softly now

a perpetual summer afternoon

[ripe]

[hoppip]

Who would have thought!

[magnesiumflare]

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to to the person holding it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead - you first,” “I like your hat.”

- Danusha Laméris, “Small Kindnesses" 

[ampervadasz]

[justkingwolf]

free range mop

[darkwingatlarge]

I love her, she looks so absolutely bizarre

[jeanniephan]

Do you feel the sun beaming? ☀ by Jeannie Phan

[flyingpurplepizzaeater]

You don’t have to be grateful that it isn’t worse.

[voidbat]

read that. read it again, and again, and again. somebody, somewhere, always has it worse than you. there is one person on this planet that has it the worst of all, and that person is NOT the only person allowed to be unhappy with their lot. if things are bad for you, they are bad for you. period.

[abbygalloway]

[lingrix]

“If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed. People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder. Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.”

—

— “Laziness Does Not Exist” by E Price on Medium

(And a footnote I didn’t see explicitly covered in the article: laziness still doesn’t exist when it is you yourself making no progress and not knowing why. You deserve that respect and consideration, too, even from yourself.)

[2flwr]

as much as the world fails you, never regret having a good heart. 

[inkskinned]

ive been on tumblr a long time and i remember when everyone said “oh don’t romanticize mental illness” and it was agreed that doing that was gross and a good way to kill people indirectly

but somehow we’ve come full circle and there are people who legit defend their right to be anti-recovery there are people who don’t want to get better and spread the idea that you can’t get better as if it’s gospel and it’s fucking frightening to me bc nobody seems to want to say “hey? this is toxic and untrue and is your disease speaking, and it’s not something you should accept.”

and i feel like every recovery post gets about 500 of these people saying “this isn’t something that will work” “cool karen i’m depressed” “maybe it worked for you but it won’t work for other people” and that’s… just… im so sorry if you’re 15. i’m sorry if you’re in high school and watching grown adults tell you it doesn’t get better. that nobody says that with time and help and patience the world stops being so heavy, that accepting your illness as a fact is one thing but accepting it as the only way to be is just wrong, that you can learn to live with it and still find some degree of “happy”…. if i had seen this shit back when i was … oh god starting at 12 when i was already self-harming …. i think i’d have actually honest-to-god killed myself. not a joke, not a funny tumblr punchline, i would have actually just killed myself. 

i’m saying this right here and right now to the adults on this site. if you for any reason shoot down positivity that’s causing no harm - you might have indirectly worsened someone else’s condition, and you should try and do better in the future. if you find it necessary to tell people “recovery is a lie”, you need to do better. i know everyone has different circumstances, but i also know that mental illness behaves in such a way that everyone thinks they can’t recover.  if you feel like you should be spreading the Word Of Relapse, you are causing toxic language to be normalized and you need to do better. 

im team “cool karen ive got depression and that means i’m going to try this because i’ve got to try something” i’m team “romanticize recovery” i’m team “it isn’t working now but it might in the future and it’s worth staying to find out” im team “hey this didn’t work for me but it might help somebody else out”

fuck guys it shouldn’t be an unpopular opinion to say “i don’t want any of you to die”.

[stephrc79]

Oh thank fuck someone finally said it!

[fierceawakening]

I’m sometimes very leery of tumblr’s tendency to assume things are fixed traits and build identities around them, for exactly this reason.

[baixueagain]

When I was a teenager I believed it was impossible to ever heal, or even cope. It very nearly did kill me. Despair is tempting, but it is a false god.

[catboy-dysphoria]

I see some folks in the notes talking about “but I have XYZ and it’s lifelong, how am I supposed to be pro-recovery?” And I want to throw out there that recovery isn’t always about reaching some end goal of “cured,” recovery is about getting better and getting to somewhere manageable. I have some conditions both physical and mental that are lifelong, that won’t go away. For example, I can never un-traumatize myself. However, I’m a lot more recovered than I was a month ago, a year ago, ten years ago. I don’t have panic attacks as frequently, I’m more knowledgeable of my triggers so I can avoid them easier, I’m better at setting boundaries and taking care of myself. There’s even small things, like how I do my laundry before I have no clothes left (usually.)

Recovery looks different for everyone. Maybe your recovery isn’t being able bodied and mental illness free, but just being able to enjoy a night out with friends every once in a while.

[deepcoveflowers]

Smokey Shades

[survivor-positivity]

for everyone who feels that they aren’t getting better or are stuck at their lowest: you will not be here forever. keep going for the time you will feel better than this

[libbyframe]

Sunny bouquet

[horreurscopes]

one of the most important things i’ve learned in therapy is that when you’ve experienced prolonged trauma in your childhood, pleasure feels uncomfortable. like, not that you don’t feel it, but that when you do feel it there’s an impulse to make it stop, because it’s extremely unfamiliar. and pleasure can mean many things, as simple as feeling cozy, and as complex as feeling loved. the neural pathways for feeling good have not had a chance to develop, and the neural pathways for feeling bad are quite practiced. feeling good, too, takes conscious practice.

[pastel-plague-doctor]

people say “if you don’t lower your standards, you’re gonna end up spending your whole life alone!” like being a healthy, happy, financially independent single adult is actually worse than being stuck in an abusive and/or emotionally unfulfilling relationship with someone who isn’t willing/able to meet your needs. like no offense, but I think I’m gonna choose to be happy rather than throwing myself into a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship. 

[madisonsaferillustration]

Dreaming of plants 

[notyourpepperoni]

yeah love urself