<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">As I’m on vacation in Vancouver so away from my library, I’ll just say very briefly without much back-up to provide, that Woolf suffered from the standard, to use an ill-chosen word, effects of childhood sexual abuse— anxiety attacks, depression, ptsd, etc. See, of course, <b class="">Louise De Salvo’s </b>books about Woolf and sexual abuse. I think DeSalvo debunks, quite efficiently, the idea that Woolf was “crazy” or whatever diagnosis one wants to pull out of one’s denial-hat to avoid the sexual abuse in her life (and Vanessa’s!) and the terrible psychological wounds that imparted. As well as at such an early age, the traumas of the sudden deaths of those she was so close to…warmly,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Laurie Reiche of San Francisco now in Vancouver!<br class=""><div class="">
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<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Mar 7, 2018, at 8:24 AM, Ellen Moody via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" class="">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">I would like to know how others in classroom respond to students saying as a (somewhat settled diagnosis) that Virginia Woolf was 'bi-polar."</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">When I resisted partly because since age 9 I have known depression, anxiety-attacks, panic and a whole array of mental problems let's say and I find each new fashionable set of terms from schizophrenic to bi-polar unconvincing. Too simplistic, too reductive.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">But I listened and what I seemed to hear was this diagnosis of "bi-polar" made Woolf into a "sane" person who had deep mood swings - from say productive, cheerful and "strong" to some snakepit of breakdown, despair, suicidal impulses. As used, it seemed a normalzing tool, as if were to make Woolf more acceptable</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">They said they found it in a New York Times article which was trying to sell Cornwall as a place to go through the association with To the Lighthouse. On this I remarked that literally To the Lighthouse is situated in the Hebrides (I see a connection and memory of Johnson and Boswell here too), another place on the edge of the British mainland...</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/travel/virginia-woolf-cornwall.html" class="">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/travel/virginia-woolf-cornwall.html</a></span></span></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><br class=""></span></span></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><font color="#222222" face="Arial" size="2" class="">How do or would others handle this.</font></span></span></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><font color="#222222" face="Arial" size="2" class=""></font></span></span><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><font color="#222222" face="Arial" size="2" class="">Ellen Moody</font></span></span></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><br class=""></span></span></div><div class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><br class=""></span></span></div></div>
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