Katherine May

I learned to winter young. As one of the many girls of my age whose autism went undiagnosed, I spent a childhood permanently out in the cold. At seventeen, I was hit with a bout of depression so hard that it immobilised me for months. I was convinced that I would not survive it. I was convinced that I didn’t want to. But somewhere there, in the depths, I found the seed of a will to live, and its tenacity surprised me. More than that, it made me strangely optimistic. Winter had blanked me, blasted me wide open. In all that whiteness, I saw the chance to make myself new again.

Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.

People admired me for how much I got done. I lapped it up, but felt secretly that I was only trying to keep pace with everyone else, and they seemed to be coping far better.