Ramblings on Woolf
I think often of Woolf and the way we treated her.
There is much to say about the Muse and its slipping existence from the creative world. How as time passed, creatives stopped placing their abilities on this phantom Muse, stopped attributing part of their successes and failures to this creature that supposedly possessed them with these abilities. If you’re uncertain of what I speak, please consider this TED talk:
Virginia Woolf is someone I’ve placed a lot of kinship in. She, like me, struggled with depression, struggled with staying alive, and found solace and peace in her writing. And as her days passed her by, as more doctors claimed writing was her ailment, her womanhood was her sickness, they locked her up and kept her writing time ever more limited. Of course, Woolf got worse, and her depression grew larger and more threatening. The sorrow I feel for her is immense. I think of what life she could’ve lived had she simply been better treated, had our diagnosis of women and our diagnosis of mental health been prioritized at an earlier date. Even today, I find my own mental health considered as simple “ups and downs,” that they are something everyone goes through instead of the lengthy, dark nights full of heavy weights pinned to my chest. The help I received early on was minimal, and not entirely what was needed. I blame no one but the lack of knowledge and openness on depression and its similars by the overall medical community. Just like I don’t blame Woolf’s husband, who was desperately trying to help, but was caught in a world who didn’t see Woolf’s ailments for what they were. We lost an incredible woman to depression, to depression she had handled before, that she was working on, until she could no longer write more than an hour a day. We are better now, perhaps, with our drugs, our therapies, our words. There is better understanding, though there is still plenty of misinformation about forcing a smile, about being happy and choosing that for yourself. It is my hope that we lose no more Woolfs, that we continue to take mental health seriously, that our numbers of deaths and suicides go down as we study the field and help our fellows.
Woolf has written some of my favorite books, and her knowledge and composure is something I will admire forever. I only wish she could have lived to a happier end.