Reading about Virginia is making me so frustrated.
I know those feelings all too well. "Her incurable madness- this 'whirring of the wings in the brain'" -PwaN pg 171
Using anything to dull the pain. Anything that would work.
Anything that would get us to that mysterious sense of self.. Because neuroscience still has no idea what holds all of our fragments of mind together.
THIS is horrifying to me:
As Woolf began to write the novel, in the fall of 1922, shell shock was starting to be recognized as a genuine psychiatric illness. Elaine Showalter has pointed out that doctors treated this new scourge using the same blunt tools they had been using on women such as Woolf for more than twenty years. These treatments included drugging the patients with bromides, confining them to bed and force-feeding them milk, and pulling their teeth, which was believed to lower the temperature of the body. Other unfortunate patients got the fever cure, in which psychosis was treated with an injection of malaria, tuberculosis, or typhoid. The Nobel Prize was awarded for this sadistic treatment in 1927.pg 173 ftnote
Fuck. Even just being confined to bed would drive me to suicide when I was at my worst. I promise you that.
And we may look at this and cringe.. but look at our nation now. How many pills are out there? To cover up our symptoms? I took meds eventually for my family.. because I was hard to live with.
And I've been ashamed of my mental illness.
ASHAMED
Fuck that.
I've worked on myself a lot. And now I'd like a therapist to compare me to any "healthy. normal" person. Who is more empathetic? How do our morals compare? Who eats better? Who gets decent exercise?
Surely not the ex-psychotic!
Maybe if we learn how to treat each other properly..
ourselves..
Maybe if we stop trying to "fix" ourselves for other people.
Maybe if we look around and build ourselves building blocks from the beginning...
We wouldn't fall so far.
We wouldn't feel so cornered.
Helpless.
Alone.
Powerless.
Stretching our bodies out to their full length.
Breathing in and out with purpose.
Experiencing things that make our sensations soar.
Sharing all kinds of feelings with like minded people.
And getting to the point where we can focus enough to learn what makes us excited.
And then learning it.
Or doing it.
And learn how to survive and keep our perspectives straight in this consumer priority society.
What matters to us?
For me. My bike. It keeps me in shape and happy.
My cat. He's my partner in crime.
My out of the box relationships and the lifestyle that fits me best.
Listening to my gut.
Loving as many people as I can.
Sharing with as many people as I can.
LEARNING.
What if Woolf was misdiagnosed?
What if she just didn't fit.
It's hard when you just don't fit.
And more and more I'm realizing it's really quite ok that I don't.
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