generational mental illness

I like April people. My Dad was born in April. My son was born in April. Today I had a wonderful chat with another April person in my extended family that I didn’t know existed. They have a similar awesome sense of humour to my other awesome April people I know.

I’ve written about Dad’s birth and his jokes about being born on April Fools Day.

Today is Dad’s birthday and I want to talk about the silly idea that women’s internal reproductive organs are animals and that this thinking existed right up until the early 1900’s. This is not an April Fools joke, this is very real.

A taster…of what I will be writing about next in relation to intergenerational family stories, what my research has uncovered and in particular Jane Brady’s death at 82 in Sunbury Mental Hospital.

The following is from an academic piece (I’ve included references for the nerds). It was about the persecution of women from as early as the 15th century as witches by the church and how that morphed into putting those same demographic of women in asylum’s by early medical practitioners:

But how mental illness was defined and the historical justifications for putting women in institutions was nothing short of ridiculous. The persecution of women during the witch trials of the 14th century and beyond would have no doubt contributed to a rise in mental illness and there was a link between this and older women (MacDonald 1981:39-40).

Tensions around marriageability, the perceived sexual voracity of women and their overall status as inferior could well have prompted a propensity to breakdown and mental illness and was reported widely. But it was pitched that women were more prone to complaints and as something female rather than as a result of oppression (MacDonald 1981:39-40).

Edward Jorden looked to causes natural to the differing anatomy of women including the idea that women’s wombs, wandered or moved through the body. He saw the renegade movement of the uterus in conflict with the rest of the body, the discomfort migrating to the brain (considered the seat of reason), causing what Jorden termed the ‘suffocation of the mother’ or hysteria (Bronfen 1998:108; Jorden 1603:6).

Bronfen (1998:105) writes that the womb was:

[c]onsidered to be a small, voracious animal, a foreign body that had dried up, lost weight and come unhooked, this wandering uterus was thought to seek for nourishment throughout the body of sexually dissatisfied women, such as widows and spinsters.

A combination of the religious and medical understandings of women meant older women (particularly older women with dementia) were at high risk of persecution, although again, this cannot be viewed in isolation of other socio-political influences (Bronfen 1998:105; Darnst 1979:304; Levack 1995:141, 142; Scot 1665:4, 19).

Later in history someone would finally get it somewhat right and yet still the logic behind it was wrong; they would invent the vibrator.

This was to treat the above “hysteria”, and finally women got more socially acceptable orgasms as a small trade off for centuries of oppression (and I haven’t provided references for that bit, but suggest you watch the film of the same name).

Mind you, we always just did it for ourselves in secret anyway, so no bloke ‘gave’ us anything…Fellas! You didn’t invent fingers and ours DO wander!

References for you nerdy types…

Bronfen, E. (1998) The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and Its Discontents. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Darnst, D.H. (1979) Witchcraft in Spain: the Testimony of Martin De Castanega’s Treatise on Superstition and Witchcraft (1520). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123(5):298-322.

Jorden, E. (1603) A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother. Available from Early English Books Online: http://80-wwwlib.umi.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/eebo/download/pdf/337098/19994/1-30/99854567_1-30.pdf  [Accessed 10 October 2002]

Levack, B.P. (1995) The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe (2^nd Edition). New York: Longman.

MacDonald, M. (1981) Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scot, R. (1665) The Discovery of Witchcraft [online]. Available from Proquest Early English Books Online: http://80-wwwlib.umi.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/eebo/download/pdf/337099/55338/1-227/12166650_1-227.pdf [Accessed 10 October 2002].

Most records about the past prior to the 1930’s are public (and even more recent ones sometimes). But that doesn’t mean they are not hidden. Hidden from dinner table conversations, hidden from important intergenerational health discussions and hidden by what I think is misplaced shame. In my experience, hidden by boring beige people on a power trip. (Did I just say that? Whoops, I forgot to mention I am not one of those people who thinks that I should be entirely nice about people consciously still stigmatising meaningful mental health discussions in 2021).

If you find yourself wondering why you asked about the social history, or intergenerational baggage because of the anger and/or passive aggression you receive from other family members; the problem with the truth is theirs, not yours. Maybe time to ask the public record instead.

Comedy character Mrs. Brown (an older woman in a cardigan with rollered hair and wire framed glasses known for her Irish accent) turning to camera saying “I’m sorry I feckin’ asked now”

You can and should talk about this uncomfortable social history and more to the point, don’t be bullied by people into silence. You don’t have justify talking about public records to anyone. You also don’t have to justify talking publicly about your own struggles and efforts to break the shame of silence either.

If your family and extended family (biological or otherwise) survived a shit-ton of trauma and disadvantage you may well have some inherited trauma. But you also have inherited resilience and sometimes reading about what we have survived is healing.

So let’s access that resilience and talk about it. Not with blame, but with understanding and a reflective point of view.

There is a conservative “civilised societal” view that celebrating survival through the telling of survival histories is to be avoided. We beat each up with toxic positivity and fail to support one another when one of us develops mental health or addiction issues.

That’s not exactly very civilised, decent or progressive, yet here we are.

So let me say this loud and clear. Let the records speak. But not the commodified and expensive family history obsession that you can buy online. Good grief capitalism has some of you by the proverbial balls.

Some records will cost you money, but many are free. And if you buy them from ancestry dot com you’ll pay extra.

Some records you can request or are available online. It all helps paint a picture more than just some pointless family tree diagram.

So this post isn’t about just the lonely space of context free dates and names you’ll get from Births, Deaths and Marriages information, but other sources of information that help you to understand the past, not just recite it and tow the party (family) line.

One source below is an example of some collection information you can find in Victoria, Australia from the Public Records Office. Most states and territories in Australia have similar. Google is your friend (and as an academic I hate saying this, it’s only a start point and not research gospel!). The second source is national.

Some may require you to physically go into a reading room and read (gasp!). I know this excites me and not others, but reading is a good thing, not a chore. And most online collections have ways you can use screen readers and transcripts if you need a more accessible way to access the information.

Dodgy deaths and family we left behind via inquests and coroners reports Inquests into deaths (deposition files 1840-1985) | PROV

How the hell did we get here information and migration records like Assisted passenger lists (1839-1871) | PROV

A bunch of photos in various themes here at Photographic collections | PROV

All the griping about money and associated social climbing at Wills and probates | PROV

And finally I want to give you a treasure trove. Literally a treasure at TROVE.

Newspaper clippings a plenty! Find out when they got in trouble, were foolish enough to marry, did interesting things and more often than not, were just human at Newspapers & Gazettes Home – Trove (nla.gov.au)

A smorgasbord of scandal and crime (and a way to see it for what it really is, human, rather than scandalous) at The Prosecution Project.

What the colonial bastards and boffins scribbled in their diaries about us poor folk. A range of diaries and letters and manuscripts (okay, not always from bastards, sometimes from people doing good things – and now I technically am classed as a boffin myself).

Images, images, images. Maps. All kinds of visual things here.

I’ve given you just two sources, there are many more. PROV (Victoria) and TROVE (Australian).

I need to say, the bonds in my immediate family have only gotten stronger, and relationships healthier since we grappled with uncomfortable truths. And it may have saved some lives from the risk of suicide too.

Silence about events that just make us human is the way shame is carried, amplified and turned into ways we are retraumatised, generation after generation.

You don’t have to sit beholden at the feet of a website wanting to rip you off. Or worse, you don’t have to put up with bullshit from your supposed kin wanting to make you feel like a failure in comparison to some glorious retelling of old. Do your own research.

Often people don’t find out who they are or how they fit or how our collective history can help them be happier and healthier people because the hiding of truth has become a pretty messed up cornerstone of Australian culture.

Let’s throw it in the bin with the outdated ideas that tightly knit family that controls and manipulates each other is everything. Let’s get real about that notion that this “family is everything” kind of family really means women and children die more frequently at home (or in care) at the hands of family than on the streets.

In doing this I hope you find out that we all have mental health dilemmas, social pitfalls, issues with addiction as well as our triumphs and there is no shame in that. All we can do is learn from it and get the hells away from people who think otherwise.

And finally, don’t be a lazy sod (OMG! I used the ‘L’ word! Sorry!) and always select advanced search (unless of course you are just on ‘what can I find’ mission in broad terms, then I give you points for embracing your inner nerd).

IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING WITH YOUR MENTAL HEALTH, HAVING A PERSONAL CRISIS OR HAVING THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE, CONTACT LIFELIN E ON 13 11 14

YOU CAN CALL THEM 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK FROM ANYWHERE IN AUSTRALIA.

LOOKING FOR INFORMATION OR SUPPORT SERVICES ON ALCOHOL OR DRUGS AND NOT SURE WHERE TO BEGIN? CALL THE AUSTRALIAN DRUG AND ALCOHOL FOUNDATION 1300 85 85 84 TO SPEAK TO A REAL PERSON.