Your wife changes her hair color every season and her personality adjusts slightly. You’re secretly only in love with Autumn wife. She just came home sporting her Winter color.
it’s my fault. it’s just that when we met it was autumn; her red-orange hair and crackling laughter. there’s a little spooky in her, a lot of play. and what a better time for falling?
i didn’t realize it for the first few years – something shifting, something so subtle. the winter makes us all cold, the summer makes us all a little out of our minds. i just loved her, because she was incredible, and i was the luckiest person alive.
it’s just that i realized that spring came with sudden bursts of cold. it’s just that summer frequently raged in with fire sprouting from her lips. it’s just that winter was the worst of all, her eyes dead. it’s just that autumn loves me different; throws herself into it without the clingy sweat of summer. i used to love that summer girl, you know? i loved how wild she was, the way in summer she took every risk she could. but i carried her home drunk one too many times, cleaned up one too many of the messes she made for no reason than to enjoy the sensation of burning. and winter was worse; the shutdown, the isolation. how she became distant, a blizzard, caught up in her own head, unable to tell me what was wrong and unable to think i actually wanted to listen.
she comes home, her hair bleached white. a dark smile on her lips. the shadowy parts of her are back. they loom like icicles overhead. she kisses me with her body held at a distance, a peck on my cheek that feels like an iceberg. she makes polite conversation and we go to bed early, our bodies untouching.
it is a lonely season, i think on the ninth day of this. winter is cold. winter is known for the death of things. when i look at her, i see the girl i fell for, inhabited by an alien. she was the first women i loved so much i felt it would kill me. i can’t leave. when i wake her up with my crying, she tells me to shush and go back to sleep. she’s different like this, quiet, doesn’t eat.
three days later i stare at myself in the mirror. i wonder if it’s me. if the fat on my body or something in my face or the wrinkles and she doesn’t love me. i try prettier lingerie, lean cuisine, i try different hair, more makeup, try harder. it doesn’t work. she looks at me the same; that empty gaze that neither loves nor condemns my actions.
somewhere in februrary i lose it. we’re fighting again, from car to restaurant to car to home again. we fight about stupid things, small things; i tell her i feel she doesn’t love me, she says i’m not listening. the circle goes around and around, old pain peeling back, new pain unhealing. i sleep on the couch.
i wake up when i hear her crying, white hair around her all messed up. the kind of sobbing that only comes at two in the morning, heavy and thick and hurting. my winter girl. my heart is breaking. she looks up at me like i’m her anchor. “i’m sorry i’m like this,” she says. and i start saying, it’s okay i’m here we’re married, but she just shakes her head and says, “I know this isn’t the real me.”
i hold her cold hand. she stares at the blankets. “i am different in winter,” she whispers, “i know i am and i’m sorry.” she looks at me. “why do you think i dye my hair? cut it off? get rid of the old me?”
i tell her it’s okay. we’re together and it’s okay, and then she whispers, “i’m sorry you married four of me.”
we lay there like that, her head on my chest. she falls asleep. i stare at the ceiling, thinking of the way she sounded when she was crying. how i helped put her in that pain. how i promised in sickness and in health and everything in between.
the next day i spend at the library. there aren’t enough books on how to love someone with seasonal affective disorder so i make my own, notes and pages and little ideas on post-its. and i take a deep breath and make myself a promise.
she comes home to her favorite dinner and we kiss and she’s uneasy but that’s okay. the next day i bring home flowers and the next day she finds little love notes in her pockets. i love her quiet, the way winter demands, understand her sex drive is faltering; spend more time just cuddling. we drink wine and we kiss and some part of her starts relaxing.
the truth is there is no loving someone out of their mental illness. the truth is that you can love someone in despite of it; love them loud enough to give them an excuse to believe they can make their way out of it.
and i learn. i remember the rebirth of spring, when she starts thawing. we kiss and have picnics in pretty dresses. i remember her joy at little birds and her rain dancing. i fall in love with the flowers in her cheeks and the little bursts of cleaning. i fall in love with summer’s slow walks and milkshakes and shouting to music playing too loud on the speakers. i fall in love with her dancing, with the sunfire energy. and when winter comes; i am ready. i remember that snow used to look pretty. i fall in love with the hearth of her, with the holiday, with the slow smile that spreads across her face so shyly. i fall in love with how she looks in boots and mittens and every day i find another reason to love her the way she deserves – they way i always should have.
she comes home with her white hair and dark smile and a package in her hands. i ask to see what it is and that small shy grin comes creeping out. it’s a sunlamp packed in with medication. she looks at me with those wide eyes and that beautiful winter blush. “i’m trying to get better,” she whispers, “i promise.”
recovery doesn’t look immediate. sometimes it isn’t neat. i can’t say we never fight or that we’re suddenly complete. but each day, that tiny girl’s strength gives me another reason. i love her. i love her while she tames the roller coaster of spring; i love her for reigning in the summer storms; i love her for taking her winter and trying to be warm. it is hard, because everything worth it is hard. she spreads out her autumn leaves; mixes the best parts of her into everything. learns to take winter’s silence for a moment before yelling in summer. learns to take autumn’s spice and give it to spring. we are both learning.
one day she comes home and her hair is different, but it’s a style i don’t know. i kiss it and tell her that she’s beautiful and the inside of me swells like a flood. i’m so glad that she’s mine. every part of her. the whole. i am the luckiest person on earth. and i always have been. but she’s hugging me and saying, “thank you for helping me,” and i can’t explain why i’m crying.
this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.
this is what love looks like in an autumn girl: it is winter and she glows.
I’m actually sobbing jesus christ
my heart is aching??? this is gorgeous
Wow. Worth the read, don’t scroll.
This is everything.
Everything about how to love.
I was not prepared
Nor was I.
“this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.”
Honestly, if you scrolled… Go back up and read it.
I’ve read this again and again, and it just wrecks me every time.
This is beyond beautiful. Thanks for doing this prompt @inkskinned
“Are you saying that murderers are right in the head??”
No there’s definitely something wrong with someone’s way of thinking if they can justify killing innocent people, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a mental illness.
Extremist beliefs isn’t a mental illness.
Bigotry isn’t a mental illness.
Entitlement isn’t a mental illness.
Hate isn’t a mental illness.
Having a dysfunctional moral compass isn’t a mental illness.
We need to stop categorizing all these things as some undefinable “mental illness” and start looking at what we do as a society to develop and justify these things to a degree where people use them to justify killing.
Yes!
Dehumanization is something you Have to look for. If the murderer doesn’t see the person they killed as a person, then mental illness is probably not the main factor there.
Plenty of people murder women, poc, lgbt people, people of other religions etc. because they don’t see them as people.
Think about genocides – they aren’t perpetrated by big group of people/a government who all got mentally ill together the same way at the same time somehow, they just didn’t consider what they did murder because they didn’t see the victims as people.
I’m probably going to wind up reblogging this more than once because it is really fucking important.
something that has really worked for me in terms of self improvement is trying to form a single habit at a time. i’ve self-sabotaged countless of times trying to turn my life around in a single night, like, writing down a schedule where i’m going to wake up early, do yoga, cook my own food, work six hours and then write for another two, etc, etc, and like, that does help form a coherent picture of what you want your life to look like, it helps visualizing the path before you, but it just like… the Disorders get in the way, and even with a quote unquote healthy brain it’s not something anyone can just achieve overnight. so like, for example, last year i started forming the habit of reading for half an hour before i go to bed instead of scrolling my phone, and this year i added journaling, too. i just started forming the habit of not scrolling tumblr as soon as i wake up and i’m saving a lot of time in my mornings.
and like, it wasn’t something that i immediately got used to, i was so upset the first time i forgot to write about my day or sometimes i end up googling useless stuff instead of reading a book, but now it seems more natural than not to do these things.
i think my point is, and maybe this is obvious but it truly has been a reality check and a revelation for me, is that focusing on a single, small thing is so much more helpful than beating yourself over not being able to suddenly become a healthy person with healthy habits. forming habits takes time, adopting healthy routines takes time, and trying to do it all at once is incredibly discouraging, but little things add up.
I first read about a technique like this in a Rookie article, How to Structure Your Days If You’re Depressed. After reading it I decided I wanted to try it, and made it my goal to wash my face every day before bed. It wasn’t easy at first, and I still miss some days, but I can already tell it’s helping me and I feel more capable and more in control of my life. Plus my face looks a lot better, so I’m starting to feel more self-confident. Anyways basically I just mean to say that this is really solid advice I wish I’d known about earlier and I hope if you’re reading this and have trouble structuring your days that you give it a shot!
This is a really helpful page in my CBT textbook for tackling some of the maladaptive beliefs we often hold. The first column lists the rules and assumptions we often may tell ourselves, while the second column is a more functional belief. Just thought I would pass this along. Be kind to yourselves, friends❤
Oh my god, number 5. And 6, and 7.
I frigging needed that.
Failure is not a permanent condition.
The text on the image:
Maladaptive belief:
If I don’t do as well as others, I’m a failure. More functional belief:
If I don’t do as well as others, I’m not a failure, just human.
Maladaptive belief: If I ask for help, it’s a sign of weakness. More functional belief: If I ask for help when I need it, I’m showing good problem-solving abilities (which is a sign of strength).
Maladaptive belief: If I fail at work/school, I’m a failure as a person. More functional belief:
If I fail at work/school, it’s not a reflection of my whole self. (My whole self includes how I am as a friend, daughter, sister, relative, citizen, and community member, and my qualities of kindness, sensitivity to others, helpfulness, etc.) Also, failure is not a permanent condition.
Maladaptive belief: I should be able to excel at everything I try. More functional belief: I shouldn’t be able to excel at something unless I am gifted in that area (and am willing and able to devote considerable time and effort toward it at the expense of other things.
Maladaptive belief: I should always work hard and do my best. More functional belief: I should put in a reasonable amount of effort much of the time.
Maladaptive belief: If I don’t live up to my potential, I have failed. More functional belief: If I do less than my best, I have succeeded perhaps 70%, 80%, or 90%; not 0%.
Maladaptive belief: If I don’t work hard all the time, I’ll fail. More functional belief:
If I don’t work hard all the time, I’ll probably do reasonably well and have a more balanced life.
hahaha jfc sorry i was just remembering a corporate retail questionaire that was like trying to gauge your work ethic and like, whether you thought it was okay to shoplift, and tbh most of the items on the maladaptive side would not have been out of place for things they wanted you to select
Okay, but like, holy shit put these in perspective of ADHD or ASD and the whole 2G bullshit and I swear to god half of these maladaptave thoughts were burned into my by the very people who couldn’t recognize that there was a disability there to begin with.
If I fail at school I am not a bad person? If I don’t live up to my potential I have failed? I should be able to excel at everything I tried?
Like, no – these actually where the expectations put on me and I couldn’t meet them probably because they are maladaptave.
Is it any wonder that RSD busted through wall and shouted, “OH, YEAH!”
I actually literally cannot convince myself that most of these aren’t true. (For me only. I can cut other people slack, but not myself.)
it goes something like this:
Me: This is a list of maladaptive thoughts. That means they’re wrong and it’s a bad idea to apply them to yourself.
My brain: Yes, but they’re obviously true.
Me: How can they be obviously true when they’re obviously false?
My brain: They’re intellectually false. In real life they’re true.
Me: That makes no sense. You’re coming up with rationalizations.
My brain: I’m good at that, aren’t I? Here we go: These are true because you’re female and working in a majority male profession so you have to live up to these standards!
Me: No, I don’t. I have three female employees and I don’t make any of them put up with this shit.
My brain: That’s because they’re not you. You’re special. That’s why you have to meet these standards.
Me: Oh, so you’re going to play to my ego, are you now?
My brain: Hey, you managed to make it through life with a mostly high opinion of yourself. Do you think that doesn’t cost anything? You have to be perfect, that’s the price of being special. If you’re not perfect then you’re not special, and if you’re not special then you’re not anything and every bad thing everyone ever said about you is true.
Me: I don’t think that logically follows…
My brain: Oh, who does logic around here? You or your brain? I think I’m more qualified to tell you what is logical than you are.
Me: Yeah, but these are still maladaptive and stupid.
My brain: LA LA LA LA I CANNOT HEAR YOU
The thing about beliefs like that is that changing them takes significant time. So you can sort of get to the point of recognizing that they must be true, but they don’t feel true, and then you sorta… keep poking it. Keep remembering that you’ve been told, by credible experts, that these things can’t be true. Keep pointing out that they’re not true of other people, and that it’s ridiculous to think they’re true only of you. And so on.
one of the most insidious things about depression is it doesn’t ‘feel’ like depression. even when you have it, you know you have it, you’ve been diagnosed—you still find yourself thinking, no, nope, this isn’t it, can’t be. it’s like the mental illness equivalent of that knight in monty python that keeps going ‘it’s a flesh wound! i’m fine, really! this is just a scratch, i’ll be up in a moment!’ even after all his limbs have been hacked off and he’s lying there helpless.
one of the most common narratives around it is that no one realizes they have depression until they start checking off what they consider to be normal aspects of their lives—and personal character flaws— against the checklist for depression symptoms. really key symptoms include:
lack of motivation
constant tiredness, even exhaustion
finding no pleasure or satisfaction in activities they used to like, or that they know should feel good
not seeing the point of doing anything
increased and even unmanageable anxiety and fearfulness
any one of these symptoms drains away your ability to do work, cope with setbacks, overcome difficulties, or stop procrastinating. multiple symptoms create a pretty perfect storm of intertia and anxious self-loathing. you stop doing anything because it’s hard to get going, unpleasant while you’re at it, and afterwards there’s no reward. why bother, right? and when you’re always tired you get conservative of what little energy you can manage, and when you only feel emotions on the ‘empty to miserable’ spectrum you get really aversive to making mistakes. the whole mess very quickly and very insidiously loads every single thing in your life with toxic emotional baggage.
and then someone says to you— or you say to yourself, ‘stop being lazy’. and that haunts you forever. because you’re lazy! the work is so easy. everyone else does it. everyone but you, you lazy asshole, lying around all day not doing this totally easy thing that you should be able to but aren’t. you don’t have depression! of course not. mental illness is for victims, is for blameless innocent people who can’t be blamed for being so understandably sick. but you can be blamed. you have a character flaw, and it’s getting worse by the minute.
and that is how people who have been diagnosed, who have been medicated, who have been through therapy, can still spend all day hiding in bed and chewing themselves up over their failure to just somehow magically be a good, healthy, useful person, instead of treating themselves to a sick day and saying ‘yup! it’s depression. i need to be kind to myself.’
Fuck this is so important and relevant
Nope reblogging twice in a row because u want to scream this from the roof and plaster it over the walls and never shut up about it
just moving along like everyone else 