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Are Women Crazy? Or Are We Just Expected to Thrive in a Crazy World?
We’re losing too much to the trope of the mentally unstable female — and we can’t afford to lose any more
“I wouldn’t diagnose you with depression and anxiety,” my therapist told me four years ago. “Obviously, that’s something we’re dealing with here, but I believe those conditions arose due to untreated PTSD.”
It was a statement that turned my whole world upside-down.
Up until that point, I’d spent most of my life (since I was 14 years old) believing that my brain didn’t work the way a normal person’s brain did. That I’d have to struggle and fight to overcome malfunctioning brain chemistry just to hit the most basic standards of normalcy in our culture. That I was, as a few of my boyfriends had told me, absolutely batshit crazy.
Suddenly, I felt liberated. This wasn’t about my brain malfunctioning — this was the fault of our malfunctioning society.
My brain didn’t cause this. No, this was the fault of the dozen or so classmates who repeatedly sexually harassed and assaulted me throughout 7th grade, and the teachers and administrators who told me it was my fault and that I was being unreasonable to complain about it.
Now I realize this is a bit of a semantics game. After all, PTSD can actually cause significant and long-term changes in brain structure and function. And in fact, when you take a comparative look at depression and anxiety versus brain changes caused by PTSD, I feel like the former is perhaps the better deal.
Basically, it’s six in one hand, a half dozen in the other. Either way, there are issues happening in my brain that have made it particularly hard for me to function in what our society would call “normal” ways.
But this information was a revelation, regardless of the semantics. It made me realize how critical it is to consider context when we’re talking about mental health.
As I get older, I see this everywhere. And I think women, in particular, need to understand this.
I’ve been a bit obsessed with Gabby Petito since Feburary 17th, when Netflix aired the documentary about her death. I knew her…
