The Break-Up Retreat(99)

He doesn’t need to clarify what he means.

I’m struck by the impulse to pretend, to put up a happy front, but instead I swallow it down and say:

“I don’t know. Mixed emotions.”

Armin nods as he stops for a red light.

“You said everyone really liked the piece, though. Even Pernilla’s daughters.”

Hearing her name is still difficult, but I nod.

“Yeah.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “But still. I don’t want it to seem like I’m . . . I don’t know. I don’t want it to seem like I’m profiting off a tragedy.”

Armin remains quiet, for a while, driving down the street, the white and terracotta facades of Stockholm passing on both sides of the car.

“It happened to you, too,” he says, finally. “And I think it’s a story worth telling. But it’s your decision.”

He finally parks in front of my building, and before I get out of the car, I lean over and kiss him again, letting it linger, feeling my pulse slowing, beat by beat.

“Knock ’em dead,” he calls after me, when I step out onto the street. “Or don’t, if you’ve changed your mind. Either way, I’m proud of you.”

I smile. Despite the crisp October day, the sun still feels warm on my face.

My apartment smells empty, after a few days away. There’s a light coating of dust on the floor, but then again, that was there when I left, too.

I shower, and I put on the nice blazer I prepared for the meeting, and then, taking a deep breath, I open my laptop.

The document with my article is still open where I left it.

I haven’t picked a title for it; nothing has felt right. I’ve tried everything from “Meditations on a Massacre,” which was somehow both too pretentious and too callous, to “Irresponsible Therapeutic Practices Lead to Murder,” which sounded too flat and impersonal.

My eyes go to the opening paragraph.

After the events that took place at the now-closed Himlafall Clinic this past spring, it is hard to fathom how something that began with such good intentions could end in such a tragedy.

The Himlafall Clinic began as one woman’s dream. Martina Hastings, who had been a practicing psychologist and psychiatrist with a PhD and three bestselling books behind her, wanted to build a place where women could come and heal from past romantic relationships, to give them a better chance at finding love in the future. It was a grand vision, and an attractive one, bolstered by Martina Hasting’s millions of followers, something that, along with her professional and academic credentials, secured her the funding she needed almost immediately.

The Himlafall Clinic ran, seemingly successfully, for almost two years, before it all ended in tragedy, with five people dying violently. So what happened?

When news broke, the papers called Susannah Wallin a mentally disturbed woman who went on a killing spree. But that description is not only reductive but also untrue. Susannah Wallin’s medical records showed no history of severe mental illness. Telling the story of the Himlafall Clinic as one of a mentally ill woman “snapping” and committing murder is one that is easy for most people to digest, but it distorts the actual truth of what happened by leaning into harmful stereotypes.

Susannah Wallin did not commit any of her violent actions in a psychotic state. While her murders may have been impulsive, the way she went about covering them up was not. Susannah Wallin impersonated her murdered ex-girlfriend for nearly six months; she used her credit cards to buy food, bought charcoal powder in order to prevent the neighbors from smelling the decay, and accessed her phone and email account in order to resign, as Linn, from “her” job.

These actions cannot be explained away by calling Susannah Wallin “crazy.” These actions were calculated and carried out over the course of many months. Calling Susannah Wallin crazy soothes us, because it is an easy answer to a difficult question.

The story of Susannah Wallin, Himlafall, and Martina Hastings is not one about mental illness. It is a story about mismanagement, abuse, and the things we are willing to overlook. It is the story about a driven woman who wanted to create a place for other women to heal but who failed to account for the people she could not help. It is the story about a woman who could not accept culpability for the violence she had enacted onto others. It is the story of how our culture perpetuates the idea of women as harmless, thereby blinding us to the harm that all people are capable of doing.

But, most of all, it is a story about the victims.

It’s the story about Linn Walsj?, Susannah Wallin’s ex-fiancé, who felt like she could tell no one in her life about the abuse she was suffering.

It’s the story about Sandra Morel, who tried to stop Susannah, and ended up bleeding out in her bed.

It’s the story about Belinda Koskinen, who thought she was safe in her place of employment, and who was struck down by someone she considered a friend.

It’s the story about Pernilla Boman, who came to Himlafall as a client, and died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills put in her tea by someone she thought was a trusted employee at a well-regarded psychological clinic.

And it’s about Doctor Martina Hastings, who died, not for her own numerous sins but for someone else’s.

So where does it all begin?

It would be easy for me to say it began the day I, personally, walked through the gates of the Himlafall Clinic. That way, I can claim it ended when I climbed back over the gates and drove to get help. But the story didn’t begin when I arrived, just as it didn’t end when I left; it didn’t end when the victims were buried, or when Susannah Wallin received her verdict of life in prison. The people who came through Himlafall, and their loved ones, are still having to live in the aftermath.