<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="">I wrote this a few days ago while on a vacation but it didn’t get delivered so I just thought I’d try again and throw this out to contribute:<div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>...I'm away from my home-library now so can’t pull books out to refresh my memory, but my feeling is that Woolf suffered from the typical (ill-chosen word!) effects of childhood sexual abuse: anxiety syndromes, ptsd, depression, mood swings, etc., even hearing voices, and dissociation are very common... See Louise DeSalvo's 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 <i class="">denial-hat</i> to avoid the sexual abuse issue in her life (and Vanessa’s!), and with it the terrible psychological wounds that that abuse imparted. (As well suffering at such a young age the traumas so many sudden deaths of those she loved…) Her “symptoms” don’t seem to be very mysterious in light of the fateful events during her most formative years…and none of that matters to me just as Beethoven's psychology or Plath’s or O’Keefe’s or Hemmingway’s or... matter….it is the genius of their genres, the art they gave us that I am ever so grateful for…..of course…..</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Laurie🦋</div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
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<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Mar 10, 2018, at 6:23 AM, Christine Froula via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" class="">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
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<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><p class="">I've always cherished a New York Times Book Review heading from
long ago, perhaps about VW's essays when they were coming out: <br class="">
</p><p class="">Exceptionally Sane Most of the Time<br class="">
</p>
<br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/10/2018 6:54 AM, Madelyn Detloff
via Vwoolf wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:FB94173C-2E50-491B-A969-E24C2ED039FC@miamioh.edu" class="">
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<div class="">I hesitate to enter this conversation again, since we have
had forms of it for years on this list and it always seems to
devolve into an either or - either trauma or neuroaffective
atypicality as if we are not allowed to imagine that Woolf might
have been a survivor of sexual abuse and someone who may have
had a condition that looks like what we call bipolar disorder
or some other atypicality that she lived with while also being a
prolific author and critic. There is stigma connected to each
hypothesis that we ought to challenge. What I wish for us as a
community of scholars is that we don’t fall prey to the desire
to ‘rescue’ Woolf’s reputation from one stigma by reinforcing
the stigma of the other hypothesis. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">There have been a number of well meaning posts that
nevertheless participate in ableist logic and language regarding
neuroaffective atypicality. Woolf was not “crazy” or “insane”
whether or not she experienced something like bipolar disorder,
or PTSD, or some mixture of both (I happen to think both is
quite likely). To be sure, there has been a lot of damage done
in the name of psychiatry, medicine, other various forms of
‘cure’ that aim to normalize our body minds. We ought to expose
and critique that damage. But I think we can do that without
suggesting that people who take medicine or other therapies for
neuroaffective atypicalities (lithium for example) are somehow
suffering from false consciousness or are to be distinguished
from “essentially sane” people who have mood swings or struggle
with PTSD. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I’ve written a little about this dilemma in the Blackwell
Companion to Woolf</div>
<div class="">
<div class=""><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__onlinelibrary.wiley.com_doi_10.1002_9781118457917.ch20_summary&d=DwMFaQ&c=yHlS04HhBraes5BQ9ueu5zKhE7rtNXt_d012z2PA6ws&r=B2e-UKKhnYe5lrEq8NEkMf9o4KvCJF-4y7Z7WnzjMp0&m=xbbBluCeP-K4-MtgVPHpJkYqCqXG-LSSAyfNwh2WPGc&s=Et8k7OcqA7iOvBFe3L8J8EYhjBtu2u_IfWhtM9rF_pU&e=" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118457917.ch20/summary</a>.
It also might be helpful to read Alison Kafer’s Feminist Queer
Crip on the ‘curative imaginary,’ as well as Margaret Price’s
Mad at School. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Please note: what I write is not directed at any one post
or poster on this list. The discussion we are having now has
a long history on this list and I worry that we are simply
repeating our positions rather than evolving them. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Best,</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Madelyn</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
<div class="">Sent from my iPad</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
On Mar 7, 2018, at 12:24 PM, Diane Reynolds via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>>
wrote:<br class="">
<br class="">
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<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">Ellen,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I have not had this question come up in
class, but it is topical and relevant. In my Quaker
meeting, we have concerns about gun control being
off-loaded, as it were, onto the mentally ill, however,
that term is defined, and we fear it will lead to
further stigmatization of mental illness, especially
bi-polar disorders—and of course, Woolf feared the
consequences of her illness. What I would emphasize with
Woolf, is that mental illness is increasingly
understood to come out of childhood trauma and that
while it is biological to some extent, our brain biology
actually changes to become more “depressive” as a result
of trauma. This is in an interesting article: <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nakedcapitalism.com_2018_02_will-2Dtake-2Dpolitical-2Drevolution-2Dcure-2Depidemic-2Ddepression.html&d=DwMFaQ&c=yHlS04HhBraes5BQ9ueu5zKhE7rtNXt_d012z2PA6ws&r=B2e-UKKhnYe5lrEq8NEkMf9o4KvCJF-4y7Z7WnzjMp0&m=xbbBluCeP-K4-MtgVPHpJkYqCqXG-LSSAyfNwh2WPGc&s=Jd3mmmzVE3W1gbC489_WNAj_Sf6tY5oCI6WYx4JohK4&e=" class="" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression.html</a> that
makes the point that if we want to reduce mental
illness, we need to fix society. This seems to me, in
the context of Woolf, a good launching point for trying
to imagine what it was like trying to grow up in that
Victorian household with abusive half brothers, a
self-absorbed father, a mother stretched too thin who
labeled her “goat” and the whole set of oppressive
mores—you well know the drill—that beset her. </div>
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