On This Day: March 28, 1941

TO: LEONARD WOOLF
Rodmell,
Sussex
Tuesday (18? March 1941)

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

March 28, 1941. After writing that note to her husband, Virginia Woolf put rocks in her pockets and drowned herself in the River Ouse.

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26 Responses to On This Day: March 28, 1941

  1. SouthernBoSox says:

    “I owe all the happiness of my life to you.” This line always makes me cry-

  2. roo says:

    Thank goodness for the progress of science and psychopharmaceuticals.

    She doesn’t sound crazy, does she? She just sounds like someone who has experienced terrible times, and knows what they look like when they come ’round again. Back then, she might have been right that there was no hope for her recovery.

    Poor woman. I’m glad she lived as long as she did.

    • Todd Restler says:

      From Wikipedia: “Worldwide suicide rates have increased by 60% in the past 50 years, mainly in the developing countries.”

      Just saying.

  3. ted says:

    It was today, I had forgotten. I’m sitting with VW for a moment and must read something of her’s again. We’re so lucky she saw the world as she did and could write about it.

    • sheila says:

      Such an original voice. What I am most struck by in this note is its self-awareness. What breaks my heart (for some reason, among other things) is her unsure-ness of the date. That is the only place in this eloquent note where I see how disoriented she must have been.

  4. roo says:

    @Todd–
    1.- not every suicide is the result of bipolar or schizophrenia.
    2.- just because help is available doesn’t mean people avail themselves of it– whether because they don’t recognize their need for help (unlike V.W. , who clearly did), because they’re ashamed to seek help, or because they can’t afford it.

    Just saying.

  5. sheila says:

    Roo – No, to me she doesn’t sound crazy at all. She knew what was coming, having been through it so many times before, and couldn’t face it. Also, that was such a dark dark time for England – I think the doom of war is also in this letter. Or maybe that’s just me projecting. I just feel the darkness surrounding her.

  6. sheila says:

    And my experience with psychopharmaceuticals (although I wasn’t nearly as sick as VW was – not even close – I was just depressed) was that it handled the symptoms – the symptoms that were causing me the most anguish (insomnia, free-floating unbearable anxiety, and random 3 a.m. yearnings for death – Death would have at least given me a REST) – Once the symptoms were quenched by the drugs, I actually could have some clarity of thought – and I also could get some REST. It was the lack of REST that was exacerbating everything, ratcheting everything up. The drugs certainly saved my ass.

    And no more “just saying” back and forth, please. Not sure where that is coming from, but surely we can talk about VW and madness without that tone. Come on now!!

  7. ted says:

    Most ‘crazy’ people don’t sound crazy most of the time, Roo, unless they’re hallucinating or delusional. What’s so crazy is that they are sick and can seem utterly sane while having the most bizarre experiences. I am struck by VW’s self-possession and also her tenderness. She had lived and created quite a lot by the time she was 60. The whole world was at war, she had lost the press and her London home – so she had blitzes inside and out – and she took control in a most definitive way.

  8. sheila says:

    Ted – you know more about her than I do, but it is my sense that Leonard Woolf was a huge part of her surviving as long as she did. She had been mentally ill since she was a teenager (is that right?) and his love and care of her gave her a safe space in which to operate and do her work – This might not have been the case if she had lived at home, or been “on her own” – where her demons might have had even more sway on her. He took care of her – far better than an institution at that time would – and she owed him much. I am so present to that in her loving letter to him. She knew what it had provided (and also what it cost him).

  9. roo says:

    I’m sorry about the tone– Todd’s first comment tweaked me, and I responded in kind.

    There are a lot of people who think that medical treatment for mental illness is a bunch of hooey. I liken these folks to those who refuse to vaccinate their children, because of unfounded fears of autism. A brain is a real, physical organ that runs on real chemicals. Sometimes medical intervention is not only important, but can be life-saving.

    This is a separate issue from the arguable over-prescription of anti-depressants for mild cases of depression. Comparing bipolar to ennui is like comparing a drumroll to an earthquake.

    As for my initial comment about V.W.: Todd, I am fully aware that many mentally ill people don’t sound crazy. You aren’t familiar with my history, or my sense, while reading that letter, of “There but by the grace of god (or science, or lithium) go I,” so you misunderstood what I was getting at.

    This feeling was heightened reading Sheila’s recent review of “Suddenly Last Summer,” accompanying thoughts about the fate of Tennessee Williams’ sister, and a stark recognition of the options available to the mentally ill in any time before the present (and we have a long way to go.)

  10. roo says:

    Oops– please direct the latter part of my comment to Ted. Sorry, Ted.

  11. sheila says:

    Roo – I don’t blame you for responding in kind – I probably would have myself (especially since I know a little bit of your personal history with this stuff) – and having a Wikipedia statistic given to you when you know something PERSONALLY is quite annoying.

    there’s a lot of assumptions going on in this thread, so let’s just stop it.

    And Todd, if you have something to add besides a Wikipedia stat, then by all means share it – but if that’s all you have to say, then I really wish you would refrain. Sorry to pull rank but again: come on now, people! Let’s be kind to one another and stop making assumptions about where people are coming from.

    • Todd Restler says:

      My apologies, Sheila and Roo.

      I knew that would rub some the wrong way. I was just trying to point out that it’s debatable whether she could have been “saved” by modern medicine or psychopharmaceuticals.

      Roo mentioned the “arguable over-prescription of anti-depressants”. To me there is nothing arguable about it, especially with regard to putting children on meds as a matter of course. These drugs are big business first, as is all of “medicine”.

      Of course if someone is being helped by drugs then they should take them. It’s just that I think the jury is still out, at least in my mind. Why are suicide rates increasing if these drugs work?

      I was certainly not trying to offend, and I know this is a “hot button” for a lot of people.

      • sheila says:

        Well you should have said that in the first place. Of course a Wikipedia stat with “Just saying” is going to rub pretty much everyone the wrong way, Todd.

        A couple of us here have experience with drugs, serious depression, mental illness, and worse – and while you are not expected to know that – let’s try to talk to one another as though we are not assuming the other person is an idiot. Let’s start there.

        I am glad there is nothing “arguable” about it to you, but there sure is a better way to discuss it than the way you originally chose.

        • sheila says:

          Additionally, if you know this is a “hot button” for people, then you should tread more carefully.

          Just saying.

          • Todd Restler says:

            My bad. Can I do over that first post? I have a habit of putting foot in mouth, or prematurely hitting “post” as the case may be.

          • sheila says:

            Haha. Let’s just leave it. It’s okay.

            Just know that most of us here have good intentions,and just try to speak to everyone with respect. Trust that everyone is coming from a good place, out of their own truth. This is not true on other more combative sites – where you have lots of angry jostling for position – but it IS true on mine.

            Roo and I have been reading each other’s sites for years – 2003? 2004? So I know where she is coming from – and again, while I don’t expect you to know that by some sort of osmosis, your first comment was abrupt and jarring. You obviously have strong feelings on the matter – and we all do! – it’s a huge issue – but I suggest that this thread is perhaps not the place to get into it.

            We’re all good now.

  12. sheila says:

    And yes, I think her awareness of the brutality of the psychiatric treatment at that time (which she had experienced firsthand – which people like Rose Williams and Lucia Joyce and Zelda Fitzgerald all also experienced) – and fearing that that would probably be where she would end up eventually … took away any sense of a safety net. Her reserves were shot. England was going into a long war again. They were being bombarded from the skies. It just was too much.

  13. roo says:

    Sheila, I think you and Ted hit it on the head.

    “The whole world was at war, she had lost the press and her London home – so she had blitzes inside and out – and she took control in a most definitive way.”

    This makes me feel impotent and angry. And breaks my heart.

  14. sheila says:

    It is heartbreaking. You can see why they called it a storm in the brain – such a frightening image. She knew it.

    At least she had had the peace and quiet to write (afforded by her husband) for years … she did quite well, all things considered. Much better than Lucia Joyce or Rose Williams. Of course there are degrees of illness – and I don’t know their diagnoses and all the specifics of it (I happen to think Rose Williams was misdiagnosed entirely).

  15. sheila says:

    In other words – I don’t think she was ill at all. I think the treatment MADE her ill. My two cents. She may have had some borderline issues, and anxiety issues – and sexual repression issues – but severe schizophrenia? I think she was brutally mistreated, misdiagnosed, and the treatmens she was given MADE her ill.

  16. ted says:

    Sorry too if I made any uninformed assumptions.

    VW’s time and place was not a fortunate one in which to be mentally ill. There was still a big holdover from the mid 19th century and earlier times in terms of the treatment received, despite the fact that Freud and his descendants had been practising with important new insights and successes for close to 50 years. VW’s main treatment for her illness was confinement, bed rest, and arrowroot biscuits.

    As you say, S., we certainly have a lot to thank Leonard for in the fact that she could live and create at all. They were a remarkable partnership and I cannot think how she would have survived her illness alone. She was a sensitive creature to life (thank goodness vis a vis her writing) but she was wounded by the abuse she was the victim of in her adolescence and of living in a context where that sort of thing went unspoken, as it was a society that did not question the authority of men of means. I think we are all lucky she wrote a long and as prolifically as she did. I could read The Waves until I drop.

  17. sheila says:

    Ted – He made sacrifices in his own life so that she could be free to work. Rather an extraordinary man, I’m thinking. He also seemed to not bully her too much about her lesbianism – it existed, and she seemed free to actually BE with it, rather than have to pretend it didn’t exist. Would you say that was true?

    I am not sure her thoughts on her sexuality. If she had shame about loving women – I’m sure she did, yes? But imagine if she had been married to a man who demanded that she be a “normal wife” and how traumatic that would have been for her.

    Rather an amazing man – a very very good match, all things considered.

  18. ted says:

    He was extraordinary. It seemed to me that his love for her was that ideal kind you hear about in literature. The kind that loved unquestioningly. He didn’t bully her, maybe, because he knew her attraction to Vita didn’t lessen her love for him, or what they had together. Perhaps he might say that he got as much from their love as he gave, so he didn’t need to consider it a slight to himself that she loved Vita any more than he had to be threatened by her devotion to her writing. There is a multi-volume published diary of Leonard Woolf’s that I had read at one time. I remember admiring his liberalism greatly and I could probably do with a re-read of it at some point.

    She lived at an experimental time and was among the bold experimenters of her generation. In the company of her sister, Duncan Grant, Maynard Keynes, Lytton Stratchey, Dora Carrington and the like, there would have been ample precedent for living an individual and original existence. She seemed a creature ill served by convention. I seem to recall that she was a little surprised at herself for marrying Leonard, but that they made each other very happy.

    Those grand, grand people.

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