#Black Women and Depression

[theblackfemininesociety]

🌬️ Beat the Winter Blues: Seasonal Depression (Introvert Edition) ❄️

Hello besties and future besties of BFS,

Winter is approaching! Even with all the festivities going on we understand it’s easy to crawl into that winter blues shell and get in a depressing funk. Especially for my introverted besties (I am definitely an introvert) we thought it was time to give you some tips to help beat the winter blues.

Tip #1: Revamp your space!

(Especially your BEDDING 🛌)

As an introvert take full advantage the power of Feng shui,

An ancient Chinese practice helps arrange living and working spaces to improve health, harmony, and balance.

Recently I’ve decided with the journey I’ve been on, it was time not only get new room decor but it was time get a new comforter set ! You can do this without breaking the bank, with a little creativity, you can have a space that motivates you to focus on your goals!

Feng Shui Tips:

1. Natural Light: Maximize natural light during the day by using sheer curtains or blinds that can be easily opened. Consider mirrors strategically placed to reflect light and make the space feel brighter.

2. LED Lights: Incorporate adjustable LED lights. Use warm white tones for a cozy atmosphere or bright neon colors at night to energize the space.

3. Color Palette: Choose calming colors like soft blues, greens, or pastels for the walls and decor. These colors can create a serene environment that promotes relaxation. But by all means have fun with it. My entire room is pink! I associate pink with happiness so do what works for you.

4. Plants: Add indoor plants to bring life and positivity into the space. Plants like peace lilies or snake plants are great options that also improve air quality.

5. Declutter: Keep the bedroom tidy and organized please! Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Clutter can create negative energy and contribute to feelings of stress and anxiety.

6. Comfortable Bedding: Invest in high-quality, comfortable bedding that makes your bed a sanctuary. Soft textures can enhance your mood and sleep!

7. Essential Oils: Use a diffuser with calming essential oils like lavender or eucalyptus. These scents can create a soothing atmosphere conducive to relaxation. If you don’t want a diffuser try to stock up on some candles instead!

8. Artwork: Hang uplifting and inspiring artwork that resonates with you. Choose images that promote positive emotions or memories.

9. Sound: Consider a white noise machine or calming music to create a calming effect to your bedroom.

10. Personal Touches: Incorporate personal items that bring you joy, such as photographs or mementos, to create a sense of connection and warmth in your space.

Fun Tip: During the holidays, it’s an mood booster when you change little decor in your bedroom. Consider adding festive throw pillows, hanging string lights, or incorporating seasonal colors into your bedding. A small touch, like a holiday-themed artwork or a cozy blanket, can transform your space and lift your spirits. Embrace the season by creating a warm and inviting atmosphere that reflects the joy and cheer of the holidays.

BENEFITS:

If you’re an introverted person affected by seasonal depression, chances are your bedroom is your comfort space. Our goal is to make it feel like a sanctuary! Your mood is affected by your surroundings so why not make your room feel like a safe and uplifting space!

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[lia-serrano]

© Lía Serrano

//

[cierraonline]

LOVE & BASKETBALL

I might be a nepotism baby, But I got skills to back that shit up

More Than Ready

Did You Miss Us?

Europe Tour Part One

Was I Talking To You?

Europe Special Part Two

[ms-hells-bells]

black women proliferating through the highest caliber of international sports, achieving amazing things :)

black women feeling as if they have to provide an unprecedented level of hyperfemininity and male gazed performance while competing at the highest caliber of international sports :(

[chrissy-kaos]

“Le pire dans l'enfer, ce n'est pas les flammes, c'est le désespoir

Et je pense que c'est la partie de l'enfer

Qu'une personne en dépression goûte vraiment

Le désespoir, le terrible désespoir qui survient”

[ellaeved]

The big difference between what Dump screamed about last time and now is that there is actual investigations happening and we witnessed voter suppression. Ballot burning, Russian deep-fakes & Interference, missing mail-in ballots, and some more. The Election isn’t officially over until December-ish. There is STILL counting and recounting! Kamala conceded to be diplomatic. It. Isn’t. Over! We need to message Biden and demand more be done to ensure everyone was heard and that Americans remain safe. Hold out hope and fight.

[thequeenskeep]

Melancholy

The Monster Beneath the Bed

“What is armor after all but a cage that moves with you?” -Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of my Nonexistence

Spirituality and awareness are a double-edged sword. Nothing is so haunting as Truth. Life consists of many roads, all leading to the same place. When death is the ultimate ending what are we to do in the meantime? What am I meant to spend my life doing while I wait for death, only to realize my soul will never cease? Energy cannot be created or destroyed. I am eternal as I pray for release.

To be born human is a curse unlike any other. Life exists naturally. It simply is. To be human is to be more. To be aware is to know without knowing. If you asked me if I wanted to be a primordial force, aware of everything and nothing simultaneously, with the capability to control all, I would laugh in your face. As a human, the concept is tremendous; however, for us, it is natural. A Queen rules as the bee stings and a bird sings.

I often feel like a piece of clothing. There are days when I am worn proudly and preferred. I am loved and experienced. Afterward, I am set aside to be cleansed. I am lumped with those like me, intimately idyosyncratic. I am submerged, drowned, drained, and dragged. Sopping, I am unfurled and inspected. The stains of life unremovable but scrubbed nonetheless. Do my stains make me unlovable? Will I be discarded if I am imperfect? After rigorous waters, I am thrashed and blasted by a heat so unbearable I fear I will burn to dust. Heat and pressure builds gems, but who would ask for this? If beauty is pain, why contest?

Eventually, I am discarded unwearable, unloveable. I crumble haphazardly from the hands of those I've loved. I wait to be rediscovered. I am touched by many and passed around. I wait until I come around; until I see myself reflected back, young and innocent. Enamored by the expression of myself, I wear myself proudly. I return home to the place I love and realize I was only lost. I was always home, and I was always loved. I am love.

[gravalicious]

Source: Ashley D. Farmer - Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era (2017: 24)

“I was a slave. I was part of the “paper bag brigade,” waiting patiently in front of Woolworth’s on 170th St., between Jerome and Walton Aves., for someone to “buy” me for an hour or two, or, if I were lucky, for a day. That is the Bronx Slave Market, where Negro women wait, in rain or shine, in bitter cold or under broiling sun, to be hired by local housewives looking for bargains in human labor. It has its counterparts in Brighton Beach, Brownsville and other areas of the city. Born in the last depression, the Slave Markets are products of poverty and desperation. They grow as employment falls. Today they are growing. They arose after the 1939 [sic] crash when thousands of Negro women, who before then had a “corner” on household jobs because they were discriminated against in other employment, found themselves among the army of the unemployed. Either the employer was forced to do her own household chores or she fired the Negro worker to make way for a white worker who had been let out of less menial employment. The Negro domestic had no place to turn. She took to the streets in search of employment – and the Slave Markets were born.” - Marvel Cooke - “I Was Part of the Bronx Slave Market” [The Daily Compass, January 8th, 1950]

[phoenix-joy]

"Black queer women have shaped American culture since long before the era of gay liberation. Decades prior to the Stonewall Uprising, in the 1920s and 1930s, Black "lady lovers"—as women who loved women were then called—crafted a queer world. In the cabarets, rent parties, speakeasies, literary salons, and universities of the Jazz Age and Great Depression, communities of Black lady lovers grew, and queer flirtations flourished. Cookie Woolner here uncovers the intimate lives of performers, writers, and educators such as Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Gladys Bentley, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Lucy Diggs Slowe, along with the many everyday women she encountered in the archives.

Examining blues songs, Black newspapers, vice reports, memoirs, sexology case studies, and more, Woolner illuminates the unconventional lives Black lady lovers formed to suit their desires. In the urban North, as the Great Migration gave rise to increasingly racially mixed cities, Black lady lovers fashioned and participated in emerging sexual subcultures. During this time, Black queer women came to represent anxieties about the deterioration of the heteronormative family. Negotiating shifting notions of sexuality and respectability, Black lady lovers strategically established queer networks, built careers, created families, and were vital cultural contributors to the US interwar era."

[kouhaiofcolor]

"....When did we get to the point where natural hair is no longer associated with ...Black People? Black Women?"

Non blacks pls dni.

Have to amplify this woman's valid and articulate short on the relevance of this topic bc, whew smh, I have discussed the same thing here — and am both just as disturbed (and honestly? a little let down?) by Black Women letting go the equity we had in natural hair. Esp just to pick harmful maintenance/norms right back up. I do understand that we, as a race of women all by ourselves, have sooooooo many odds stacked against us regarding what we do with our hair and how we take care of it, but I cannot for the life of me understand what the purpose or benefit is supposed to be in returning to things that actually harm us disproportionately.

For good measure, she also spoke more directly and at length about this issue, it's toxically influential spaces and platforms — as well as the colorism, texturism and misogynoir in general at it's core. So glad I'm not the only Black Woman being transparent about how backwards the nhc/nhm is going.

[nwonkunknown]

She knows who she is… she just forgot for a little while…

[words-in-silk]

I’ve been through a lot in my life as a black neurodivergent woman but recently something that really broke me once again was to notice that the only people that expressed any kind of empathy/sympathy or emotion towards my life baggage and said “I’m so sorry you went through all of that violence” were my psychiatrist and my psychologist. none of the people around me, none of my friends, none of my family members, -let alone my aggressors- never expressed any kind of compassion towards all the humiliation, negligence and abandonment I went through. the only thing I keep receiving is too much demands, to forgive, forget, get over and to “get better” as if some of those extreme violent situations were simply so easy and simple to fix.

[verneinerin]

[redheadedfailgirl]

I really wish people who think trans women aren't treated like women could see the endless amounts of social and emotional labor demanded of them, both to be legitimately seen as women, and as payment for rejecting maleness. Because holy shit I don't think they understand. The amount of people who have asked me to be their lifeline when they need a suicide watch is insane. The amount of people treating me as their personal therapist is astonishing. There is genuinely no other explanation for some of the shit people do than that trans women are the proverbial whipping girls of the queer community and we have to shoulder people's emotional burdens alone.

[unnamedunknown]

BORDERLINE

Born in bane shadows, screaming and weary 

Only half of a heart is left beating 

A dark hole inside evermore teary

Praying, asking if this feelings fleeting

My father's tormented hands grip me tight 

Mother's words, a vengeful venomous bite 

Iniquitous lovers leave me in fright

I believe God abandoned me that night

Memories chase, chaos prospers this way 

Sudden euphoric bliss bubbles and twists 

Blinded by rage, leaving only dismay 

The innocence of youth – short-lived; I miss

In my restless sleep, a whisper I hear 

Sleep now, my child, you have nothing to fear

[zwriteseverything]

“The Weight of Nothing”

I lie in bed, the hours blur,

The world outside—a distant stir.

Sheets cling tight with stale regret,

A week gone by, no shower yet.

The mirror’s face, I cannot meet,

Skin greasy, clothes soaked in defeat.

Anxiety hums, a constant hum,

Paralyzed by what I’ve become.

The days all taste the same, so bland,

Ambitions slip like grains of sand.

Apathy wraps me in its chains,

Why try at all when effort drains?

Complacent in this heavy fog,

Each thought a weight, each step a slog.

Dreams dissolve like morning mist,

A life half-lived, too tired to resist.

But still I breathe, though breath feels thin,

A spark remains, buried within.

Perhaps one day, I’ll rise, renew—

For now, this stasis will have to do.