a black girl

The Mad Woman Below

Monday, March 19, 2007

There is a ninety year old mad black woman beneath me. I say this with all the puns intended, and mindful of the ageism and racism it provokes. I also say this as a spark for a conversation with myself (and with the reader of this blog) about madness, age, and race. More specifically, I am dealing with different ages of mad black women.

This conversation is not meant to invoke Tyler Perry's version of this woman, although it is quite possible that she is relevant to my discussion here. I say this to discuss madness as it is psychologically understood. I think madness in this respect is completely related to madness that is understood that *all* black women have--a never ending well of anger.

The source of this anger is never interrogated, which is actually more fuel for that anger. Being ignored is a frustrating position to be in. One beings to wonder if she exists at all, and rightfully so. The world proclaims that we don't and if we do, we shouldn't. Perplexing situation. But I digress.

There is a ninety year old mad black woman beneath me. She screams of an injustice to her humanity most every night: the inhumane and inconsiderate playing of loud music above her. She usually wakes me up with her complaining. One evening I called her to ask her what was going on and immediately she began to curse me out about how I come in late and play loud music. This particular evening she says I came in late, I had actually been at home since four in the afternoon, I went to sleep early, and didn't play music at all in my house at the time. I rarely even watched television. Suffice it to say, although I checked with myself to make sure I wasn't the one causing her outbursts (I really did have to double check.), it was clear that she saw this black girl as the culprit of her sleepless nights.

Madness is contagious. Or at least--madness brings up more madness for already-mad people. The outbursts of anger, frustration, and sadness are overwhelming. I have broken down and cried many times myself during them. She says things like: "Why would you do this to me? I can't sleep." or "I'm old, you shouldn't do this to old people!"

"Why would you do this to me." is such a universal mad cry. It's often been offered to God, lovers, friends, the president... It is a cry of both outrage and sadness. There is the remnants of an assumption that she would be considered. This is a horrible and familiar feeling. I've decided that this is possibly a problem she's had before that is rearing its head in her old age. Her anger (of which there is much, she later cussed me out in the hallway for accusing her of complaining about loud noise--something she vehemently argues that she has never done) and her madness as in her onset of dimensia are one in the same. And she is triggering in this mad black woman more mania.

The week after my birthday I was unable to go to my house. I was afraid of the woman downstairs, and of something deep within me that, at the moment could not help me help myself. It is the me that has always been afraid to go home--for fear of what would be there. I talked about this little piece of me with my brother and therapist... surely it is something to be worked on. Nevertheless, the fear of going home was so intense that I slept in my car (which is not surprisingly, more warm than my actual apartment).

This whole episode made me think about black women and madness. Madness as anger, and madness as psychological distress. I'm thinking about this with all eyes open, knowing that psychology has certainly over-diagnosed and under-diagnosed black folks for the past century and a half. I'm thinking about that, about how psychology has looked to our brains to pathologize deviance and primitivism. I'm thinking about how serious the affects of racism has caused TRAUMAS within the black community that actually warrant spiritual (not psychological) evaluation. I'm thinking about black folks' skepticism about psychiatry--how depression as an illness is a white thing. (Although WE invented a whole series of musical genres around depression: blues, hip hop...)

I'm thinking about trauma and genius as two interrelated possibly co-symptomatic terms for the experiences of women of color. I'm thinking about the necissary-ness of bi-polar (dis)orders. The need to get shit done although you are hopelessly depressed. I'm thinking about Harriet Tubman's blackouts (which were literally caused by an oppressive slave system, they were set on by a brick being thrown at her head.) I'm thinking about Gayl Jones, who is currently in a psychiatric ward... and who continues to make amazing novels. I'm thinking about genius, and trauma, and women. Mad black women.

The Mad Woman Below is both a reality for me and a metaphor. A reality in the sense that I am watching myself run away from madness constantly. Sometimes, all I have is my mind. The mad woman below screams of injustice that appears not to be there. She is the manifestation of the trauma she's endured in her life. The mad woman below relives injustice. Her refrain, "How could you do this to me?" however is proof of her very grounded sanity, because somehow through the madness, she is able to expect humanity and groundedness from others.

Old (white) feminist literature had her hanging above my head... in attics.

The mad black woman is below. Deep within. She shakes me from the feet up. She screams all night (and some days) trying to convince me that she is human, that she deserves attention. Sometimes her convincing sounds like a question and I have to answer to her, yes you are, yes you do.

But so often, I do not know what to do for her but to move, and try to make home safe for me. But she will scream until i find the courage to go downstairs to the pissy disheveled apartment and rock my mad black woman to sleep.

Labels: age, home, madness, race