Reaction to the Disagreeable : Part 1

The Nervous Housewife
by Abraham Myerson, M.D.

(Page 5 of 16)

A few preliminary words about the disagreeable in the housewife's lot will be of value.

We may divide the things, situations, and happenings of life into three groups, - the agreeable, the indifferent, and the disagreeable. No two men will agree in detail in judging what is agreeable, indifferent, or disagreeable. There are as many different points of view as there are people, and in the end what is one man's meat may literally be another man's poison. There are, however, only a few ways of reacting to what one considers the disagreeable. The agreeable things of life do not cause a neurosis, though they may injure character or impair efficiency. And we may neglect the theoretical indifferent.

1. A disagreeable thing may be so disastrous in our viewpoint as to cause fear. This fear may be expressed as flight, which is a normal reaction, or it may be expressed by a sort of paralysis of function, as the fainting spell, or the great weakness which makes flight impossible. Fear is a much abused emotion. People speak glibly about taking it out of life, on the ground that it is wholly harmful. "Children must not experience fear; it is wrong, it is immoral; they should grow up in sunshine and gladness, without fear." A whole sect, many minor religions, take this Pollyanna attitude toward reality.

As a matter of fact fear is a (I almost said the) great motive force of human life. Fear of the elements was the incentive to shelter; fear of starvation started agriculture and the storage of food; fear of disease and death gives medicine its standing; fear of the unknown is the backbone of conservatism, and fear of the rainy day is the source of thrift. Fear of death is not only the basis of religion, but of life insurance as well. Fear of the finger of scorn and the blame of our fellows is the great force in morality. And no amount of attempted unity with God will ever take the place of the injunction to fear Him!

2. While fear then is back of the constructive forces of life it works hand in hand with another emotion that is also greatly disparaged by sentimentalists, - anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in some form or other it would never be fulfilled.

3. But while fear and anger work well in succession, or at different times, when both emotions are awakened by some disagreeable situation or thing, when there is a helpless anger, when the instinct to fight is paralyzed by fear, when doubt arises, then there is deënergization.

Thus a hostile situation, an intensely disagreeable situation, may be met with energy: viz. planning, constructive flight, destructive action, or it may be met with a deënergization, confusion, paralysis, hopeless anger. It may cause an intense inner conflict with high constant emotions, fatigue, incapacity to choose the proper action, and the peculiar agony of doubt.

This last type of reaction is a very common one in the housewife. For the situation is never clear-cut for decision - there is the ideal implanted by training, education, social pressure, and her own desire to live in conformity with this ideal; there is opposing it disgust, anger, weariness, lack of interest that her house duties bring with them. This conflict leads nowhere so far as action is concerned, for she can neither accept nor reject the situation.

This is to say: The human being needs primarily a definite point of view, a definite starting place for his actions. Some belief, some goal, some definite purpose is needed for the rallying of the energy of mind and body. Drifting is intolerable to the acute, active mind bent upon some achievement before death. Man is the only animal keenly aware of his mortality, and consequently he is the only one to fear the passing of time. This passing of time can be received equably by the one conscious of achievement, or who has some compensation in belief and purpose; it becomes intolerable to those in doubt.

Fundamentally one may say that neurasthenia and the allied diseases which we are here summing up as the nervousness of the housewife are reactions to the disagreeable. The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt.

With these few words on types of reactions to the disagreeable let us turn again to the disagreeable factors in our housewife's life which may cause her neurosis.

The child is the central bond of the home and is of course the biological reason for marriage. The maternal instinct has long been recognized as one of the great civilizing factors, the source of much of human sympathy and the gentler emotions. While the beautiful side of the mother-child relationship is well known and cannot be overestimated, the maternal instinct has its fierce, its jealous, its narrow aspect. Love and sympathy for one's own in a competitive world have often as their natural results injustice and hardness for the children of others. While the best type of mother irradiates her love for her own into love for all children, it is not uncommon for women to find their chiefest source of rivalry in the progress and welfare of their children.

Maternal devotion is largely its own reward. The child takes the maternal sacrifices for granted, and after the first few years the interests of parent and child diverge. There is a never-ending struggle between the rising and the receding generations, which is inherent in the nature of things and will always exist wherever the young are free. All the world honors the mother, but few children return in anything like equality the love and sacrifices of their own mother.

Boston
Little, Brown, And Company
1920