It hit today, like a freight train.

It hits every year like a freight train, without warning. A large one, that takes my breath away.

Nothing prompts the change. Most years the weather is a hint, but in 2026 it is still hot like summer on September 21. It might be a little harder, actually, that the weather is not cool yet as it should be.

It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not.

It’s that my whole emotional biome is just kicked out of balance, wherever it was on the spectrum to begin with. The calendar should tell me every year, but every year I am thrown for a loop.

Monday, September 23, 1996 I was in the throes of my first psychotic episode. That is the day I was hospitalized for the first time. I was 17 years old.

And every year since that time, whatever the situation at hand, whatever my pre-existing mental situation, it feels like a ton of bricks is hitting my body around the 20-21 of September.

As I said, it’s like seasonal affective disorder, but not. This time of year, I am legitimately more vulnerable, more fragile. I have experienced more than one psychosis that began in the Fall.

Today it hit by my utter inability to get out of bed this morning when my alarm went off. Oliver had a dentist appointment; thankfully it was at 7 AM so Jared was able to take him and he wasn’t even late for school. But there was no way to make my body get up when that 6 AM alarm went off. 

And 9 AM rolled around and my body just felt heavy. I managed to get up a little after 10 AM to get some breakfast, but I quickly realized that what felt just tired to begin with was turning like sour milk into a depression. So I texted Jared, and went back to sleep.

At 12:30 PM, I heard the house alarm turn off, and looked at my phone. I’d missed a call 13 minutes prior. Jared was home for lunch.

And that’s all it has taken today; Jared came home, fixed us both lunch, got dishes and laundry started, and we set two priorities for my afternoon: switch the laundry when it finishes, and get myself cleaned up. 

Those feel like high bars this afternoon. And I’m not even that sad at the moment, though seeing Jared midday really did help. It just seems like a lot of work to even move— it’s a literal physical depression, not a sadness, not a despondency. I know my life is a good one. 

I told Jared when he was home that I was worried about getting done what needs to be done before we leave to go see Liam in Grinnell later in the week. Mostly all that needs to be done is laundry, but there is a lot of it and I had planned to spend the entirety of today keeping the machines going nonstop, to get it all done. 

An evening trip to Wash Bowl might be in order for tonight, though I didn’t tell Jared that before he left. 

The body keeps score, my body keeps score, and today marks the beginning of the careful season of bipolar disorder with psychosis. The season of being extra nice to myself, of letting housework slide, of letting Jared take care of me, of tending to my sleep and taking my meds above all else. 

This year marks 30 years of careful seasons; the anniversary had not occurred to me until I drafted this post. Some years I’ve been more careful than others. 

17 years old. I shake my head and sigh at that; I was so very young. Too young to have to face what many people see as their worst nightmare possible: the idea that my very own brain and thoughts might not be universally trustworthy. 

This week I’ve had reason to pause to consider that very situation; that my diagnosis would be some people’s (let’s face it, a lot of people’s) worst case scenario. And I’ve decided there are actually gifts in knowing what it is for my mind to fail me. In my case, I’m extraordinarily lucky that I come to in the aftermath, back to reality. That doesn’t happen for everyone. 

But the bigger gift is this: because I have had some very public psychotic episodes, and because my social sphere has mutated and shrunken due to that fact, I have become very, very comfortable in my own skin. I am me, I am comfortable with my situation and my lot in life, and I happen to know that the people who are in my life are genuinely there because they want to be there, not for some superficiality I never aspired to. 

So, if you’re reading this, thank you. Thanks for reading, thanks for whatever roles we play in each others’ lives, thanks for not writing me off as a lost-cause mental case, as I know for a fact some have.

It may be the careful season, but this careful season, however heavy my body is, I know I am lucky.