About Tussila and her Book Project

About Tussila and me

Hi, and welcome to Tussila’s space!  Actually, my real name is not Tussila. Tussila is my alter ego; she is my inner traumatized child. I’m yet not ready to go public with my real name, because I’m afraid I’ll get recognized. Besides, while working with this book project, it feels much more comfortable to pretend that we are two people and not one, which is the fact.

Therefore, if you wonder, I am not schizophrenic. However, I do have diagnoses that equal schizophrenia or psychoses in severity. My diagnoses is PTSD and dissociative disorder, also called complex PTSD. I suffer from trauma inflected upon me mainly during my childhood. I am a survivor of incest, bullying, and negligence.

To me, it is crucial to emphasize that I have survived. In addition, not only have I survived; in spite of my diagnoses, I am today living a rich and fulfilling life too.

About Tussila’s Book Project

We are all individual human beings. This fact also counts whether we have a diagnoses or not. It would be a mistake to say that all patients involved in, for instance, a traffic accident, require exactly the same medical treatment. There will probably will be a need for individual medical attention and treatment, depending on the injuries character and the patient’s ability to cope with the trauma. However, some of the treatments acquired will probably also be similar for many of the patients. This is also true for us suffering from other traumas, like incest or bullying. We also are all individual human beings.

Therefore, I am by no means trying to look at my story as a universal guide what complex post-traumatic stress disorder concerns. I don’t even believe it is possible to write such book, because of the wide range in our histories and in our personalities.

However, as in the traffic accident, there will also be some similarities on the victims involved in childhood traumas. As I have learned during years in therapy, there will also be similarities on the symptoms and aftereffects in survivors who suffer such traumas.

Those similarities have led me to the conclusion that it would be wrong of me, to assume that my story and symptoms differ too much from others, to be of any interest. In other words, what if my experiences actually can help make a difference, wouldn’t it be egoistic of me not to share them?

When it comes to my understanding of my psychiatric diagnoses, it’s not as if I suddenly saw the light, and then it all came clear to me. My road to understanding, and thereby to get a better life has been, and will be, as in life itself, long and slow-moving, and with many curves and hills on the way. The understanding has not appeared in one single flash of light either; it has consisted of all sorts of lights, or all sorts of enlightening moments. I have had small lights, large glints, hardly visible shimmer, flashing lights. I have sensed the range of lights, especially the last twelve years. These lights, small or large, have appeared mostly due to therapy. Looking back, let’s say one decade; I baffles me, when I realize how little I understood of myself back then.

I’ve been told from many holds, that my challenges in life is not that far from what the others face, except for the prevalence and extremity of some of the symptoms. Based on those assumptions, it might be fair to suggest that following statement isn’t totally wrong, at least I hope, because that implicates also, I’m not that apart from other human beings as I used to believe:

Though I’m quite sure that nobody will recognize everything I’m describing in this book, I’m equally quite sure that everybody, diagnosed or not diagnosed, will recognize some of it.

I hope that by publishing this book, I can offer one or two of the previous mentioned lights, or enlightening’s, mentioned above, to help bringing other survivors too, closer to their way to a better life.

About the language

First, let me tell you that English is not my mother’s tongue. If you find my writing a bit puzzling and out of the ordinary, please bear over with me, or even better, let me know if you have problems understanding my formulations. My aim language wise is to make myself understood. I also want to express myself in an easy read way. However, I don’t mind if it shines through, I’m non-English. However, dear reader, if you should stumble across obvious errors in my writing, I indeed will appreciate it a lot if you’d let me know.

I’ll give you an example showing how wrong I sometimes am, when I’m using words I thought I knew. The other day instead of ‘crouching’, I wrote ‘crunching’. Words correction program doesn’t seem to care about such obvious mistakes, however; I certainly do!

I wrote the original version in a free and stretched grammar, using short cuts and occasionally playing with word and phrases. I’m not capable to do that in English; therefore, this version is probably somewhat more protracted.

You may ask why on earth I’m taking the effort to translate all this text into a foreign language. It’s no wonder if you ask, and of course, that was not at all my original plan. The explaining is as follows:

I’m depending on welfare benefits, which means I have a restricted economy. Therefore, I can’t make this text into an ordinary print book as planned, without financial help. I have considered contacting the old fashion public houses in my home country to ask if they would be interested. After some research, however, I realize I’m not robust enough having to cooperate with professional publishers. They would probably have a lot of ideas of all aspects of my book, and they would probably put me under pressure in many respects. Then this idea emerged in my head, what if I first make it into an e-book, and then it maybe could be possible to sell enough e-book copies to finance a printed version later on.

Some further research led me to the conclusion that my own small country’s market for e-books is yet not very active. Besides, I have this fair that somebody will recognize me, if I publish in my country.

Then I was ready to complete my decision. This project has become of great importance to me, and I will go on with it. First I will publish my story as an e-book, in English, and due to my earlier mentioned financial issues, I’ll have to translate it myself. Then, we’ll see if I latter can manage to make a paper copy as well.