Womb Talk, Conclusion

Here is the last piece of my musings on the loss of my womb. 

Hysteria 

To the ancient Egyptians,

it was caused by a displaced

or wandering womb.

To the Greeks,

it also stemmed from

the inability to bear children,

or the unwillingness to marry

(for surely, if you refused to marry,

you must have been hysterical).

They named it for the word

for womb, hystera.

Augustine called it

satanic possession.

Later, its definition mutated

into any mental disturbance 

in women. Men? 

No womb, no hysteria.

When psychology arrived,

diagnoses of anxiety and depression.

eclipsed those of hysteria.

Hmm...

Perhaps women were always

anxious and depressed.

Now, women are called

hysterical when they express

"out of control" emotion.

 

Is it time that we reclaim

the word, the way we did

with "witch" and "crone"?

Let's stop letting them

demean us.

Do we not, in this world,

have so much to

get riled about?

If a woman expresses big feelings,

she is either "shrill" at best,

or "hysterical" at worst.

 

My sisters, we have the right

to our righteous hysteria.

Do our hysterics scare them?

Let's stop apologizing for

our fury, our fear, and distress.

Let's let tears flow in our rage.

Then let us move on to do

what we know how to do -

Caretake the earth, the children,

and each other.

SoulCollage card

Facing the Unknown