I don't know if this is just an anxiety thing, or if it's mixed with autistic symptoms, but I often feel like I'm being strangled. Sometimes I'm (nearly) completely fine, and I can wear mock-neck tops or chokers or whatever without a problem. But often, the mere feeling of something touching my neck is agonising. When it gets really bad, I have to take off everything I'm wearing from the top up and just lie in bed trying to calm down. Often, even the feeling of an earphone wire touching my neck is unbearable, which is unfortunate, because listening to calming things helps. On that god-forsaken bus ride from Canberra to Sydney or back, you'll see me with the neckline of my shirt in my mouth, just so it's not touching my neck.
I've felt this since I was at least 12, but it's crescendoed over the past 9 years, and now it's deafening. At the doctors' the other day, I learnt that it's called Globus Hystericus. Sounds like a species. An alien species like me. (In case you can't tell, I'm here in bed, needing to study but unable to because I'm so anxious, and I'm feeling very sorry for myself).
But I looked it up, and it doesn't really sound like what I feel. It's "a subject feeling of a lump or foreign body in the throat thought to involve psychogenic factors, a form of somatisation disorder". But I don't feel a lump. I feel my windpipe constricting from just a touch of something on my neck, and I breathe in and out deeply to try and reverse it, but it doesn't work, of course. It drives me crazy. But I'll trust my doctor. She's a smart lady.
The name interests me though. We talked about this a bit - Globus Hystericus. I do feel hysterical. Weirdo over-dramatic bitch who can't handle normal-ass aspects of life like fucking shirts. The word that interests me in that sentence (which genuinely hums in the back of my mind near constantly) is bitch. Why do I always gender my neuroses? Specifically, why do I always feminise it? The answer is an ineffably deeply wiring, which I'll try to unearth. And this is where Globus Hystericus comes in. Hysteria is from the ancient greek word for "suffering in the womb" - ὑστερικός. In fact, its root word is womb: "ὑστερά". This is not new information to me, but maybe it is for whoever's reading this, so I'll briefly explain. As part of the innate sexism within medical practice (chicken or the egg?), hysteria, or mental illness I suppose more generally, was thought to originate from the uterus. Thus hysterectomies, the removal of the uterus, were the prescribed antidote to mentally unwell women. Obviously - spoiler alert! - that did nothing. But the concept of that women are unable to control their emotions, and are hysterical, irrational beings (unfit for the rational, corporate workplace, often), comes from this.
(That reminds me! In year 12 my English teacher told our class, when we were studying Hamlet, that the idea of women having uncontrollable emotions comes from the perception of women being unable to control bodily fluids - ie period blood, the stuff that comes out when your water breaks, and, as a natural extension, tears.)
This "hysterical women" phenomenon is something I observe today, albeit simmering under the surface. Here's a good example: a couple of days ago now, I commented on Peep's mum's post about Come Over When You're Sober, Part II. I asked about one of the songs in it, called "White Girl', where he says "I don't love her but I love how I feel / when I fuck her and she make me a meal". As a result of what I assume was his mother's influence (she's very left-leaning, and so was her son), he often expressed feminist sentiment, and so I thought it was very jarring, and asked as much. (By the way, I know he has other sexist lyrics - "Bitch Ima Kill You" being a very disturbing song including the line "OJ I feel you", but this is the most recent example, so I thought the most appropriate to ask about). Anyway, I asked very calmly and got 50+ angry (dare I say hysterical?) replies from mostly-men. Here are some highlights:
Note the use of typically female genitalia to express the display of negative emotions!
This applies to my own behaviour, too. I often refer to my mother as "neurotic" - that she definitely is. When I was about 14 I watched Manhattan by Woody Allen and Mary (played by Diane Keaton) reminded me immediately of my own mother. I told her as much, but I think she just took me comparing her to Diane Keaton as a complement.
Anyway, I do often find my mother hysterical, and I think it's telling that the way I view her lines up with the portrayal of a woman in a Woody Allen film - surely that can never be a good sign. It's hard to unlearn though - my mother is often hysterical, histrionic, over-dramatic. But maybe my father is too, in a slightly different way? He can get angry very easily at trivial things. Why don't I refer to him as hysterical? Maybe because the subtext of the word is its use as a pejorative for women.
And I'm paying the price for it. Lying in bed, quasi-strangled, I often brain-mutter: stupid bitch. Drama queen. Solipsistic loser. Freak. And Globus Hystericus becomes sexist in a longer, more modern path of logic. And I struggle to breathe.
P.S. I intend on naming my next chapbook girlbitch, because the poems in it address this feminisation of mental illness and irrationality. It comes from the poem "#warrior" in it, where the first verse is "girlbitch vorewhore / double-dutch-braided, red lipped, / eternally jaded".
P.P.S writing this has helped me calm down a little.
I've felt this since I was at least 12, but it's crescendoed over the past 9 years, and now it's deafening. At the doctors' the other day, I learnt that it's called Globus Hystericus. Sounds like a species. An alien species like me. (In case you can't tell, I'm here in bed, needing to study but unable to because I'm so anxious, and I'm feeling very sorry for myself).
But I looked it up, and it doesn't really sound like what I feel. It's "a subject feeling of a lump or foreign body in the throat thought to involve psychogenic factors, a form of somatisation disorder". But I don't feel a lump. I feel my windpipe constricting from just a touch of something on my neck, and I breathe in and out deeply to try and reverse it, but it doesn't work, of course. It drives me crazy. But I'll trust my doctor. She's a smart lady.
The name interests me though. We talked about this a bit - Globus Hystericus. I do feel hysterical. Weirdo over-dramatic bitch who can't handle normal-ass aspects of life like fucking shirts. The word that interests me in that sentence (which genuinely hums in the back of my mind near constantly) is bitch. Why do I always gender my neuroses? Specifically, why do I always feminise it? The answer is an ineffably deeply wiring, which I'll try to unearth. And this is where Globus Hystericus comes in. Hysteria is from the ancient greek word for "suffering in the womb" - ὑστερικός. In fact, its root word is womb: "ὑστερά". This is not new information to me, but maybe it is for whoever's reading this, so I'll briefly explain. As part of the innate sexism within medical practice (chicken or the egg?), hysteria, or mental illness I suppose more generally, was thought to originate from the uterus. Thus hysterectomies, the removal of the uterus, were the prescribed antidote to mentally unwell women. Obviously - spoiler alert! - that did nothing. But the concept of that women are unable to control their emotions, and are hysterical, irrational beings (unfit for the rational, corporate workplace, often), comes from this.
(That reminds me! In year 12 my English teacher told our class, when we were studying Hamlet, that the idea of women having uncontrollable emotions comes from the perception of women being unable to control bodily fluids - ie period blood, the stuff that comes out when your water breaks, and, as a natural extension, tears.)
This "hysterical women" phenomenon is something I observe today, albeit simmering under the surface. Here's a good example: a couple of days ago now, I commented on Peep's mum's post about Come Over When You're Sober, Part II. I asked about one of the songs in it, called "White Girl', where he says "I don't love her but I love how I feel / when I fuck her and she make me a meal". As a result of what I assume was his mother's influence (she's very left-leaning, and so was her son), he often expressed feminist sentiment, and so I thought it was very jarring, and asked as much. (By the way, I know he has other sexist lyrics - "Bitch Ima Kill You" being a very disturbing song including the line "OJ I feel you", but this is the most recent example, so I thought the most appropriate to ask about). Anyway, I asked very calmly and got 50+ angry (dare I say hysterical?) replies from mostly-men. Here are some highlights:
Some even felt strongly enough about it to go onto my account and insult me there. It was kinda funny.
Note the use of typically female genitalia to express the display of negative emotions!
This applies to my own behaviour, too. I often refer to my mother as "neurotic" - that she definitely is. When I was about 14 I watched Manhattan by Woody Allen and Mary (played by Diane Keaton) reminded me immediately of my own mother. I told her as much, but I think she just took me comparing her to Diane Keaton as a complement.
Anyway, I do often find my mother hysterical, and I think it's telling that the way I view her lines up with the portrayal of a woman in a Woody Allen film - surely that can never be a good sign. It's hard to unlearn though - my mother is often hysterical, histrionic, over-dramatic. But maybe my father is too, in a slightly different way? He can get angry very easily at trivial things. Why don't I refer to him as hysterical? Maybe because the subtext of the word is its use as a pejorative for women.
And I'm paying the price for it. Lying in bed, quasi-strangled, I often brain-mutter: stupid bitch. Drama queen. Solipsistic loser. Freak. And Globus Hystericus becomes sexist in a longer, more modern path of logic. And I struggle to breathe.
P.S. I intend on naming my next chapbook girlbitch, because the poems in it address this feminisation of mental illness and irrationality. It comes from the poem "#warrior" in it, where the first verse is "girlbitch vorewhore / double-dutch-braided, red lipped, / eternally jaded".
P.P.S writing this has helped me calm down a little.
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