Septimus and Depression

Now, normally I'm highly critical of people's habit of diagnosing illnesses (especially mental ilnesses) in characters in literature, however Septimus is a special case. It is very clear from the text that he has some form of PTSD (though they didn't call it that at the time) as can be seen from his reactions to the war, with his past haunting him in the present. As seen by his suicidal thoughts and general sadness and paranoia, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that Septimus suffers from depression (in fact one of the doctors even says such, although in a dismissive way). One of the topics that's come up a lot lately has to do with is how the doctors do not seem to treat Septimus seriously. He is repeatedly told things such as to play football, play tennis, play golf, and that "we all get depressed sometimes."

It's pretty clear that the above advice isn't really helpful. And yes, the medical community at the time had little knowledge of what shell shock truly was, and how debilitating it could be. It is truly tragic that there was an idea at the time that the soldiers suffering from shell shock were "weak" and should "man up," so to speak, or worse were cowards (a capital offense). Blaming the victim is never the way to go about treating people. Can you imagine if when you went in to the doctor with a broken arm, you were told that you were weak, and to "rub some dirt in it?" This is an entirely counterproductive practice, which is so perfectly illustrated by Septimus being driven to suicide when Holmes wouldn't leave him alone? 

But, as sad were that time was, is it really that much better today? Being depressed is still stigmatized today, in an era where the medical community knows that it is a mental illness and not some weakness of character. This isn't helped by the fact that people say things like "last night my brother stole the last cookie and I got so depressed," when truly they were sad or disappointed, but not depressed. As a result people think "I get sad sometimes, but I get over it, I don't just dwell on it."

But that's not what depression is. Depression is waking up in the morning and laying in bed for hours because you don't see any purpose in living that day. Depression is not bathing or brushing your teeth because you don't feel you're worth taking care of. Depression is being sad when something good happens to you because you don't feel like you deserve it. Depression is not caring about anything that used to make you happy. People with depression are incapable of functioning normally—anything that should, or even does make people happy is tainted in some way, and often it's simultaneous happiness and sadness. Anything that shouldn't be a big deal suddenly is, and people with depression are unable to shrug off any obstacle in their path, no matter how small. 

We give lots of bad advice to people with depression; in fact most of it is downright insulting whether or not it was meant that way. We tell them "it's all in your head," "happiness is a choice," "cheer up," and "there are so many people who have it worse than you; you have no reason to be sad." Can you imagine if you were told "there are so many people who have it better than you; you have no reason to be happy?" It'd sound ridiculous, yet we think the former is reasonable while the latter is absurd. 

I'm not sure how we should resolve this, but we should be cognizant of the fact that the world of Mrs. Dalloway is not too far from ours, and we are not that much better than those in the book when it comes to mental illness. Septimus was driven to suicide by being misunderstood by those around him. What does it say about our current society then, where depression is still seen as weakness by many, and it carries an embarrassing stigma with it? What does this say about our current perception of masculinity, as Woolf parodies the masculinity in Mrs. Dalloway?