Jennie Bristow on abortion and mental illness:
The glib assumption that life’s difficulties lead directly to mental illness is a problem on two main fronts. Firstly, it simplifies this extremely complex field, and thereby acts as a barrier to understanding specific cases of mental illness, diverting expertise and resources away from those who need them. Secondly, it contributes to a brittle and one-sided understanding of normal human emotion, which implies that happiness is the emotional norm and all deviations from this should be pathologised as illness.
And:
….an attempt to regulate women’s emotions according to how they ‘should’ be feeling is profoundly unhelpful. Most would agree that it is unreasonable to expect that a woman who has had an abortion will be ‘happy’ as a result. Abortion is not a choice women make to improve their lives, but a resolution to the unexpected problem of unintended or unwanted pregnancy – the least bad option in the circumstances.
If the negative emotions that may follow this event are pathologised as markers for mental illness rather than accepted as normal and understandable reactions, this de-contextualises women’s experiences and dehumanises their emotional reactions. The question should not be whether a woman feels happy or sad immediately following an abortion, because all women may feel differently and there is no ‘right’ way of feeling. Rather, the question should be: was that decision the best one for her to make in terms of the rest of her life?
The decision being hers to make. All this should be easy to understand. Why is it not? The reason I’m linking to this is because even though abortion is legal in India, social myths and attitudes persist. I once had a conversation with someone about this. I asked what he thought happened to women who have abortions. I was very young at the time so the question was a bit clumsy but he was a bit older and his answer was ‘they probably become mentally disturbed, commit suicide maybe.’ Right.
I don’t blame him for this view really because it’s symptomatic of the larger ideas drilled into many of my generation. Men, especially, often have wide-eyed and hypersensitive ideas about what it means to get through certain tough life events. I’m not sure where they get these ideas but I think it would help if they had actual conversations with women who’ve been through them. There is a fine balance between diminishing someone’s pain and defining them by that pain. Neither extreme does a woman any favours.
This Ultra Violet post talked about how we should be able to talk about abortion more openly (though not casually). This is necessary, I think, in pin-pricking some notions or at least discussing them. Achieving this in actuality is far more difficult because it remains a society where sex and sexual mistakes are quite stigmatised. Some women may not want to talk about something that was probably traumatic or emotional but others would not have a problem if they were assured there’d be no backlash. Like a host of cyber-stalkers who think they’re ‘loose’, for example.
Things may have changed in the new gen of Indians (those in their twenties now) but clearly, the assumption that someone who undergoes such a ‘terrible thing’ really has no way to live a ‘normal’ life ever again is/was quite common. There are levels and levels, different reactions and a lot depends on what attitudes shaped you before and the coping mechanisms you had access to after. The one-size-fits-all thing is so ridiculous that it’s surprising feminists have to keep refuting this.
So is the belief that you’re meant to be feeling whoop-dee all the time or you need psychological fixing. Frankly, I would find permanent happiness dreadfully boring. Not to mention, it wouldn’t help the writing any.
This is very topical.
First, I think Bitch magazine had an article a (long) while ago on something similar, it was called The Collapsible Woman. It spoke about how in the aftermath of a rape, a woman is expected to play the part of a “victim” in the worst possible way and to the hilt. It is assumed that if she is not crushed and crumbling to pieces every single moment for months to come, the damage of the assault must be not that great. She needs to “develop” depression and then “overcome” (I don’t quite know how.) Her whole life thereby reduced to a sum of that one act of violation and societal code for appropriate post-rape behavior.
Also – as someone has some visibility in the inner circle of clinical psychology I can vouch for this – a whole lot of women are more likely to suffer from post-partum depression in this country and they don’t even know it. And no one considers it significant enough to speak about because ohdeardamnedgod! how could the birth of a baby leads to any negative feelings. Besides, from a mental health standpoint, for a person to experience mood swings, depression et al, there is an assortment of reasons that can be evaluated (borderline personality, moods disorders, hypomania, inherited predispositions). This has less to to with biology and more to do with society. A very good example of this is a syndrome called learned helplessness and women experience it more frequently than men because its more readily enforced upon them.
It would do well for a lot of women to read Karen Horney.
http://bitchmagazine.org/article/the-collapsible-woman – The article I was speaking about in the earlier comment. Also an excellent summation of how we tend to pigeonhole women with such relative ease when it comes to mental health.
Incidentally a brand for sanitary napkins called “She” is running adverts openly proclaiming that women are, in all probability, faking menstrual cramps and with this magical contraption- She – they do not have to make excuses about to menses related discomfort/sharp pangs of pain et al to pop out of official meetings and presentations (and spend the day snoozing at their desks) or preparing a 6 course meal for dear husband. Because the family/work should not suffer just because you have a deathly abdominal pain or if your back has given in.
(I also don’t know how is a sanitary napkin supposed to address these problems. )
I think I will write something about this. God knows its infuriating enough!
about menses*
This is a thoughtfully written post.
I like what Jennie Bristow says about life’s difficulties and their relationship to mental illness. There is no doubt some connection, but it’s far more complex than the ‘good life equals eternal happiness’ formula many people believe in.