The Hours

One of my most favorite movies of all times is The Hours.  I love this movie because the first time I watched it I thought,"Someone knows how I feel."  Weird, to have a movie do that to you. I just felt so in touch with the characters emotions.  I think any woman watching it would probably relate to one of the characters in some small way.

My favorite character is Virginia Woolf, played by Nicole Kidman.  Virginia is schizophrenic and in the early 1800's that is a big problem, as there is no medication to help cure that ailment. She must move to the country side, away from family, where the doctors think the fresh air will do her mind good. If only!  But the struggle comes in her feeling dissociated with life. With the lives of those out in the world. In the end, she cannot live with feeling so alone and the feeling she has bestowed suffering upon her husband and she takes her own life.  Her goodbye note has always touched me so deeply:

 *I am in NO way condoning or advocating suicide. *

I am just moved with compassion for her suffering and her wanting it to stop it for herself and for her husband. It just deeply moves me.  I wish I felt this moved by a great many other things.  I guess I can just relate with the feeling. In no way do I ever wish my mental illness to cause others to suffer, but I guess it has sometimes. Maybe not "suffering" per se, but it has affected the lives of my family. It has affected them when my anxiety keeps me from activities which involve people, it has affected them when I am depressed and have cried, when I have a panic attack...hasn't it? And that is the reason I am now writing this. To figure out what it is that can mediate between my illness and the life I lead.