With every passing day I better understand the mothers in Victorian novels who stay in their bedrooms with the curtains closed and complain vaguely about their “nerves.”
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J S Lowry’s mother was in bed with the ‘vapours’ for most of his childhood - his painting of her bedroom after his mother died and he was inconsolable is 💔
when you know his story…a family friend fed him like a child and took him for walks till he recovered #art #mothers
I did some research on Lowry - about his potential neurodivergence and attachment theory and how it manifested in his art for a course I was on he’s very misunderstood 🎨
Amen, Sophie Gilbert! I am not watching the news these days. Bridgerton, or Call the Midwife, or my disks of Bones. Distraction. I even filled the washer and weeded a flower bed! And I have Thanksgiving dinner to start. Anything but TV news.
I can't believe my reward for everything I do is actually going into the kitchen today and making a 15lb turkey with over half a dozen side items that won't be seen again until I produce the exact same meal at Christmas.
show up and marry them. They stayed strong and stayed sane. The wicked stepmother was a woman who lost her family and remarried and was insane. Hansel and Gretel was how to survived when you got left in the woods by Mom and Dad due to lack of food in the home.
Those were the days of the little ice age in Europe. It was so cold that the Thames froze solid every year with no summers at times. Starvation and death was everywhere. The Grimm's fairy tails was all about young women and children keeping their sanity as their prince, someone with food, would
The bit that I’m increasingly leaning toward is when people in the same novels feel a bit poorly and are prescribed a week’s bed rest. Imagine that! Lay in bed for a week with some books while someone brings you tea and biscuits!
My great Nan, who was a Victorian, was a bit like that. She was widowed b young & eventually came to live with my Nan in England. Her job was the ironing but she decided to retire at 80. At 90 she decided to take to the bed. She’d use her walking stick to bang on the floor if she heard you come in
I long to be one of those spinster nannys who the family keeps on long after the children are grown and she just gets to sit in her room reading and knitting all day.
I feel the same way about Victorian mourning - the low particularly societal expectations. No engagements, the visual signs that a person is grieving and the permission to be veiled in public.
…what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my wits--and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me--such spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day.
Rats, you have a much better reason for staying in bed than I do for becoming a crotchety old man. What I’m trying to say is: take care of yourself and I’ll try and not tell anyone to get off my lawn!
Was that when America was great and your husband could haul you off to a mental asylum and say you were hysterical and you would spend the rest of your life there while he marries a 14 year old girl. Maga..
Always felt I'd like to one day reach that age where I decide to take to my bed and stay there - as long as I have a TV, a remote, an en-suite, access to wifi and hot and cold running servants.
Busy people who labor a lot don’t have a lot of time to think about their suffering whereas the rich have entirely too much time to be in their own heads thinking about how shit life is.
That’s the paradox of the poor/wealthy and why people in exploited countries paradoxically seem the happiest
Plus a lot of suffering that isn’t born of abuse is an illusion anyway. Part of our survival instinct is finding problems to solve. Key word finding problems. Idle people love to find problems where there aren’t any. That’s why Elon spends more time whining about stuff on Twitter than anyone
And being autistic doesn't help with that. Having the ability to see all of the possibilities all at the same time is something that has to be managed very carefully.
That’s also why people who live in literally the wealthiest country on planet earth are so depressed, even though their poorest person still has more money than most people in the poorest countries living on like $2 a day. I got more than that panhandling.
I once knew a Mike Davis. I was riding in his truck with him when he hit a pheasant. It flipped over the cab into the bed. He took it home and ate it. *That* was a legendary Mike Davis.
I would’ve been that strange minstrel walking around for hours playing the guitar with my baby who simply doesn’t go to sleep strapped to his back. I swear I saved my wife many neurons.
It’s a short story about a woman with “nerves.” Her husband/doctor licks her away in a room with no windows and yellow wallpaper to “get better.” Then she starts seeing people moving around in the wallpaper as he mental health worsens. It’s a quick read, but I won’t spoil the ending.
I have an artist friend that made an incredible diptych of it. We studied Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work in sociology courses. Still one of my favorite works of all time.
Oh, I’d love to see that! I was lucky enough to have a class dedicated to her for a whole semester. As a young woman in the Deep South (and all that goes along with that), I just glommed onto her words.
Going at her from a specifically sociological aspect sounds fascinating.
There is an illness in the Sherlock Holmes books. It’s called “brain fever” and is caused by a great upset in the person’s life. In “The Naval Treaty” a diplomat suffered brain fever for three months until he recovered enough to contact Sherlock Holmes for help.
Having been around at the time, there was a significant increase in the targeting of gay men. I'm not naive to think that this didn't happen before that or that it doesn't happen now. It was commentary on the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the 80's. Maybe search out statistics from that time.
I’m genuinely confused how you were around at the time of Victorian women being diagnosed with hysteria, and also what this has to do with HIV/AIDS, has there been some sort of cross posting issue here?
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when you know his story…a family friend fed him like a child and took him for walks till he recovered #art #mothers
I have made sandwiches and lunch for the kiddos on a tray in my room. They bring the ingredients and put them away after.
They bring the Door Dashb to my room and if weren't for Walmart delivery we would surely starve.
When I leave my room, everyone says, Mama is up.
I'm an older parent. It's exhausting. I live for my favorite spot in bed.
It seems unreal somehow that this is my life
Sound medical advice if you ask me! 👨⚕️👩⚕️
A very good friend indeed.
The Vapors
I miss the old names
That’s the paradox of the poor/wealthy and why people in exploited countries paradoxically seem the happiest
Going at her from a specifically sociological aspect sounds fascinating.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/the-controversy-of-female-hysteria
😉👍