Wombstorm: A Herstory of Hysteria

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Wombstorm: A Herstory of Hysteria

Daniel Henry Rodgers

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“The uterus is sad and unfortunate when it does not join with the male and does not give rise to a new birth.” - Plato (Timaeus)

“Hail wayward Queen! Who rule the Sex to Fifty from Fifteen, Parent of Vapors and of Female Wit, Who give th' Hysteric or Poetic Fit.” - Alexander Pope

“But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way — it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.” - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.” - Hélène Cixous:

“Not only is the actual word ‘hysteria’ gendered—it once referred to an exclusively female disease, a mental illness thought to be caused by a malfunctioning uterus—there is a very long history of critics using accusations or innuendo about women's mental health or emotional stability in order to shut down their political voices.” - Sady Doyle:

“After great pain, a formal feeling comes— The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—” - Emily Dickinson:

“She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years.” - William Wordsworth:

“What’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn? ... she’s already had everything she needs within herself. it’s the world that convinced her she did not.” - Rupi Kaur:

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The womb is not a prison, but a schemata for uncharted power. Between the lines of history, the forgotten women exhale with conflagration. - Poet

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I. THE WANDERING I was born with a life that bled— a seafloor womb dragging tides of fern and marigold char The priests brought saffron and fear crowning me with diagnosis They said: She is too empty They said: Fill her with figs with seed with stillness They said: Her belly speaks too loud Mute her O Plato old patriarch of phantoms my body was no beast— just prophecy you never learned to read "The uterus is sad..." you wrote but it was your mind that roamed chasing shadows through a woman’s anatomy it was your thought that needed cauterizing. II. INCANTATIONS IN LATIN A midwife kissed my knees with vinegar. Galen’s ghost pressed salt… into my tongue. They labeled me: widow's throb seed-sick womb-wept. Symptomology—paroxysm trembling visions of color. A bishop marked my temple in salt called the brand heresy. I howled once That was enough When I bled they baptized it "fit!" Diagnosis: Uterine Fury Treatment: Submission O Saint Hysteria patron of the misunderstood deliver us from knowing. III. THE YELLOW ROOM Charlotte peels wallpaper with the tip of her soul Her husband counts the tendrils Prognosis: Nervous Prostration Prescription: Silence sunlight sweet compliance The rest cure is no rest It is a crypt where nouns born before verbs can be reborn She climbs the wallpaper’s fabric fingers quill-stained with meaning They say: Her nerves speak rebellion They say: Her ink is impudent They say: Her mind mimics sanity But her mind is architectural neuron built to collapse into freedom IV. THE CURE Enter the doctor iron hands— his stethoscope tuned to disobedience Patient exhibits: chronic resistance to role acute melancholia womb misbehavior He prescribes the bed the child the marriage that baits like a trap He prescribes the little engine of God— a steel vibrator brass-coiled buzzing administered with averted eyes He says: You will thank me after I say: The after is what I fear Outcome: Managed symptoms quiet mouth Case closed Symptoms abated Creativity subdued Marriage intact He wandered my diagnosis But it was you who wandered V. BERTHA BURNS THE HOUSE At Thornfield I am attic-bound kneeling among cracked porcelain gods My name Misremember written in attic dust My hair a fire escape— braided exit scorched prayer I speak in tongues of splinter and soot I bite the pages they wrote me into Diagnosis: Madwoman Prognosis: Containment I am not lunatic— I am ledger I am not danger— I am mirror I am not wife— I am wound When I leap I drag patriarchy by the fringe Let Rochester cough in the smoke The “madwoman” was not broken— she was a prophet censored for knowing too much VI. POST-MORTEM Sylvia slumbers The bell jar was culture-blown Virginia leaves stones in her pockets not in protest but to anchor centuries Emily dashes her poems into locked drawers— dashes not periods no diagnosis can follow— “He hurts a little though” she wrote and that was enough to stain a century Syndrome: Excess of Feeling Remedy: Erasure Wordsworth sketches paralysis: “She has no motion no force...” But we moved even in stillness We seethed beneath the bonnet A woman on the subway grips her throat— panic coded as inconvenience The doctor says Yoga Breathe Smile more VII. EPILOGUE: THE WOMB RETURNS And now unshackled the womb returns home— not to pelvis but to page A pen bleeds where scalpels once threatened In the margin: We birth ourselves We name the madness We reclaim the scream “There is no female mind… Might as well speak of a female liver” But behold our minds— volcanoes with velvet tongues not organs oracles We are not hysterical— we are historical thunder We are her We are howl We are what survives the diagnosis— naming not home but heaven Let them call it storm Let them label it loss We will write it as rebirth In the silence after diagnosis listen— that is the sound of a thousand pens unsheathed.

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Sara Baker

Date: 7/18/2025 5:06:00 PM

Daniel--your skill at creating dramatic monologues is beyond words. The stories you weave with beautiful imagery and subtly make your words engaging. The intensity of your monologue is impressive. Have a blessed evening, sara