What will build their inner world, their morals, ethic, their values, their longing and will, their ability to meet, to want to meet, to dare to live, to believe that life is worth exploring?

Technology has always scared the old, kan man säga, but technology has not occupied brains before, not in this way. And when you know that the creators behind games and social media do not let their children use them more than very limited, well aware of what they have created, Well, at least it's food for thought even for the most tech-savvy?

I'm thinking about this, when I stroll around in reality and observe the others without them noticing.

The play THE DESTROYER, ” freely based on Christina Herrström's book” by Lisa Lindén, directed by Kickan Holmberg and with the magnificent Maria Kulle on stage, travels through the country and fills the salons.

It's pretty amazing, In many ways. But the very best thing about it is that the message about psychological violence is getting out, and lands. Every evening, Maria Kulle receives a standing ovation from the audience, of course for his absolutely outstanding performance, but also for the play's content. The combination is overpowering, many testify that they do not want the evening to end, even if it is unpleasant. But it's so good! And it gives so much strength to understand that you CAN get out of this kind of devastating abuse, where the brain is systematically torn apart. And you CAN talk about it, you SHOULD talk about it, for it is behind the dominant silence that these abuses can take place, om och om igen. And they will happen, for people of Sam's kind come unceasingly in different vintages, operates in different contexts, with different purposes – but it will happen, om och om igen.

To start TALK about the phenomenon, to dare to SEE it, to start thinking about it, reason about it in a serious way, in a slightly more knowledgeable way, than the prejudiced, spectacular and judgmental which are the most common , it is VITAL. You who don't think you're vulnerable, is already a promising victim. Who would think that one is vulnerable to such things? Not me anyway. Aldrig.

Partly because I completely lacked knowledge. It's all basic psychology really. no major weirdness. The weird, for us ordinary healthy people with a healthy attitude towards others and towards central concepts such as loyalty, reciprocity, humanity and honor, is that none of that we learned, none of which we regard without reflection as fundamental, applies when dealing with people of Sam's kind. And unfortunately, Often, we forget that they also exist as women. And children.

They act according to their heart already in childhood, in adolescence. The injury in question, which basically means that one lacks affective empathy, is innate. It can charge due to circumstances and become really dangerous to others ( even if it is not noticeable outwardly. Sam was according to the investigation of the outpatient care that was done on him ” very dangerous to other people”, which the councilor read out ) , but it can also be dampened to a certain extent by e.g. growing up environment , but never disappear. It explains that so many people encounter people with these traits, they exist in varying degrees.

Personally, I am very happy that the play has come to be. The story takes on another form, a way to reach out. It was the whole purpose of writing the book that was breaking me: share with me a human experience that is not often described from the inside and that is burdened with huge piles of prejudice ( against the victims ) and rubble – and thereby shed light on the shit.

Naturally, I opted out of large layers and directions and levels and thoughts surrounding fate, already when I wrote the book because otherwise it would be an unreadable collection of text. And when that text, already, so to speak, thinned out of all layers of reality, then processed into a play that should work in two hours, of course it will still be ” sexier” in some ways. But it does not matter, it fulfills its purpose, and the play must advance FAST to get to the point, into GREPPET. If I had written the play, I would have immersed myself in the psychological game and you would have had to sit for eight hours. Lisa Lindén has done a very good adaptation of the book, efficient, knowledgable and it turned out much better than if I had tried it myself, which I didn't want. This was MUCH better, thank you Lisa, Kickan and Maria!

All of the real Christina's tenacious fight against the perpetrator and long resistance before he got his claws into me didn't fit in the book, and even less so in the play. So it is with culture, it cannot provide all the layers that the human psyche playing with other human psyches reality contains, but it is enough as it is. With their inner layers, the recipients can understand more than what is literally seen and said. Isn't that amazing?

I have to exclaim again: what a decisive force culture has for us! And how is it possible that it is such a low priority? Hur är det möjligt?

One can only take the book and the play The Destroyer as examples. So many like this story has helped, and enriched. What silence the opposite had been. And such a waste it had been of life knowledge. I already know, I have received letters about it, that the book has SAVED people!

The play The Destroyer meets, as said, of standing ovations and glowing criticism everywhere. I read the criticism in the Corren, after another fantastic performance in Linköping. Mycket bra. It is quite striking that I am no longer called ” idiot” as in the reviews of the book. Där ser man, something in the public consciousness has matured. But in the review in Corren there is still a line that is startling, in the middle of the wise, a line so to speak ” explaining” that the risk of encountering perpetrators with psychological violence as a weapon is more likely if you have ” a drive to submission.”

That is a very good wording. DRIVE FOR SUBMISSION. I will use that phrase from now on, when I talk about prejudices about victims of psychopathically damaged people. I usually say a lot of other things, but this phrase sums up precisely the prejudice which is so strong – and so dangerous. And which contributes to the victims remaining silent.

Nej, it really takes no drive to submission, and in the middle of the review I am quite surprised, because that is EXACTLY what I have tried to describe in the book- and even so it is described in the play- it does not NEED a self-destructive drive to suffer psychological violence. That is EXACTLY WHAT people generally BELIEVE, that is exactly what makes me write in the front page

”if you think you are going safe, you are already a commendable prey”

The submission comes after a period of methodical exercise of psychological violence. One way or another it happens, because of the psychopathic person's violence. In my case, I never showed him any signs of it – I kept my cool on the surface the whole time – but he knew he had power over me by borrowing my money. It forces a submission. Eller snarare, an addiction. That's what they're good at, to force the other's powerlessness. That is what psychological violence is.

Och – they are drawn to strong individuals, because the effect of the violence gives a greater kick.

NOTE, because it is IMPORTANT!

I feel like telling about myself. Would that I of all had a drive to submission? Allow me to smile, as it is called.

Nej, I will not go into describing my life choices in general, it gets a little silly, men hahaha, säger jag bara. That's aside from my personal reaction, however, unfortunate that such an ignorant phrase appears again in context. Not for me, but for everyone else, who may continue to believe that it is such a drive that attracts psychopathic individuals.

THE DESTROYER will be played for a couple more weeks:

21 april ( tonight) EASTERN SUND

24 April ÖDÅKER/TIMRÅ

26 April ÖRNSKÖLDSVIK

27 April UMEÅ

29 April MALÅ

2 May SKELLEFTEÅ

4 May CALYX

5 May ÖVERTORNEÅ

And last but not least; what an ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL facility the RIKSTEATERN is, imagine such a BRILLIANT business to provide the whole of Sweden with THEATER. Truly something to be PROUD of!

””

"you laugh and cry and even if you laugh so hard you cry, it's a deeply existential play from beginning to end"  audience vote 
 

There are brave theater managers!

Gunilla Röör at Norrbottensteatern is definitely one of them.

There are not many people who dare to give space on their big stage to a completely unperformed play by a Swedish playwright, a play that is not realistically recognizable in everyday life, but is treacherously easy to read, absurd and can be perceived as meaningless chatter. That's how my scripts are usually perceived, until they are shaped.

Seeing through the lightness of the text is not for everyone, but if one has dramatic imagination and life experience it is possible! And Gunilla Röör and her outstanding ensemble at Norrbottensteatern did it! They read and told me something amazing: they LOVED the play!

I was about to give it up and let it remain in the dark where it had been since I wrote it for 21 years ago. Certainly it has been read a couple of times over the years, partly at the theater that commissioned it but didn't stage it, and by other ensembles and the occasional freelance director. It always seems to appeal to directors but above all actors but so far not theater managers. probably because they have to think commercially and also have to get the theater's board on board, which is not always easy, because they prefer to bet on safe cards.

But then Gunilla Röör came!

And set the play in motion with all the energy and now it meets the audience and the audience is engaged, enthusiastic, surprised, listening – they are laughing – and it's wonderful and when the more serious layers of the play are exposed the excitement is high and they thank the actors with standing ovations and cheers. They shout that the play is great. They have been part of something, something they didn't realize when they settled into their seats.

For me, it is of course absolutely essential to see that my text works. That it can be transformed into very funny and touching theatre. The play is funny, poetically, crazy and at the same time very sad. Actually, it's a kind of absurd grief play, but packed with love, all that love we carry inside and that we never express because wine doesn't HAVE TIME or doesn't DARE or doesn't have a YOU to love. Or because we may have unreasonable expectations of each other, on life, on love?

It was simply awful fun to see the play, I've seen it twice now and it's clear that with such a vivid text, as they themselves say, it constantly changes a little depending on the audience's response, depending on how the words come out of the mouth, depending on the rhythm and emphasis of the evening. and it's amazing. After every gig, said Gunilla Röör, the audience comes forward and tells what it's about and it's always different things. Because everyone can see their own in it. All the characters in the play are lovable as they struggle with their dreams and shortcomings.

I am glad that the actors enjoy playing the text ” your wonderful text!” , and I am glad that this text flies all the way forward and into the audience! For me this is theatre! for me, theater is not a depiction of a reality as we all know it ” should ” look to be ” konst”. I think that's boring.

I am so happy that the audience, several hundred people every evening, seems to share my opinion. This is ( ALSO ) teater! Not everything has to be like Norén, Fosse or the classics. Alltså, precisely this to SEE that it works… it makes me very inspired, because it actually means that many of the more cautious theater managers may be slightly mistaken in the idea that audiences always want something well-known and recognizable. In the audience I met in Luleå, there was definitely an open attitude, welcoming, nyfiken, and willing to go along with a piece of drama with slightly different content than expected. The second note, which I prefer, which is a little twisted but still rooted in life's pain and love, it works! But what an ensemble – high-class look in all fingers ! And so wonderful with a director. Sara Giese, who had the courage to take on Guinea Pig Nights. First of all, it's fun, but after a while the actors discover the deeper layers during the rehearsal time, and yet it must be served in a tone not that to which we have been accustomed, which sounds like ” real”. The seriousness should come across despite the loftiness. A whirr. Det är bra. I like that. And I strive for that. And IT works ! and it is an interesting challenge for the actors! They fix it!!! But it is clear that any text can fall flat to the ground in the wrong hands – but at Norrbottensteatern Marsvinsnätter has ended up in excellent hands, for its brilliant premiere! The proof of that is the audience's enthusiasm!

För mig, as a playwright, is it perfect…. perfectly…. wonderfully!

surprises me.

Even when I was in my teens, you could see others ( teenagers) make-up on the bus and subway, but nowadays even grown women do it. They even pluck their eyebrows. You wait with horror for them to start pulling out the nose hairs too. Everything happens with intense frenzy and they have everything with them ( probably only a quarter) makeup bag. One can sit and observe their transformation or desire for transformation in detail, without them seeming in the slightest to notice that there is an environment there. In a sense, there is no environment, because basically everyone is looking down at their mobiles. Everyone is in their own bubble.

Sometimes aunties sit and do manicures. They happily file their nails inwardly. They puff away their nail deposits in the form of fine flour away from them, towards others, that is, their fellow passengers. It can be aunties who look the most record-breaking. That really surprises me. One day you will probably see your fellow passengers take the opportunity to take a foot bath between their stations, why not, where is the line? They also spray their hair. Spray spray spray.

But the most common thing that women do in public is clean their hair. With slow movements, they run their fingers through the hair, brushing off the loose hair that gets stuck, straight out into the public hallway, or at the seat next to you. Elegant bouncing movements, with a bit of distaste.

My aversion to this private behavior has nothing to do with age, which one might believe. I have always been appalled by people's self-centered behavior in places we share. I don't understand it. But everything has perhaps loosened up even more since we started talking widely about our private affairs in public places. A friend overheard a mother venting about her son and his private concerns. An entire subway car got an insight into the son's very personal problems. Strangely enough, many people don't seem to trust the technology and turn up their conversational voice a few notches extra so that everyone can participate. It is completely incomprehensible. Embarassing. And how can a mother leave her son like that. Ja, that happens all the time. People leave family, colleges, partners, barn, themselves continuously with no idea who is listening.

One day when I came walking, wearing winter overalls and in the company of snow-soaked dogs with icicles in their beards, I met a man who said:

”Excuse, does the lady know what time it is?”

Then I remembered the big concept ” artighet”. And the value of it. That politeness is about respect and consideration – i grunden. The reason why politeness is important to maintain is in any case to protect these values ​​in practice: respect for others and consideration, deference.

It doesn't work automatically, it must be taught. The one who can't, lose in the long run. It's a skill, a condition and it is a good service to teach it to one's children.

It was very nice to be treated politely. Although it seems like a pettiness, it is an absolute way not to arouse anger, bitterness, irritation. It is a flexible way of dealing with fellow human beings, and spread relief, calmness and balance around him. Since politeness is quite uncommon, it even brings joy to some.

Politeness can lead very wrong. Being a polite girl can be downright life-threatening in certain situations. When the demand for politeness confuses the inner compass and integrity. But usually it is about undramatic episodes.

I think Swedes in general have been a pretty rude people. And it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

Cleaning your hair in public places is … obnoxious. Faktiskt. Not as disgusting as cutting your nails in public. But the step is not far. I don't want to be other people's background like that. Forced to listen to their talk, watch their makeup in progress, get their hair and nail polish on me. It is strange, many are so sickly aware of how they act and speak and look, yet it is so easy for them to deal with hygiene in public and expose their privacy and that of others.

But of course, most others sit in their own bubbles, absorbed in their mobile phones and notice nothing of what is happening around them. I do not. I look around. I guess I'll just end it. Sucked into the mobile's all alternative places for my consciousness to reside. Stop being in the moment. Like so many others.

What an audience!

What a masterful Maria Kulle!

Regi, manus , set designers - bravo!

What a great review of
Pia Huss i DN!

Now the play Destroyer after my book of the same name will roll out in the country. Check out the National Theater, look for the tour schedule. Maybe it will come to your location!

The National Theater is a fantastic invention. Theater for everyone. Very impressive idea that works so well.

Soon I will be leaving for the next important premiere, but next time to attend a premiere of my own work Porpoise Nights. It will be so exciting!

The reason, of course, is my wonderful large poodle 8 årsdag! It should be celebrated! You are welcome to contribute gifts of all kinds except liver slices because he rates them, as well as toothpicks.

What would I be without Rufus! So much he has given me, showed me and made me realize these 8 år! A good dog, a good relationship with a four-legged animal, it is worth a lot, yea, even so that in certain phases of a human life they may be of greater use than talking men. Så är det.

Maria Kulle and I visit the sofa on Thursday's Nyhetmorgon to talk about Friday's premiere of The Destroyer. It is, of course, very good that the Destroyer is being noticed in this way because we need to talk more about psychological violence in our society. The victims are many and it all costs money, om inte annat.

I knew nothing about this until I was methodically worn down by it.

He was skilled, he had it in him, that people with psychopathic personality disorders have, but he also studied it extra! In his psychopathic spare time. He took various courses in manipulating other people, one of them was called ” Stealing the spirit” and existed in the form of a whole pile of videocassettes in the basement. Another was hypnosis – and not just any hypnosis, but with the stated enticing matter of taking power over the will of others in order to overcome sex, pengar, wealth, as it said in the American cover. I found this when we finally got him out.

We also found a number on a DVD left behind ” lessons ” in how to win sex from uninterested women.

Except he was constantly practicing his skills on just about everyone in his various arenas. which is completely natural when you are a person with a psychopathic disorder, because all others are only tools for oneself, and one lacks feelings of regret , debt , responsibility and honor. One lacks affective empathy. But you understand empathy, so one is skilled at playing on it and with it, with the rest of us who are more normal minded.

But there is, of course, psychological violence practiced in a different way than this methodical one, originating in a miswired brain, which is therefore not possible to heal. There is a palette of psychological violence and regardless of its origin, it must be lifted – just as they have worked for decades to expose what sexual violence really is and to spread the understanding that the victims are not complicit , may even have to blame themselves for having been subjected to violence. It has taken decades to work through old prejudices, ideas and deeply imprinted wrong conclusions – the same thing must happen with the psychological violence.

So it's simply great that the Destroyer now also exists as a piece, and that in this way it can reach new and perhaps different audiences and also reach the recipients in a more immediate way, than the strenuous reading of 586 pages.

Maria Kulle, on stage in The Destroyer, and I will sit around for a while 08.45 in NEWS MORNING'S couch the 23 februari.

Camilla Hanve photographs women for her project on the theme ”SCARS and HEALING” which will be exhibited this spring. I was asked to join. Because I've written a blog before about having breast cancer and it's also written in my book The Destroyer, I thought ok, maybe it doesn't matter that I'm in it. It's not so private anymore. And apparently the photos have already had meaning for others who will be scarred, or have it. My scar is now decorated with a blossoming apple branch. Because if ”the world is ending tomorrow, plant an apple tree today.”

I am happy about the beautiful tattoo that Jens Bergström at Heavenly Ink has drawn and tattooed. It was important to me, I realize more and more. With this apple branch, I have said the last word, after a total of eight operations since 2006.

The day Camilla photographed me, there was a lot of giggles and play among lace and veils and shawls in the environment we had chosen. Besides, we had long said that we would toast in a glass of champagne for life, to despite adversity, sorrows , diseases and other challenges that are part of the human experience, one continues, with the flag waving as high as you can. And if you are lucky enough to be good at marveling at what is beautiful, which is poetry, which is joy and deeply recharges one's spark of life and strength almost every day. To have the ability to marvel at the greatness of life, which usually manifests itself in the so-called small, is now considered one of the prerequisites for a good life. Like exercise and good food. It is an art to cherish. If you don't know it, you can practice it. For my own part, I have always been able to. And through life it has been refined. It makes one very grateful, and quite cheerful.

That joy rests, of course, on the realization of impermanence and fragility. Ingenting är självklart. Of the years when the destroyer, the person Sam with psychopathic disorder, used all his typical psychopathic behaviors to get over what he wanted and try to crush me – I learned that freedom is a stretchable concept. And that the most important freedom, which is the basis of all freedom, was not something I had reflected on before. But as I now experienced. The freedom to meet others, and not least the ones you love, as himself. The freedom to have access to one's own thoughts. The freedom to trust one's perception. The freedom to still understand words correctly. The freedom to trust your logic. The freedom to move. The freedom to be able to look into another person's eyes for a long time without being forced to break contact, for fear of breaking. And if you fall short, you are subject to revenge.

But our psyche is remarkable , like our body : we have life, so we want to live. It has little to do with anything other than that we have the impersonal but eternal LIFE within us.

As long as we can have it.

But I cannot speak for everyone and all the indescribably brutal suffering people inflict on others. and in many situations in people's lives nothing of what can be called good exists, and to claim it would be idiotic. A long time ago I read Erich Fromm, which I loved to read, and in the book ” Is man evil or good?” he writes that everything we can imagine of evil has already happened. I found it so terribly terrifying. It's horrible. Then I was just over 20, and believed that humans wanted to evolve, always strive for the best for everyone, basically acted on my own high ideals. It's not like that. Indescribable evil exists in parallel, and comes out of others – with life.

That includes people with psychopathic personality disorders. We see them ruling the lives of millions of people – varje dag. And in a few days it will be a year since we were forced to realize the devastation of such power, close up. We don't know the outcome.

In addition to Camilla Hanve's photo project, I have put together a talk about the Destroyer ,i.e. the book that I wrote to spread knowledge about psychopathic behavior after I suffered from it, a psychological violence like most of us, including myself, never thought could happen to me.

But I have given up on that project – almost! Det går inte. Det är för mycket, too many layers, too many dimensions, and too many facts I want to convey, at the same time as I want to convey something of what the book describes, that is, how it slowly, bit by bit could happen. It is interesting and important to describe. I have had a few suggestions now and they do work well, and sometimes I get heartfelt thanks as if I've done something important, but I myself feel that it is … so there. I never wrote the book to put myself in the center. My experience was the tool to be able to describe an event like this from the inside. But during lectures, it becomes as if I were myself – as well as ME – shopping in a center I don't want to be in, as if I am speaking of this to arouse sympathy, or because I imagine it was so special. And then I feel that the purpose of everything ends up a bit skewed.

Maybe it was enough that I wrote the book. It was hell but it is very useful, just as i hoped. Until today, almost 2.000 people wrote to me and thanked me for it. It has helped many who have experienced similar psychological violence, and it has helped others to understand how it can be done. Something that is very difficult to understand. As I write in the book ” if you think you're going safe, you're already a promising and enticing prey” It is important that the silence around the psychological violence – and not least around the charged topic of psychopathic personality disorders – is lifted . Behind the silence and shaming, the ridicule of the victim ( som ” deceived by a clown” och ” idiot” and other toxic language ) There is a lot of room for violence. Knowledge about this must be spread. By shaming the victims, you go the perpetrators' business. In addition, you believe yourself to be someone who walks safely.

Now the premiere of the play ÖDELÄGGAREN is approaching, written by Lisa Lindén based on the book. Maria Kulle, one of our most amazing actors, is on stage and Karin Kickan Holmberg directs. The National Theater produces and the play will visit 33 locations in Sweden during the spring.

By pure coincidence, the play premiered exactly nine years ago when my ex-husband and I went to the police station on Wolmar Yxkullsgatan in Södermalm with our 24 pages thick notification.

Nine years later; premiere at Årsta Folkets Hus on 24 februari.

As life weaves things together. No dramatist surpasses life.

It is perhaps a blind spot in school teaching, but amazingly, the children still get to make butter knives in the wooden shed.

Shouldn't school prepare for adult life??

Shouldn't the school protect creativity??

How many people have suddenly in their adult life been faced with the thorny question of how best to get a butter knife into the household? And what has probably then, basically, all done, except those who have woodworking as a hobby?

And if they were to take hold of a block of wood, could they chisel a butter knife out of it?

Besides, they were about nine, ten years when they had butter knife on the schedule.

A mystery, tycker jag.

In the practical subjects, one could otherwise imagine that the school would teach things that everyone knows that everyone will benefit from one day. Like drilling holes in different kinds of walls. With different types of screws and plugs. Drill up shelves straight! It would be something to learn. Or build some simple furniture, like a chair, or stool or shoe rack? Assemble furniture, inte minst, would be beneficial to exercise! Put up roller blinds and curtain rods? If you are still into wood, why not learn how to make bonfires the right way? But a butter knife?

The small children's woodworking lessons should instead give room for something creative, like painting, dans, teater, musik. Before, all schools had choirs, something that only schools with music classes seem to have these days, because it costs money to have a choir. Singing in a choir is a great exercise in collaboration, listening, discipline and joy, which creates community. Instead, they make butter knives.

It is more important, anser jag, that children can learn to become secure in their various possibilities of expression, in what makes us human. And in that case, the natural creativity and play that everyone has from the beginning would, given the opportunity to follow them through life and provide support, comfort, styrka, possibility. It is more important that children become secure in their bodies, movements, voices, its rhythm, his desire to dance, sing, paint than they sew cross-stitches and sharpen butter knives! Except that those who have continued access to and had the opportunity to develop and deepen their very own contact with their very own creativity – will be happier. Because they will have tools when life is difficult to manage their thinking, their actions, its perspective. They will always be able to find comfort, affinity, and relief in his own inner treasure, the one we are all born with. They will have more opportunity to think critically, be fearless, care less about superficial things such as position and status and thus dare to be questioning, be harder to coax into comfortable silence. They will create new inventions, think of alternative routes, open doors that no one else has seen.

An individual's creative base creates strong, safe citizens of society – as you want in a democracy. Isn't it incomprehensible that in a modern society with all the knowledge we have about the brain, learning and creativity – deprives the children of that space , often already in fourth grade?

And then, before taking the step to adulthood, then you would have to learn to drill up shelves straight, and sewing curtains, repair holes and change clothes. Just imagine all the little students who have come home with butter knives over the years, stand prostrate a decade later in front of a wall.

If the subject of woodwork is part of preserving respect for fine craft tradition, Certainly, why not get to try all that and MORE, and also get to visit various craftsmen, as silversmiths, glassblower, weaver, seamstresses and tailors? Men… I don't think the subject remains for that reason. Why not give the measly hours to more creativity, to the growing ones?

Dessutom, in a democracy like ours, one wonders why not all children learn basic law and economics? Money and laws. Money and laws.

That's what I wonder when I see a butter knife.