Random Thoughts and Virginia Woolf

"Man can respect nature and advance. We know this because a man can have a wife and a hobby."

Tolkien Boy shared this quote with me from one of the many writings he was grading. I thought it was beautifully fatuous, yet regrettably compelling. Kind of like staring at a horribly ugly painting while a museum guide tells you all the reasons one should love it, although perhaps fine art, no matter how hideous, is too sophisticated to be used in comparison with my choice of quote.

Which reminds me, I have a favorite artist. The surrealistic paintings of Rene Magritte have always fascinated me. This one makes me laugh:

I have always held that one should never identify too closely with another person. As I become older, however, I find myself drawn to Virginia Woolf. We have interesting similarities, some speculative, others factual. Virginia was sexually molested by her half-brothers, and suffered emotional breakdowns throughout life. She was sexually more interested in women than men, but married her husband and remained with him until she died. She had no children, so many speculate that the marriage was never consummated. I have often been fascinated by her words to and about her husband. In her diary, she once wrote:

"Love-making — after 25 years can’t bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete."

There's no question that she deeply loved her husband, and he returned that love. He watched for emotional and mental breakdowns and cared for Virginia throughout each episode. In her suicide note to him, Virginia wrote:

"I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."

The interesting thing, to me, is that Virginia Woolf considered suicide selfish and pointless. And yet, she was able to devalue her life, based on qualifying the effect her life had on one she deeply loved. I understand that. More than understanding, I identify with that. There are so many times, when I remember how Darrin has taken care of me emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I wonder about the quality of his life. I worry that my needs have overshadowed his to the point that he rarely has his needs met. I wonder about "spoiling" his life. I feel helpless, knowing that there is so much I lack, and I completely understand Virginia.

Following his wife's death, Leonard Woolf fell in love with a married woman, Trekkie Parsons, who juggled her relationships with her husband and Leonard, dividing her time each week between the two men. She was 39, Leonard was 61. Their love letters are now a published book.


Why do I wonder about this. My story is my own. But Virginia haunts me.

"I understand Nature's game -- her prompting to take action as a way of ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain."

"What is chastity then? I mean is it good, or is it bad, or is it nothing at all?...In my opinion, chastity is nothing but ignorance--a most discreditable state of mind...It is as unfair to brand women with chastity as with unchastity...Some of us haven't the opportunity of either..."

"It is the object of life to produce good people and good books."

"The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart assunder."

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end."

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I have it. I don't want it. When I was first told it was mine, I just assumed it was a nice way to say I'd experienced something out of the ordinary--duh! I had no idea that it was an actual illness that anyone can contract. It has symptoms and side-effects and people who have it often become addicted to drugs and alcohol to escape it. I was assigned to watch more than one video about addictions and how to live with them. I told my psychiatrist I didn't feel that would be helpful, since I don't drink or abuse drugs. He said addiction, in this case, refers to any behavior that is harmful, and cited cutting, anorexia, and compulsive exercise. I watched the videos.

I left the hospital with a list of assigned research projects. The one to which I'm supposed to give priority is learning more about PTSD. It doesn't make me happy. Apparently, because of this, I'll be in therapy for the rest of my life. Not once monthly type therapy, but intensive therapy for as long as it takes for me to learn how to cope with the ups and downs in healthy ways. But once I figure out how to be a real person and live, I'll still have to have checks every two to three years to be certain I'm coping healthily and not having flashbacks or uncontrollable nightmares. I'll be checked on my phobias and isolation tendencies, on my family and friend relationships, and outlook on life, in general.

I'm not sure how I feel about all this. For sure, things could be worse. The psychiatrist said that, given the extent and duration of the abuse I've endured, I'm pretty healthy and he said that's because I'm very strong. It makes me want to cry a little bit. I'm not sure why--gratitude? frustration? sorrow? Regardless, life goes on and I intend to enjoy it.

Last night I spent an hour jumping on a trampoline with my kids and their cousins. It beats the heck out of a night in the psyche ward.

Smart Psychiatrist Man Says...

Smart Psychiatrist Man (SPM) found me "fascinating." Imagine that being said dryly and emotionlessly while being stared at through watery blue eyes peering from behind relatively clean thick glasses. Apparently, after all the testing, and in spite of my family history of mental illness, the only conclusive diagnosis he can pin on me is PTSD, which I already knew I had. There is no residual chronic depression (he says that being sad is different from clinical depression). Schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, Alzheimer's, substance addiction, and clinical depression have high instance in my family--and often those illnesses can be exacerbated by PTSD. It seems, however, that I have none of those, and that my only illness is brought on by trauma/violence in my past. SPM said that was very interesting. He also said that we could treat the symptoms of PTSD with drugs if I would like that. Symptoms would include nightmares and social phobias. I asked if the drugs would be lifelong. SPM suggested that was a possibility. I asked for alternatives. He smiled and said the alternatives require much more work and can be frustrating. He said especially for the nightmares, the work was extremely intense. I asked if he was talking about guided dreams. He said yes, and then used a more official sounding term for what I've been doing since January. I explained to him the process I'd used to control my nightmares, and included the fact that I'd had a partner to help. SPM asked me why I was no longer using my methods, assuming they were no longer effective. I told him that my partner had taken the place of my cousin as my attacker. SPM's smile got larger. He said that whenever crisis occurs in the life of someone who has PTSD, it is normal for that person to feel that a close, safe person is now dangerous--hence the nightmares and other erratic behavior. SPM said he was surprised that Therapist had not taken on the role of attacker in my dreams, but then added that I was a little bit unusual. Thanks.

SPM told me that I could figure out the dreams once again, gave me some preliminary tools to use, and mapped out some guidelines he thought would be helpful. I left that particular session feeling huge relief. I've been consumed with guilt that I would dream such awful things about a loved one--especially since he would never be capable of hurting me in violent ways. I thought I was losing my mind, and I was really sad about the feelings of fear and distrust I was experiencing. The most helpful thing SPM told me was that everything I was going through was normal within the realms of PTSD. He also agrees that I don't need to be on meds for the rest of my life (or at all, if that's my choice), that my actions in the past eight months, especially with directional dreaming and increased social interaction with men (no, I didn't give details of my choice of men with whom to socialize) were proof that I could take control of those things and manage them in my life. He also was firm that I work with a therapist who had a background in dealing with PTSD, so that I'd learn to recognize symptoms and not ignore them to the point where I'd end up back in the hospital.

It's sort of hard to think about this, because I keep believing that if the trauma in my past had not occurred, I'd be really well-adjusted and normal. But then I remember that SPM said that the sum of our experiences contribute to who we are. He mentioned that parts of the psyche evaluations measure self-concept (personal beliefs about self). He said that even though I have lingering doubts about self-worth, I also have a deep belief that I'm of worth--evinced by my desire to make changes and work toward resolution of the emotional distress I'm going through. A person with less self-esteem would feel too defeated to begin, and there would be much time spent building that person to the point where actual work could begin. I don't have to do that preliminary stuff because, as SPM said, I "have a fairly high opinion of [myself], but not an inflated ego-image." That's a good thing. So even though I believe without the abuse experience I'd still be pretty amazing, the fact that it happened and I'm still me is amazing in and of itself.

I thought as I walked into the hospital that I had lost everything I've fought so hard to gain over the past eighteen months. I believe differently today. It was just one more point on the learning curve. My Bishop, Therapist Number Two (TNT), and a couple of nurses all assured me that I'm going to be okay. I believe them.