Virginia Woolf

The first time I read Mrs. Dalloway, I was actually studying for a class on Faulkner. That said, Woolf’s novel left an impression that has hardly faded over the years. In particular, Woolf’s capturing of Septimus Smith, a soldier suffering from “shell-shock” (an antiquated term for PTSD that we are now coming to realize may have been accurately descriptive, as proximity to IED blasts is being connected through research to PTSD symptoms) really spoke to me. I connected with his perspectives on life and suicidality. They rang true, probably because they were extraordinarily true for Woolf, who suffered from diagnosed Bipolar Disorder and undiagnosed trauma, sexual in nature, perpetrated by brothers 15 and 16 years her senior. Woolf’s depressive bouts were terrifying, and her suicidality persistent. At 22, she lived Septimus’s fictional plan to jump from a window to her death. The window wasn’t high enough for the fall to kill her, and she lived. She would continue to attempt suicide through her death at age 59 by walking into the River Ouse with stones in her pockets. Her legacy is one not only of literary and critical brilliance, but also of the internal war inherent in mental illness. The fact that she even made it to age 59 is a huge victory, though many would criticize her for failing to endure then as well. To remember her, we have many canonical pieces of literature and criticism as well as a first hand look into the horrors that can exist within an afflicted mind. May her words, cathartic at times for her, destructive at others, help many others the way they have helped me.