(19) Tue 11 Nov 97 23:08 By: Sheppard Gordon To: All Re: Hystories - 1/2 St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:82a9 236bb900 @MSGID: 1:278/230 000c024b Hysteria Book Hits A Raw Nerve; Sufferers Attack Author Who Says It's All in Their Heads 04/12/97 The Washington Post As she scribbled her name in the book she had written, "Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture," Elaine Showalter's hand was trembling. At this, her first book signing, she was surrounded by a clutch of people who had come to Politics and Prose on Thursday night. They were ticked off at Showalter's assertion that contemporary maladies such as chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War syndrome are psychological hysterias, not biological diseases. And, to boot, they are upset that she says people with these syndromes have a lot in common with those who report satanic ritual abuse and alien abductions. Some had read her book, which has been out only about a week. Some had gotten wind of her through postings on the Internet. Some had seen a profile in Mirabella in which she half-joked that her friend at Princeton, Joyce Carol Oates, "doesn't think I should go on the book tour. She thinks I'll be assassinated." The bookstore felt hot, stuffy, tense, sinister. The small throng pressed closer. Only a couple of people wanted to buy the book. More wanted to vent their spleen. An older lady waved a letter in Showalter's face. A frail woman with a cane said she felt insulted. A longhaired man in a baseball cap stood close to Showalter, handed out cards advertising his chronic fatigue syndrome advocacy group and vociferously disputed things she had said. As the bile rose in the room, the man swiveled toward Showalter and said that maybe she should have taken Oates's advice. "About being assassinated?" Showalter said. "Yes," he said. "Is that a threat?" Showalter asked, incredulously. "Not from me," the man said. Nonetheless, the writer was immediately ushered out of the bookstore by her driver into the cool night breezes. The author was unnerved. Later the bookstore's events coordinator said she probably should have hired a security guard for Showalter. On the sidewalk, Showalter took deep breaths. When you write about hysteria, things can get a little hysterical. WAVES OF STRANGENESS First an answer: Elaine Showalter believes that "contemporary hysterical patients blame external sources -- a virus, sexual molestation, chemical warfare, satanic conspiracy, alien infiltration -- for psychic problems." As a result, she said, "these individual pyschosomatic ailments get linked up to movements in society." So there are waves of strangeness -- of chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome, of recovered-memory cases, multiple-personality reports, and stories of satanic ritual abuse and alien abduction. With the exception of Gulf War syndrome, she said, these things are reportedly happening mostly to women. "I started to ask why," she said. "Feminist therapy and other branches of the feminist movement have been supportive of these syndromes," said Showalter, long considered a feminist in the academic world. She said she had chosen to take the rocky road and challenge traditional thinking. There is not a shred of hard scientific proof, she said, for any of these phenomena. "This is not the sort of book in which I say I have all the answers," she said. "I'm not infallible, but I feel very confident in the basis for what I'm saying. I think I have very good evidence." Showalter has been a teacher for a long time, and her tone is occasionally preachy or flip, which only enrages her opponents all the more. "Hysteria is universal. Every single one of us has had a stomachache before an exam." "If I'd spent four months fighting a war in the Persian Gulf, I'd have Gulf War syndrome, too." "Just as Ebola is coming out of the rain forest, multiple personality is coming out of the United States." "I don't think these patients are malingering or faking," she said. "But there's a real danger in not challenging the mythology." ALL IN THE FAMILY Now a question: Why would a professor of Victorian literature write a book about hysterical epidemics? Some might say that the idea came from her childhood in Boston. When Showalter was 11 or so, her mother, who was in the middle of an unhappy marriage to a wool merchant, took to bed and stayed there, without medical explanation, for two years. To get attention, little Elaine developed a limp. After her parents were divorced, her mother got better. So did Showalter's limp. Showalter, however, said her reasons for writing "Hystories" were not personal at all, but professional. She has written two other books, including "A Literature of Her Own," a book of feminist literary criticism. Her interest in the history -- and present state -- of hysteria is rooted in her love of Victorian literature, stories such as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Her new book is woven together with factual and fictional examples of hysteria. Hysterical epidemics, she writes, spring from three sources: enthusiastic physicians and theorists, disgruntled patients, and a supportive culture often represented by the media. Mass hysteria happens all at once. An epidemic builds slowly. In 1985 she wrote about the first documented wave of male hysteria -- common symptoms found in soldiers returning from World War I. Doctors, she said, couldn't bear to call it hysteria so they called it shell shock. Several years later, when she began to hear about Gulf War syndrome, the malady sounded exactly like shell shock to her. Conducting most of her research at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, she began to see historical context for many modern- day syndromes. Medical report by medical report, she pieced together a book. -> Alice4Mac 2.4.4 E QWK Hiya:05Nov94 --- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10 * Origin: MoonDog BBS þ RIME NetHub Brooklyn,NY (1:278/230) SEEN-BY: 218/890 1001 278/15 230 353/250 396/1 3615/50 51 3804/180 @PATH: 278/230 3615/50 218/1001 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (20) Tue 11 Nov 97 23:08 By: Sheppard Gordon To: All Re: Hystories - 2/2 St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:8259 236bb900 @MSGID: 1:278/230 000c024c `IT MAKES YOU DOUBT YOURSELF' The woman with the cane at the bookstore was a frail blonde named Kathryn Aqua. Aqua, 37, and her husband Joe, 45, met when she she called to ask about his chronic fatigue syndrome support group. They live in Laurel. Aqua first read about Showalter's book on the Internet. She said she rested up for about a week before venturing out Thursday night to the book signing. "I was very curious," she said, "about what kind of person would go out on a limb and publish academic work that doesn't hold water." Speaking of her own history, Aqua said she has suffered from chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome since April 1995. She was living in Kentucky, working as a social worker. "I had a great life," she said. Then she came down with what she thought was a recurring case of the flu. "The doctors had to convince me that I had chronic fatigue syndrome. I was like Elaine Showalter. I thought it was psychological." Though Aqua said she would probably like Showalter if they were to meet under different circumstances, "what she's doing is using language very adeptly. It's misleading. While there is no marker for chronic fatigue syndrome, it's very clear that people with the disease have clinically documentable abnormalities. "This disease has only been studied for 10 years," she continued. "The funding for it is very limited. Most of the research money now is going to AIDS." The concern voiced by Aqua, and others at the book signing and on talk shows, is that Showalter's book could damage the group's efforts to attract funding for research. Aqua said she has not been able to work since December 1995. "I can read Showalter's book and think maybe it's true about me. But that's the constant message that we get -- from the media, doctors, friends. "There is constant questioning. It makes you doubt yourself. This disease causes a lot of problems in your life. When I got it, I had a great job, I was living in a great community. I can't say that I had any more stress than at any other time in my life. Life has always been stressful. I don't buy that we have a more stressful life than at any other time in history. "Chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome destroys people's lives. It leaves you barely alive physically to witness the devastation." Leigh Sawyer of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases agreed with Aqua. "No one knows what is causing this. We do know this exists. There is no diagnostic test, no treatment." She said that although scientists are convinced it's not the result of an infection, they are looking into other physiological causes for the syndrome. These include abnormal regulation of blood pressure in some people, sleep disorder, and problems in the biochemical reactions by which muscles use energy and perform work. "Chronic fatigue syndrome is not imagined," Sawyer said. "It's not hysterical." ON THE AIR Elaine Showalter's schedule in Washington was enough to make anyone hysterical. Besides the book signing, she appeared on one TV news segment and three radio shows, including an afternoon interview on "The Mary Matalin Show." She was excited about meeting Matalin, whom she admires. She and Matalin compared fingernail polish. Showalter nervously called the host "Sally" at one point during their interview. Matalin said, "I love anything that gets the mega- fems' leaders' panties in a knot." People called the show, but Matalin decided that the calls were too weird to deal with and she spent the whole hour exploring the book. On air and off air, Matalin listened as Showalter talked of the underlying causes of hysteria. The author pointed out similarities among the hysterias -- anger toward doctors, a belief in conspiracies, stories fueled by the media. She spoke of the sexual components of alien abduction stories -- their resemblance to female pornography. Showalter said that, often, there is a progression from recovered memory to multiple personality to satanic ritual abuse. Taking a sip from a bottle of water, Matalin told Showalter that she was the first guest to ever receive pre-appearance hate mail, including a package of material from a chronic fatigue syndrome group that attempted to discredit her. "The chronic fatigue groups are the most organized," Showalter said. "They are tireless." -> Alice4Mac 2.4.4 E QWK Hiya:05Nov94 Origin: ----------> Jack Sargeant, you look fabulist! --- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10 * Origin: MoonDog BBS þ RIME NetHub Brooklyn,NY (1:278/230) SEEN-BY: 218/890 1001 278/15 230 353/250 396/1 3615/50 51 3804/180 @PATH: 278/230 3615/50 218/1001