The Diary of Alice James

"Alice James was the younger sister of both the novelist Henry James and the psychologist William James . She experienced ill health for most of her life, mostly dismissed as hysteria, before dying at the age of 43 from breast cancer. She began keeping a diary in 1889, when she was already in her 40s and existing in a state of near-constant invalidism. Like Schreber’s Memoirs , her writing is valuable both because it comes from the patient’s perspective, and because it was written in real-time rather than with hindsight. Alice shows us how frustratingly non-linear her condition is; periods of chronic but manageable weakness are punctuated by seemingly random acute attacks that render her bed-bound and, at times, unable to walk. Always, she has to contend with the shadow of insanity or ‘mental feebleness’ that hangs over her—because doctors are unable to fix a physical diagnosis for her many symptoms, there is always this lingering possibility that it was all a result of her malfunctioning mind. This is very frustrating for Alice, and for the reader, who finds themself in the peculiar position of actually rooting for her to be diagnosed with a serious illness just so everyone will stop assuming that she is crazy. Two things come to mind. The first is: don’t try and talk them out of it. Bracing injunctions that “you probably imagined it” have always just made me feel worse, because I don’t feel believed. The second is: focus on distraction and misdirection. Without denying that the anxiety is there, try and pull the hypochondriac into other enjoyable activities that will keep their mind occupied. Once they are fully engaged, they may well forgot all about the disease that was killing them just a few hours ago."