Digital Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Quotes from a medical website: 

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a mental health condition where you have two or more separate personalities that control your behavior at different times. When personalities switch, you’ll have gaps in your memory. ---

--- “Dissociate” means to separate or disconnect. People with dissociative identity disorder may experience several different personalities --- These personalities may control your behavior at different times. --- Memories may not transfer from one identity to another, which can cause amnesia (gaps in memory). --- DID interferes with your ability to function in your day to day. It can impact your relationships with others and performance at school or work. 

This past week, I have diagnosed myself as suffering from DDID - as in Digital Dissociative Identity Disorder...

I blame Google, and seriously doubt any form of psychotherapy will help. 

The background can be found in my December post Commenting Issues. To summarize, these issues started when Google, for unknown reason, decided to suddenly stop Firefox (my preferred browser for this blog) from working with "embedded" blog comments. For me that meant suddenly finding myself unable to reply to other peoples' comments on this blog from my computer. My first attempt to solve this was to change to using a pop-up window for comments instead of the embedded. That worked fine for me "within that window", but turned out to have some other disadvantages instead. (Those of you who noticed will know. For those of you who did not, staying ignorant will probably be better for you than to have the details explained.) 

I also had the Microsoft Edge browser on the computer, but there I am logged into my other blog (Greetings from the Past) under a different "identity". And it seems one can't be logged in to two different Blogger accounts at the same time, on the same browser.

So I installed Google Chrome as a third browser. For some reason, there  Google seems to have no problems to still allow embedded commenting. 

But in my process of experimenting with different solutions, I kept running into other problems instead. And somewhere in midst of it all, my own brain went on strike, and it came to a point where I suddenly just felt totally confused by the whole mess of different browsers and websites, and what emails and logins and passwords to use where...

Google also somewhere along the line turned totally fanatic about adding extra layers of security, and was no longer content with my usual passwords, but started to require extra codes sent back and forth between my various appliances (laptop, phone and tablet) to prove that I was really me (which I was now almost beginning to doubt myself). On top of all, they also, on one account, forced me to switch from an old (non-google) email address as login, to a brand new gmail addess as primary login instead (a different one from my other already existing gmail).

This was the final straw that made me diagnose myself as now seriously suffering from DDID. The symptoms seem to fit perfectly with the medical ones: Memory gaps + disability to function in my day to day "work" and "realtionships with others"... 

It also makes me feel far from secure, and instead rather terrified of no longer knowing what login I'm supposed to use where. (Even when writing things down I'm not sure I got them right.) At the moment I do seem to be logged in "somewhere" on both blogs - but I really fear the next time I accidentally find myself logged out, and have to try and get back in again...

Another Snowy Day

 

This morning I woke up to a full snow storm whirling about outside my windows. For a while I thought it was likely to go on like that all day - but later on it did clear up, and the wind died down quite a bit too. A few hours later a snow plough came by, and I was even able to go out for a short walk. I did not go far, though, as the streets nearby had only been ploughed, but not sanded. Just now (7:30 pm) it seems to be snowing a little again... Ah well. One day at a time! 

Returning home after my walk, I checked my postbox in the entrance, and found two late Christmas greetings, which must have arrived yesterday afternoon - both from the US. (There have been very few post delivery days in between the holidays this season.) I added them to those that have already been on display for a while in my living room.

More card that I received from various friends both in Sweden and abroad are hanging on ribbons in the door opening between my living room and study:

The rapidly rising postage in Sweden in later years has had notable effect on people's habits when it comes to sending Christmas cards - but I do still receive (and send) quite a few.

 

2025 Has Begun

 

During the night between New Year's Day and today, the rain turned to snow again; and this morning I woke up to blue skies, a thin layer of snow on the ground, and the winter sun doing its best for the short while it was up. I tried to make the most of that as well, so took my walking poles + studded boots out for a walk into town and back. (Which means I was out for about an hour.)

 

There is a temporary ice skating rink in the park in winter.

 On my way home I followed the path along the river and then across the cemetery.

The forecasts for the next few days are a bit vague again. As so often, around here we seem to be in a border zone between snow and rain... 

 

I may be linking this post to the blogs below,
when their respective posts for this weekend turn up. 

New Year's Eve Adventures

  

As mentioned in my previous post, I had no special plans for New Year's Eve. Just as well! As expected, it started out as just another very grey day. I managed a short walk before noon, just to stretch my legs a bit, before locking myself in for the rest of the day. By then, it was just beginning to snow a litte - but just a few very small white flakes in the air while I was out, nothing on the ground yet. Back home, and preparing lunch an hour or so later, this was the view from my kitchen window:

I made my traditional New Year quiche (for lunch and supper + a couple of pieces to put in the freezer for another day)  (N.b. only traditional in a personal sense. I don't really know what other people typically eat on New Year's Eve - that probably varies even more than the traditions at Christmas.) 

Outdoors, it continued to snow...

 

... until, towards evening, the outdoors temperature rose a few degrees, and the snow turned to rain, and winds started to increase as well... Which for a while almost lured one to think that maybe it would be a rather quiet new year after all, because, who would want to be out in that weather?!

I had a lazy afternoon watching three episodes in a row of the American series Virgin River on Netflix (the last three of season 6, recently released).  That seemed to put me in a kind of American Outback mood, because the film from my DVD archives that I chose to watch in the evening was Fried Green Tomatoes - which I can't recall when I last saw. (I enjoyed getting re-acquainted with it, though.)

After that I was really just longing to go to bed, and I even "sort of" did - but of course only just in time for the usual seemingly endless Big Bang midnight fireworks show (all over town) to break out after all - starting well before midnight, and going on for nearly an hour into the new year, before it finally started to die down. So I got back up again, as after all it's more fun to watch the spectacle than just lying in bed listening to it...

Some time after 1 a.m. or so, it had died down enough for me to finally try and get some sleep. How much longer before I actually entered Dreamland, I'm not sure.

... The night between the Old Year and the New can be a Magic one, though; and in this case, when I woke up this morning (around 10 am), and made my usual reality-check with the World, I was made aware that far from just sleeping, it seemed I had been off on nightly adventures to a remote island at the end of the world; where I had landed by parachuting from a plane, had been presented with a prestigeous award, and celebrated together with a whole gang of other bloggers from around the world - some of which had sailed there, while others, like myself, parachuted.

With all this excitement going on I had evidently forgotten to take photos of my own; so I asked Bing Image Creator for assistance.

If you don't believe this actually happened, I don't blame you - but further proof of the events may be found on Yorkshire Pudding's blog here. The award received has now also been duly placed in the sidebar of my blog (also with a link, in case future readers should have their doubts about its authenticity as well). 

All is well that ends well, as the saying goes...

As for 2025, it seems like I woke up in my own bed, and my flat seems the same; but outdoors it's raining so much that I have not actually been out to explore the surroundings and to make sure everything is still in its right place. The local news app tells me that the rain has actually caused quite a lot of flooding in the area (my immediate neighbourhood not mentioned in that context, though). It also seems the police had their hands full last night (which is alas not unusual at New Year). And it's still raining...

Luckily I think I have supplies enough to just stay in for a while longer, if needed!