"ONLY HER NERVES."
There is a slang expression current among the irreverent youth of the
present day, when referring to a man wise in his own conceit, to the
effect that "what that fellow does not know is torn out." So I,
quoting my juniors, begin my talk with the sentence--for the raciness
of which I apologize--"What American women do not know about
nervousness is torn out!"
Only this week in a city horse-car I watched the faces of my
fellow-passengers,--women, most of them--with a pain at my heart. Oh,
the tired, strained, impatient faces, and the eager, alert, and
anxious expression that belong to the people of this new and free
country! Some of these wretched mortals had babies with them,--babies
whose fretful wails seemed but to voice the mother's expression of
countenance. In an uneasy way the little mites would be shifted from
one shoulder to another, or trotted in nervousness that reminded me
irresistibly of the nursery rhyme which might be the motto of the
American mother:
", out of breath,
They trot the baby, most to death,
Sick or well, or cold or hot,
It's trottery, trottery, trottery, trot."
Of all these women there was not one who sat still for three
consecutive minutes. Heads were twisted to look at the name of the
corner lamp-posts, glove fingers were smoothed, the folds of
dress-skirts shaken out, hats straightened,--until I would fain have
cried out in irreverent paraphrase, at sight of the unrest which I
blush to confess made me conscious of my own nerves:
"Not one sitteth still--no, not one!"
That men have any patience with what they term "feminine fidgetiness,"
is but an evidence that they are better Christians than we of the
gentler sex are willing to admit. For I think I am not making a
sweeping assertion when I state that not one tolerably healthy man in
five hundred knows what it is to have nerves such as are the
birthright of his mother, sister, and wife. And yet how well the
physician, poet, autocrat and professor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, knows
and sympathizes with this weakness in us! He touches the truth in a
direct way that wrings a sigh of familiar pain from many a patient
soul.
"Some people have a scale of your whole nervous system and can play
all the gamut of your sensibilities in semi-tones, touching the naked
nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. I am
satisfied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing as
Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of performance. Married life is
the school in which the most accomplished artists in this department
are found. A delicate woman is the best instrument; she has such a
magnificent compass of sensibilities. From the deep inward moan which
follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the
filaments of taste are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range which
no other instrument possesses."
And again he speaks of the less serious affection of the nerves
as: ... "Not fear, but what I call nervousness,--unreasoning, but
irresistible; as when, for instance, one, looking at the sun going
down, says: 'I will count fifty before it disappears,' and as he goes
on and it becomes doubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets
strangely flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death and
heaven and hell as the issues depending on the completion or
non-completion of the fifty he is counting."
If a man can describe it all so well, what could a woman do? I fear
that her description would be too graphic to be read by us, her
sisters.
Many people have a way of saying of a sufferer:
"There is nothing the matter with her. She is only excessively
nervous."
This "only" is a very serious matter. There is no illness more
difficult to treat and more trying to bear than nervous prostration.
It is a slowly advancing malady which is scarcely recognized as
serious by one's friends until the tired mind succumbs and mental
aberration is the terrible finale of the seemingly slight
indisposition.
My readers may wonder why I dwell upon a subject that baffles even the
most eminent physicians in the country. It is because I feel that each
of us women has in herself the only check to the nervousness which we
all dread. We, as Americans, cannot afford to trifle with our
unfortunate inheritance, but must use every means at our command to
subjugate the evil instead of being subjugated by it. Too many women,
especially among the lower classes, think it "pretty" to be nervous.
The country practitioner will tell you of the precious hours he loses
every week in hearkening to the recital of personal discomforts as
poured into his professional ears by farmers' wives. And the
beginning, middle, and end of all their plaints is "my nerves."
Anything, from a sprained ankle to consumption, is attributed to or
augmented by these necessary adjuncts to the human anatomy.
Not long ago I was talking to the ignorant mother of a jaundiced,
colicky child of two years of age.
"What does she eat?" I asked.
"Well, she takes fancies, and her latest notion is that she won't eat
nothin' but ginger-nuts and bananas. So she mostly lives on them.
Sometimes she suffers awful."
"From indigestion?"
"Oh, no!" patronizingly. "She inherits all my nervous weakness. Her
nerves get the upper hand of her, and she turns pale and shivers all
over, and then she looks as if she would go into the spasms."
"But," I suggested, "don't you think that is caused by acute
indigestion?"
"No, ma'am. You see I know what it is, havin' had it so bad myself.
The nerves of her stomach all draw up, and cause the shakin' and
tremblin'."
Suggestions as to the modification of the little one's diet were
useless. Indigestion was unromantic (in the mother's judgment), and
"nerves" were highly aristocratic and refined.
I am happy to note that the girl of the rising generation is learning
that to succumb to weakness is not a sign of ladyhood. She does not
jump on a chair at sight of a mouse, scream when she meets a cow in a
country road, or cover her face and shudder at mention of a snake. She
is proud of being afraid of nothing, of having a good appetite, and of
the ability to sleep as soundly as a tired and healthy child.
It is not then to her, but to ourselves, that we mothers have need to
look. We are too often the ones who give way to hysterical tears or to
sharp words, or perhaps to unjust criticism, all of which we attribute
to nervousness. Our more frank girl, if affected in the same way,
would bluntly acknowledge that she was "as cross as a bear." Let us
quietly take hold of ourselves and ask ourselves the plain question,
"Are we nervous, or cross?" If the latter, we know how to remedy it. A
well person has no right to be so abominably bad-tempered or moody
that he cannot keep people from finding it out. If you are nervous,
there is some reason for it. Perhaps you did not sleep well last
night; perhaps you are suffering from dyspepsia; but in any case
will-power will do much towards lessening the trouble. If you are ill,
it may cause a struggle greater than your nearest and dearest can
imagine to repress the startled ejaculation at the slamming of a door,
or the angry exclamation when your bed is jarred. But you will be
better, not worse, physically, for this self-control. The woman, who,
though tortured by nervousness sets her teeth and says, "I _will_ be
strong!" stands a better chance of speedy recovery than does she who
weakly gives way to hysterical sobs a dozen times a day. Your nerves
should be your servants, and, like all servants, may give you much
trouble, but as long as you are mistress of yourself you need not fear
them. Once let them get the control over you, and you are gone. There
is no tyrant more merciless than he who has hitherto been a slave.
May I add one word to those whom we, in exasperation, are apt to call
aggressively strong? If you, yourself, do not know what nervousness
is, pity and help the poor sufferer in your family who never knows
during day or night what it is to be without what you consider "the
fussiness that sets you wild." If this mother, or aunt, or sister,
does control herself, remember that she is stronger than you, as the
man who successfully curbs the fiery steed is more to be commended for
courage than he who holds the reins loosely over the back of the safe
farm-horse who does not know how to shy, kick, or run.