Every Woman Who Has Ever Been Called Crazy

A huge part of my novel, A White Room, involves the popular turn of the century condition known as hysteria. Hysteria was a psychological diagnosis that doctors, psychologists and society used to explain a number of specifically female dilemmas from actual psychological anxiety and depression to immoral behavior like promiscuity or lesbianism. Hysteria was primarily a female condition although there are some historical reports of men being diagnosed.

Hysteria is most well known in literary circles from the historical short story The YellowWallpaper by Charlotte PerkinsGilman first published in 1892.

The treatments for hysteria also had a huge range from bed rest and the water cure to extreme treatments involving sensory deprivation, manual stimulation of the sexual organs, electroshock therapy, and surgery like a hysterectomy.

The alleged causes were at different extremes as well. Overstimulation, too leisurely of a lifestyle, and stress were usually the suspected culprits but psychologists and doctors also theorized that sexual dysfunction or dissatisfaction was the cause while others believed certain female organs like the uterus and ovaries had the ability to wander the body and deteriorate the mind if they ambled too close to the brain.  

At this time period both obstetrics and psychology were growing medical fields and growing in popularity which might explain how certain diagnosis and treatments came about.

Some of the treatments seem outrageous for the times but that was the case. These ideas were difficult to deal with in my novel. At this time period, people didn’t say the word leg for fear of it being to intimate of a word, so how do I show that when it came to the female psyche, they went straight to sexual dysfunction and used eclectic stimulation to produce orgasm as a cure?

My personal theory is that although society was publicly prude doctors were desensitized and not afraid to experimenting with female sexuality. Doctors and psychologists were in positions that included responsibilities and obligations that went well beyond societal norms. Ironic as many women were diagnosed for behaving outside societal norms, but that’s a tangent for another day.

Obviously, it was a little difficult to portray this phenomenon in historical fiction, but hopefully, I pulled it off. You’ll have to read my book it to really let me know—ha—gotcha! Now you have to read it. Moving on . . .

What’s interesting is that this condition was primarily diagnosed in women and the idea that women are “crazy” still proliferates today. What woman hasn’t been accused of being insane? What woman hasn’t actually wondered if maybe she is nuts?

What woman hasn’t secretly thought about letting it all go—letting everything she does to keep order and sanity in her life and the lives of the people around her—what if she let it all go and really showed them what crazy looks like?

I think that hysteria is the historical origin of women’s modern day experience with the crazy accusations and the feelings that arise from it, which are not that different than the feelings that Emeline Dorr experiences in A White Room.

Read more about Emeline, hysteria, and A White Room at my website www.stephaniecarroll.net.

"A White Room was written for every woman who has ever felt crazy, and for every woman who secretly wished she could let it all go and really show them what crazy looks like."