At the beginning of 1913 Virginia Woolf, as she now was, completed her first novel, The Voyage Out. Her new husband was already assuming the watchful and controlling role he was to play in relation to her health throughout their marriage. In January he consulted Drs Savage, Craig and Hyslop, and her former nurse Jean Thomas. In the previous year, before and after their marriage he had experienced her ill-health and instability, and would have learned of her past history. He was anxious to know whether or not he and his wife should have children. Most counselled against it. Leonard decided to accept this advice and persuaded his wife to agree. In July a much more serious attack began; it was to last nine months.
In mid-March Virginia had visited Duckworths the publisher - and also relatives - to be told officially that her novel had been accepted for publication. She may have been worried about its reception. In July she and Leonard went to the Lake District for a holiday. In the Lodore hotel she became unwell and could hardly leave her bed for two days. Two days later they returned to London and consulted Sir George Savage, who had been involved in her care since 1904. Her sister Vanessa wrote that he had advised 'the same thing as usual, rest', and had suggested a return to Jean Thomas's nursing home at Twickenham, promising a subsequent holiday in Cornwall if she agreed.
She was persuaded to go to Twickenham, and stayed there from the 25th July until the 11th August 1913. By this time her husband was keeping short notes about her health in his pocket diary, recording them in a code made up of Tamil and Sinhalese characters. Single words like 'worry' and 'cheerful' occur at this time. She was given Veronal - an early barbiturate - to help her sleep.
She stayed at Asham, the house on the South Downs she and her sister had rented a few years earlier, for the next week; her health worsened. Vanessa wrote on the 22nd August: 'V seems to me pretty bad. She worries constantly, and one gets rid of one worry only to find that another crops up in a few minutes. Then she definitely has illusions about people.' Savage saw her again and dismissed Leonard's worries about her. Roger Fry, whose wife was mentally ill, suggested that they seek another opinion from the neurologist Henry Head. Head told them the holiday could go ahead, and on the 23rd August the Woolfs drove to the Plough Inn, at Holford un Somerset, where they had stayed at the beginning of their honeymoon. Leonard's diary recorded swinging moods -'bad mornings and good evenings, delusions by day and peaceful nights, bad nights and cheerful days; but the worries, the delusions, the arguments about food, the necessity for sleeping draughts, increased.' Increasingly concerned, he telegraphed for their friend Ka Cox to join them; she arrived the next day, the 2nd September. Despite her arrival Virginia was no better and the party returned to London six days later. Woolf feared that she might leap from the moving train. Quentin Bell gives the following account of her symptoms at the time, probably obtained directly from family members.
'She thought people were laughing at her; she was the cause of everyone's troubles; she felt overwhelmed with a sense of guilt for which she should be punished. She became convinced that her body was in some way monstrous, the sordid mouth and sordid belly demanding food - repulsive matter which must then be excreted in a disgusting fashion; the only course was to refuse to eat. Material things assumed sinister and unpredictable aspects, beastly and terrifying or - sometimes - of fearful beauty.'
In London they sought yet another medical opinion. The number and distinction of her medical attendants over the years is such that they will be considered in detail later. The next to be consulted was Dr Maurice Wright. He said she must accept that she was ill. They returned the same day to Dr Henry Head who repeated this advice. They had reached a stage where the patient refused to accept that she was ill whether advised by family or doctors. The only way forward, if she required treatment and protection from herself would be compulsory admission to an asylum. She had the typical depressive belief that her condition was her own fault, not an illness, and that she could not be helped. Her family and doctors tried in vain to convince her that she should enter a nursing home. It was an impasse familiar to all psychiatrists and to many relatives of depressed patients, with the spectre of a past suicidal attempt often in everyone's mind.
In the early evening Leonard left Adrian Stephen's rooms in Brunswick Square, where they were staying, and went to see Sir George Savage to apologise for seeking other opinions without his consent. While he was there he was phoned to say that Virginia was unconscious. She had taken 100 grains of Veronal - a potentially fatal dose.
By luck Geoffrey Keynes, then a house surgeon at Barts (St Bartholomews Hospital), later a distinguished doctor, was lodging on the top floor of Brunswick Square. He rushed to the nearby hospital to collect a stomach pump, and probably saved her life. He attended her through the night, along with Head and nurses. At 1.30 am she nearly died; by 9 am she was out of danger.
There is often a temporary improvement in severe depression after attempted suicide; there was none here. The next day, the 10th, Ka Cox wrote that Virginia was 'very bad,' and that all her symptoms persisted. George Duckworth offered the family the use of his house at Dalingridge Place, near East Grinstead, and it was decided that she should be nursed there. The alternative would have been admission to an asylum. Leonard Woolf's diary entries show that her symptoms varied from day to day - she is described as alternately anxious and depressed, with days of great excitement and reluctance to eat. She was given aspirin and dosed with the strong, foul-smelling sedative, paraldehyde. She went to the Duckworth house on the 20th September 1913. On the 30th September a cryptic note in her husband's diary says that she 'confessed' to him. Later she was 'v. violent' in the night. We have no further details and it is unclear what transpired.
Leonard's position was difficult. Married for only a year, he now found his bride suicidal and psychotic. he may have been inadequately warned about her past history by both his wife and her family. They made no secret of it, but spoke about it in a joking way, making it seem less serious than it was. 'The Goat', as her siblings called her, had always been 'mad'. In the next two years Leonard would have good cause to fear that his wife would be permanently insane. By early 1914 he was troubled by headaches. Friends urged him to take a break from his constant attendance and he was persuaded to have ten days holiday in March 1914.
She was attended by Dr Maurice Craig during this illness. From 18th November until August 1914 - an eventful month for other reasons - Virginia Woolf was at Asham House, always with two attendant nurses. In March she had improved enough for Craig to agree to a holiday with the family in Cornwall, a place of happy childhood memories. Even there mood swings persisted, and she was eating with difficulty and fearful of strangers. Progress was slow.
By January 1914 she could read and write letters - although these activities were strictly rationed. The nurses were reduced in number, and by the Spring the last one had gone. Leonard remained devoted and affectionate. There is an amusing contract, drawn up in their private animal language, in which she promises to rest in his absence on business from 16 to 18 August 1914, and to have proper diet and sleep. It was on these that her treatment - the so-called Weir Mitchell regime - was based.
During these severe illnesses she had amenorrhea. For ten years after the suicide attempt Leonard kept records of her menstrual periods, an unusual activity for a husband in Edwardian times. In 1913 there was a 98 day interval between periods - August 6th to November 12th - when her weight fell to its lowest recorded level. Three weeks after the suicide attempt she weighed 8 stones 7lbs. She had gained a stone by January 1913, and another 3 stones by the end of 1915; a gain of roughly 60lb in two years. Amenorrhoea is not unusual in depression and in association with severe weight loss; the weight gain shows the enthusiasm and rigour with which the Weir Mitchell regime was pursued.
From the Spring of 1914 she was slowly convalescing, typing as a form of occupational therapy, her writing and reading still strictly rationed. By the time war was declared in August she was well. The couple enjoyed a holiday in the Cheviot Hills in August and by mid-September she was in excellent health. She was able to celebrate her complete recovery from an illness that some had feared would become chronic. She was now thirty-three.
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