When everything seems hopeless just take one day at a time. And if one day becomes too much, just take one hour at a time. And if one hour becomes too much, then just take one minute at a time.
A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.
When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.
She scooped up a handful of snow and squeezed it between her fingers. Heavy and wet, the snow packed easily. Sansa began to make snowballs, shaping and smoothing them until they were round and white and perfect. She remembered a summer’s snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They’d each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she’d had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she’d slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn’t, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing.
What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There’s no one to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand. I could build a snow knight instead, she thought. Or even …
She pushed two of her snowballs together, added a third, packed more snow in around them, and patted the whole thing into the shape of a cylinder. When it was done, she stood it on end and used the tip of her little finger to poke holes in it for windows. The crenellations around the top took a little more care, but when they were done she had a tower. I need some walls now, Sansa thought, and then a keep. She set to work.
He made a queer sound, and it took her a moment to realize he was sobbing. “And the little bird, yourprettysister, I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have.
This is one of my favorite places on the planet and seeing it be ruined for unnecessary development would break my heart.
It takes 2 minutes. There aren’t many more signatures they need left, go help out please. It’s worth your time.
When everything seems hopeless just take one day at a time. And if one day becomes too much, just take one hour at a time. And if one hour becomes too much, then just take one minute at a time.
terrifying your own child into submission makes you an abuser.
watching your child cry and screaming at them to stop and invalidating their pain and reasons for crying makes you an abuser.
staring at your child in disgust and contempt after they displease you makes you an abuser.
threatening to your child to take away their basic resources if they don’t give you exactly what you want makes you an abuser.
forcing your child to feel ashamed for not living up to your ideals makes you an abuser.
using slurs, hateful names and insults on your own child without any regard to what it does to their mental health makes you an abuser.
forcing your child to chase impossible expectations and making them feel like they’re worthless for not achieving them makes you an abuser.
acting like your child is a burden and a waste of space and blaming their illness/disability/depression on it makes you an abuser.
behaving like your child will never amount to anything and isn’t worth any resources and nurturing makes you an abuser.
making your child feel like they’re never good enough makes you an abuser.
if your child’s heart is hurting because they know no matter what they do and how hard they try they will always be a failure in your eyes, you are an abuser.
if your child can’t look at themselves without self hatred because they had to look at themselves from your perspective and all they saw is disgust and hatred, you’re an abuser.
If your child is struggling to believe they have the right to live and to be cared and loved, if they can’t stop hearing your hateful voice putting them down and using their every action to prove they’re worthless, you’re an abuser.
If you watched your child in pain and assured them they deserved it, you’re an abuser.
If your child can’t love themselves from how badly you hated them, you’re an abuser.
An interesting one from my own experience:
Convincing your child they will fail at anything they try, or that they’ll die young, because you used scare tactics like “do you want to end up a loser because you didn’t do (X)?” or “just wait until you get (disease) because you didn’t listen to me!” as a way to ‘motivate’ them makes you an abuser.
Using any form of negative reinforcement or feedback so recklessly and severely that your child internalizes all the negativity you throw at them makes you an abuser.
An inability to help or motivate your child into good behaviors without traumatizing threats, however indirect – and, likewise, a refusal to assess why your child may be engaging in bad behaviors – makes you an abuser.
life is not a song 