Part 16 (2/2)
Potential Motherhood. Among the normal phenomena of a woman's life is the recurring cycle of potential motherhood. Every three or four weeks a new ovum or egg matures in the ovary and undergoes certain chemical changes, which send into the blood a substance called a hormone. This hormone is a messenger, stimulating the mucous membrane of the womb into making its velvet pile longer and softer, and its nutrient juices more abundant in readiness for the ovum.
The same stimulus causes the whole organism to make ready for a new life. As in hunger, the chemistry of the body produces the muscle-tension that is felt as a craving for food, so this recurring chemical stimulus produces a definite craving in body and mind. This craving brings about an increased irritability or sensitiveness to stimuli which may result either in a joyous or a fretful mood.
During sleep the social inhibitions are felt less distinctly and the sleeper dreams love-dreams woven from messages coming up from all the minute nerve-endings in the expectant reproductive organs. But if no germ-cell travels up the womb-ca.n.a.l and tube to meet and impregnate the ovum, the womb-lining rejects the egg as chemically unfit. All the furbis.h.i.+ngs are loosened from the walls and slowly cast out, const.i.tuting the menstrual flow. The phenomenon as a whole is a physiological function and should be accompanied by a sense of well-being and comfort as is the exercise of any other function, such as digestion or muscular activity. Only too often, however, it is dreaded as an unmitigated disaster, a time for giving up work or fun and going to bed with a hot-water bottle until ”the worst is over.” Let us see how this perversion comes about.
Why Menstruation Is Painful. What sort of atmosphere is created for the young girl as she attains p.u.b.erty? Most girls get their first inkling of the menstrual period from the periodic ”sick spells” of mother or sister. This knowledge comes without conscious thought and is a direct observation of the subconscious mind, which records impressions with the accuracy and completeness of a photographic plate. Hearing the talk about a ”sick-time” and observing the signs of ”cramps” among older friends, the young girl's subconscious mind plays up to the suggestion and recoils with fear from the newly experienced sensations in the maturing organs of reproduction.
This recoil of fear interferes with the circulation in the functioning organs, just as fear blanches the face or hinders digestion. There is several times as much blood in the stomach when it is full of food as there is between meals, but we do not for this reason fancy that we have a pain after each meal. There is more blood in the generative organs during their functioning, but this means pain only when fear ties up the circulation and causes undue congestion. Fear acts further on the st.u.r.dy muscle of the womb, tying it up into just such knots as we feel in the esophagus when we say that we have a lump in the throat. It is safe to say that ninety-five cases of painful menstruation out of every hundred are caused by fear and by the expectation of pain. The cysts and tumors responsible for pain are so rare as to be fairly negligible, when compared with these other causes.
Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher of Stanford University has for many years carried on careful investigations among the students of the university. After describing in detail certain physical exercises which she has found of value, she continues:
But more important even than this is an alteration of the morbid att.i.tude of women themselves toward this function; and almost equally essential is a fundamental change in the habit of mind on our part as physicians; for do we not tend to translate too much, the whole of a woman's life into terms of menstruation? If every young girl were taught that menstruation is not normally a ”bad time” and that pain or incapacity at that period is as discreditable and unnecessary as bad breath due to decaying teeth, we might almost look for a revolution in the physical life of women.... In my experience the traditional treatment of rest in bed, directing the attention solely to the s.e.x-zone of the body, and the accepted theory that it is an inevitable illness while at the same time the mind is without occupation, produces a morbid att.i.tude and favors the development and exaggeration of whatever symptoms there may be. [56]
[56] Clelia Duel Mosher: Health and the Woman Movement, pp. 25, 26, 19.
Pre-Menstrual Discomfort. If it be objected that women often feel badly for a day or two before the period begins, before they know that it is due, and that this feeling of discomfort could not be caused by fear and expectation, it is easy to reply that the subconscious mind knows perfectly what is happening within the body. The emotion of fear, working within the subconscious, is able to translate all the varying bodily sensations into feelings of distress without any knowledge on the part of the conscious mind.
Sometimes before the period begins, a girl feels blue and upset for a day or two, a sign that the instinct is getting discouraged. The whole body is saying, ”Get ready, get ready,” but it has gotten ready many times before, and to no purpose. Unsatisfied striving brings discouragement. What reaches consciousness is a feeling of pessimism and a general dissatisfaction with life as a whole. If, instead of giving in to the blues or going to bed and predicting a pain, the girl finds other outlets for her energy, she finds that after all, her instinct may be satisfied in indirect ways and that she has strangely come into a new supply of vim.
The Purpose of the Pain. Although suggestion is behind all nervous symptoms, there is a deeper reason for the disturbance. When an unhealthy suggestion is seized and acted upon, it is because some unsatisfied part of the personality sees in it a chance for accomplis.h.i.+ng its own ends. The pre-menstrual period is the blooming-time, the mating-time, the springtime of the organism. That means eminently a time for coming into notice, that one's charms may attract the desired complement. But if the rightfully insistent instinctive desires are held in check by unnatural repressions and misapplied social restrictions, the starved instinct can obtain expression only by a concealment of purpose. The disguise a.s.sumed is often one of indifference or positive distaste for the allurements of the other s.e.x. But, as we know, an instinctive desire will not be denied. In this case, the misguided instinct which has been given the suggestion that menstruation means illness, fits this conception into the scheme of things and obtains notice in a roundabout way by the attention given to the invalid.
The Treatment. To find that the symptom has a purpose rather than a cause gives the indication for the treatment. Judicious neglect causes the symptom to cease by defeating its very purpose,-that of drawing attention to itself. The person who never mentions her discomfort, thinks about it as little as possible, and goes about her business as usual, is likely to find her trouble gone before she realizes it. [57]
[57] Violent exercise at this time is unwise, but continuing one's usual activity helps the circulation and keeps the mind from centering on the affected part. The physiological congestion is unduly intensified by standing; therefore all employments should afford facilities for the woman to sit at least part of the time while continuing work.
A little explanation gives the patient insight into the workings of her own mind, and usually causes the pain to disappear in short order. Astonished, indeed, and filled with grat.i.tude have been some of my young-women patients who had all their lives been unable to plan any work or social engagements for the time of this functioning. Many of them were the worst kind of doubters when they were told that to go to bed and center their attention on the generative organs only made the muscles tighten up and the circulation congest. They could not conceive themselves up and around, pursuing their normal life during such a time. However, as they have found by experience that this point of view is not an optimistic dream, they have broken up the confidence-game which their subconscious had been playing on them, and have gone on their way rejoicing.
There was one young girl, a doctor's daughter, who suffered continuously from pain in the abdomen, and from back-pain which increased so greatly at the time of the menses that she was in the habit of going to bed for several days, to be waited on with solicitous care by her family. In an attempt to cure the trouble she had undergone an operation to suspend the uterus, but the pain had continued as before. When she came to me, I explained to her that there was no physical difficulty and that her trouble was wholly nervous. I made her play tennis every day and she had just finished a game when her period came on. She stayed up for luncheon, went for a walk in the afternoon, ate her dinner with the family, and behaved like other people. Her mother telephoned that evening and when I told her what her daughter had been doing, she gasped in astonishment. She had difficulty in believing that the new order was not miracle but simply the working out of natural law. Since that time her daughter has had no more trouble.
The Ounce of Prevention. If young girls had wiser counselors in their mothers and physicians, the misconception would never occur, and such an indirect outlet would not be needed; the organic sensations incident to p.u.b.erty and the recurring menstrual period would have something of the significance of the annunciation to Mary, bringing wonder and a sense of well-being.
When your little daughter arrives at maturity, give her a joyous initiation into the n.o.ble order of women. She will welcome the new function as a badge of womanhood and as a harbinger of wonderful things to come.
A girl of fifteen came under my care to be helped out of a mood of increasing depression and uneasiness. Her glance was furtive, yet anxiously expectant. Tears came unbidden as she sat alone or fingered the keys of the piano. Tactful questioning elicited no response as to reasons for her unhappiness. Opportunities for giving confidence were not accepted. At a chance moment our talk drifted to the subject of menstruation. ”Your periods are regular and easy; and do you know what they are for?” Then I painted for her a picture of the preparations that are made throughout the whole organism, for the germ-cell that comes each month and has in it all the possibilities of a new little life.
The result of this confidential talk may seem fanciful to any one but an eye-witness. We had only a week's a.s.sociation, but the depression ceased, the furtive look and deprecatory manner were replaced by a joyous buoyancy. In a few weeks the thin neck and awkward body rounded out into the symmetry which usually precedes the establishment of p.u.b.erty, but which was delayed in this case until the unconscious conflict resolved itself.
In the Large. Looked at from any angle, this subject is an important one. There are involved not only the physical comfort and convenience of the sufferers themselves, but also the economic prospects of women as a whole. If women are to demand equal opportunity and equal pay, they must be able to do equal work without periodic times of illness. When employers of women tell us that they regularly have to hire extra help because some of their workers lose time each month, we realize how great is the aggregate of economic waste, a waste which would a.s.suredly be justified if the health of the country's womanhood were really involved, but which is inefficient and unnecessary when caused merely by ignorant tradition. ”Up to standard every day of every week,” is a slogan quite within the range of possibility for all but the seriously ill. When reduced to their lowest terms, the inconveniences of this function are not great and are not too dear a price to pay for the possibilities of motherhood.
The ”Change of Life”
Another Phantom Peril. As the young girl is taught to fear the menstrual period, so the older woman is taught to dread the time when the periods shall cease. Despite the general enlightenment of this day and age, the menopause or ”change of life” is all too frequently feared as a ”critical period” in a woman's life, a time of distressing physical sensations and even of danger to mental balance.
As a matter of fact, the menopause is a physiological process which should be accomplished with as little mental and physical disturbance as accompanies the establishment of p.u.b.erty. The same internal secretion is concerned in both. When the function of ovulation ceases the body has to find a new way to dispose of the internal secretion of the ovary. Its presence in the blood is the cause of the sudden dilatation of the blood-vessels that is known as the ”hot flash.”
The matter is altogether a problem of chemistry, with the necessity for a new adjustment among the glands of internal secretion. The body easily manages this if left to itself, but is greatly interfered with by the wrong suggestion and emotion. We have already seen how quickly emotion affects all secretions and how easily the adrenal and thyroid glands are influenced by fear. This is the root of the trouble in many cases of difficult ”change.” If an occasional body is not quite able to regulate the chemical readjustment, we may have to administer the glands of some other animal, but in the majority of cases, the body, unhampered by an extra burden of fear, is quite able to make its own adjustments. The hot flash pa.s.ses in a moment, if not prolonged by emotion or if not converted into a habit by attention.
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