I’ve Been Afraid of Virginia Woolf

I’ve Been Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Word Count: 1,631

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder this week. To say I am devastated is putting it lightly. I am bipolar after all, really big feelings are to be expected. I have fervently researched every treatment, workbook, and memoir. I learned that my life expectancy is years less than that of my peers who do not suffer from mental illness. I cried over what I could pass down to my children in my new, slightly sedated haze. I feel tainted. I am a poison infecting those around me. I have researched MAID laws and mental illness. It felt too hard to bear.

Did you know you can text 988 in a mental health crisis? The morning of my diagnosis, it felt like my mind was screaming. 988 put me on hold. The person who finally responded only wanted to know whether I was a danger to myself. Suicide would be a relief, but I don’t want to die. I have plans to grow old surrounded by my family. Hello 988, can you tell me how to find a solution to making it fucking quiet in my head for a few hours other than inducing a dirt nap?

What’s for dinner, what’s for dinner, what’s for dinner? Endless nights of wondering what to do with chicken or ground beef. I could feel my sadness coming for days, maybe even weeks. It’s as if my depression is a ghost, growing in strength, becoming more corporeal until it consumes me. I feel powerless to stop it. I was desperate for some distraction to ward it off. I thought I would attend a creative writing course at my local library. It served as my beacon of hope. I felt as if I could make it; I would find someone with a brain like mine. I was searing raw, pink chicken chunks when I realized class was starting. Even if I had been there, I am so tired of talking. What does it matter? The act of opening my mouth, expelling air, positioning my tongue and teeth correctly, and making a sound is so much energy wasted. No one is listening. Flat faces and hollow eyes are all around me. I feel like a stranger in my own life.

I first saw the movie, The Hours, when I was 19. It follows the lives of three women throughout time, connected by the book Mrs. Dalloway. One of these women is author Virginia Woolf. The audience follows her final days before her inevitable death. I remember moody scenes and stunningly beautiful, sad women. I had never witnessed women such as them. I was raised in a conservative, Baptist cult. I was taught women were supposed to be cheerful in all things. Hair and makeup should be styled the day before you leave the house. Clothing should be flattering and modest. I was enamored with Julianne Moore’s character, Laura Brown. I had never related to a character as complex as this before. She was a 1950s housewife and all the things I was conditioned to be, but she was miserable. She was sad, truly depressed. I loved her, understood her, and I was disgusted by her behavior. Perhaps the scene in which she kissed her neighbor, a woman, was what has really stayed with me throughout the years. What if she had been allowed to be herself? What if the energy she used baking dozens of failed cakes for her husband had instead been used to write dozens of sapphic love letters or snap dozens of pictures of the people she loved? Would she have felt better? Would she have gone to the hotel with her bottles of pills?

Prior to seeing The Hours, I didn’t even know who Virginia Woolf was. At the time, I loved British literature and had secret daydreams of being a writer. She became my patron saint of depression as I worked my way through her most famous writings. In the decades since, I have returned to Virginia Woolf and the Mrs. Dalloway women of The Hours. I was aware of their innate mournfulness. I, too, can revel in the comfort of sadness. I will never be able to look those women in the eyes, but I am certain I would see eyes that echo mine: haunted, nervous eyes that can never see enough goodness to erase the horrors witnessed in such a short life. War, grief, sexual abuse, and trauma are understood across generations in the eyes of women.

In the depths of my darkest depression, I read Virginia Woolf’s suicide note. Even as I’m doing it, I know it isn’t healthy. Now, knowing we share the same mental illness, it’s as if I knew all along. Did I know? I can’t be certain. I felt I was superior. I would assure myself I wasn’t as sick or as crazy. There were also times it felt like I was reading a prophecy. That warmed me inside, and I felt sick by my morbid fascination. In my really dark times, I imagine myself walking into the water, stones in my pockets, and simply drifting away. I long for the silence.

I read it for comfort. I am connected to her through illness, and I feel empathy. A life of being poked and analyzed, shuffled about to find the place that she was most comfortable, they were most comfortable around her. I am certain she was minimized and often not part of the conversations regarding her care. She was encouraged to stay, to be strong. Her simple existence already felt like more effort than she could bear. I can hear the hushed tones of her caregivers like whispers in church. The hushed tones make you feel ashamed because you already know you’re acting crazy. The hushed tones mean everyone else noticed. Now you’re a problem to solve.

She took the pills and felt relief, but it didn’t last. She moved to a quieter place and felt the prescribed peace for a while. Why didn't she feel as happy as everyone else? She sought love to fill the hollow, but instead felt immense guilt over the burden she placed on those around her. She obsessed over the details of her life, attempting to find the meaning in her pain. She threw herself into her writing, but it was never gone for long. It was lurking somewhere nearby, and it whispered to her before she noticed the whispers about her. It was never gone forever. The nervousness reappeared.

Getting out of bed already felt like the stones in her pockets that would weigh her down in death. The anxious buzz across her skin was already the frigid river water. She heard the hushed tones. They had followed her in some way throughout her life. She greeted the river with a silent, hollow stare. Why speak aloud? It was too much energy to waste. The rushing river and some stones drowned out her hushed tones. She heard the scream of the current, and finally, she plunged into the silence.

But looking at the river is not the same as drowning.

Laura Brown planned all the details of her death in a way that demonstrated her desire to prevent an inconvenience to her family. She placed the pills in her purse and left her son with the babysitter. She drove to the hotel and checked in. She entered her room, lay down on the bed with her copy of Mrs Dalloway, and fell asleep. When she awakened, she left the hotel room. She drove home to her child and husband and presented them with a perfect birthday cake. No one was even aware of how close she had come. She left the hotel room. She didn’t know what would happen next, but she chose to bear it, even knowing it would be hard. Laura had her own hushed tones that followed her. She was aware of the other housewives' murmurs and knew she was the topic. She felt inferior to them. She felt guilty for not loving her life more. She loved her husband and son, but failed to find the cure that would give her the same happiness as everyone else. Why can’t I feel happiness? I imagine she felt as I do at times, smiling on the outside but screaming on the inside.

“It would be wonderful to say you’re sorry. But what does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean when you have no choice? It’s what you can bear. There it is.”-Laura Brown, The Hours.

Virginia was carried away by the weight of her illness, and I cannot find it in my heart to criticize her. The emotional pain of an episode is debilitating. In those moments, it feels like drowning. Virginia went into the river, while Laura walked out of the hotel room. When I look at my new medications and upcoming therapy sessions, I am standing in Laura’s hotel room with a choice. Choosing to leave the room doesn’t mean I am cured, but I choose to bear it.

Yesterday was the perfect late spring day. Robin’s egg blue skies and a gentle breeze. I was so tired. I found myself laying a blanket under the tree in my backyard and resting. Eventually, my children found me. They are on the cusp of their teen years, and the dynamic of our relationship is changing. They lay down beside me and enjoyed the quiet. There it was: in the stillness, my hushed tones became the gentle breeze rustling the leaves above us. They are my reason to bear it.

There is always a reason to stay if you can find your gentle breeze. Please don’t go.

Hello 988, here in the dirt with my children, is the reason to stay.