Woman's mental health

 A woman's mental health is determined by both biological and social factors. Women are disproportionately affected by mental illnesses and this has been the case through history. The fact that hysteria was known as a woman's disease is a case in point. Through the 18th and 19th centuries woman's mental health suffered and maybe we should start there. Female Hysteria was the most common disorder that was diagnosed to woman back in the day. The assumption was that women were predisposed to be mentally ill thereby washing the responsibility and the blood of the hands of the society who were largely responsible for the predicament of women. The womb embodied elements that was believed to lurk in a woman's body rendering her mentally ill. These beliefs were held by Plato and Hippocrates. 

Raulin a great Physician at the time was known to say that women were more susceptible to hysteria because they were angry and irritable. Stereotyping woman's manifestations of distress as traits of a woman blinded the society to the fact that infact women were in great distress due to social factors that affected them. 

In the 19th century Mitchel another great physician recommended women lots of rest for hysteria and suggested abstaining from intellectual activity but prescribed the opposite for men. He prescribed men outdoor activities for symptoms of hysteria. 

Freud opined that Hysteria was primarily a psychological issue turned physiological that is caused by sexual suppression. In the late 19th century, physicians would remove the uterus to cure hysteria or even worse stimulate the genitalia. The DSM did not list hysteria as a mental illness. Hysteria was an umbrella term that pathologized everything that a man found hard to manage in a woman. 

Woman's mental health is very important in todays times. It is very easy to dismiss distress in the name of gender or trauma but this is a very ignorant stance. Every mental illness is a product of genetics and environment. Hence, sex cannot be the sole determinant of mental illness. Women are not dispositionally or by nature irritable and frustrated the structure  of family reduces her to a care taker, the society reduces her to a victim or a witch. 

A woman is held responsible if her marriage falls apart or her children are being children. The nature consequence of being cornered up against the wall is rage. Rage turned inwards leads to depression and anxiety. Repression of traumatic memories leads to personality disorders and dissociative disorders and hence there is a very important social dimension to all these issues. The mountain of unending expectations lead to anxiety disorders and the manifestations are stereotyped as womanly traits. This is problematic. It impedes help seeking behavior and makes distress hard to track for individuals and their family. 

Essentializing distressful traits in a woman can normalize the presence of distress and uncomfortability. It can normalize the conditions in which a woman feels distressed. Women are known to report their own rage as the problem instead of their environments.  It can blind women to the ills of their own environment. 

This blog aims to highlight that unbearable distress is not a trait or an essence of any sex/gender. It is a concerning manifestation of mental disturbance that needs to be taken as seriously as it needs to be. Women must seek help when they feel burnout, distressed, irritable or are facing mood swings. These symptoms are not womanly traits. These require medical attention. 

References

Levin, B.L. & Becker, M.A.. (2010). A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health. 10.1007/978-1-4419-1526-9. 

Juster, R. P., Pruessner, J. C., Desrochers, A. B., Bourdon, O., Durand, N., Wan, N., Tourjman, V., Kouassi, E., Lesage, A., & Lupien, S. J. (2016). Sex and Gender Roles in Relation to Mental Health and Allostatic Load. Psychosomatic medicine, 78(7), 788–804. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000351