Virginia Woolf’s touching suicide note to her husband begins, “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.” [1]
Renowned English writer and key figure in the modernist literary movement Virginia Woolf, took her own life on 28 March 1941. She had suffered from poor mental health including depression and bipolar disorder, throughout her life.
On the day of her suicide, Woolf filled her pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex, England. She left behind a poignant suicide note for her husband, Leonard Woolf, expressing her deep despair and the sense that she could no longer cope with her mental anguish. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk’s House, their home in Sussex.
From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes. For the rest of her life, she suffered from poor mental health and had several breakdowns which resulted in institutionalisation for treatment.
Woolf’s mental health deteriorated significantly towards the end of her life. During this time, she faced challenges in her personal and professional life, including the death of friends, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the difficulty of maintaining her creative work amid the turmoil, causing increased anxiety, paranoia, and mood swings.
Woolf’s death marked the end of a brilliant literary career that had produced works such as Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando.
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