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.

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!

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.