Virginia Woolf Mental Illness

Virginia Woolf
Imagine hearing voices that don’t actually exist. Imagine seeing the bodies that accompany these voices. Imagine searching for a way to cope. Finding a distraction, an escape, could become a coping mechanism. Virginia Woolf experienced both of these types of hallucinations, and she found her escape through writing. Woolf wrote through stream of consciousness writing. The reason she wrote in this manner is attributable to her mental illness.
During Woolf’s lifespan, mental illness was not a topic often discussed. Doctors of the time diagnosed two types of “madness” in women: hysteria and neurasthenia. Doctors saved the diagnosis of neurasthenia for the middle and upper classes, but they essentially used no criteria other than

5). At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Woolf lived, the views on treatment of mental illness began to evolve (Holtzman, par. 3). Throughout the nineteenth century, treatment of mental illness occurred through institutionalization, the act of separating the individual from society and their family, and placing them in an asylum or a hospital (Fane-Saunders, par. 1). Woolf lived during a time when an alternative to institutionalization had started to become available. This alternative, the rest cure, allowed the patient to stay at home with family, but on bedrest. The idea behind the rest cure was to build the nervous system back up through rest and food. This often led to overeating (Briggs, An Inner Life

Depressive episodes consist of : a morose mood most of the day, diminished pleasure in activities, weight loss, insomnia, fidgeting, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, thoughts of death or suicide, and diminished concentration (“Bipolar and Related Disorders” 67). Records of Woolf experiencing several of these episodes exist. The first occurred after her mother’s death in 1895. After this, periods of depression often plagued Woolf after the completion of a novel (Briggs, An Inner Life 38). These episodes came with the cessation of the hallucinations (Briggs “Virginia Woolf Meets Sigmund Freud” par. 21), but also of creativity (Carmango 70). Woolf once said of her novel To the Lighthouse “When it was written, I ceased to be obsessed with my mother. I no longer hear her voice; I do not see her…”(qtd. in Briggs, “Virginia Woolf Meets Sigmund Freud” par. 22).
Woolf wrote through stream of consciousness and interior monologues (Pederson 405). Webster’s New World College defines stream of consciousness as “designating, of, or, using a narrative technique whereby the thoughts, precepts, etc., of one or more of the characters of a novel, short story, etc. are rendered in a direct, free-flowing manner.” This type of writing allows the writer to present the motives