gitana1
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I also don't get it. I was once a young mother, full-time job on the nite shift, home, money problems, etc, just like all young mothers. I never had PPD, but sometimes I did feel overwhelmed. But never once did I feel like hurting (or killing) my child. Why do they not just walk away. Better to leave a baby screaming in the house alone than kill it. Get your purse, yell to the husband "get your azz over here, I'm leaving' and drive off, walk off, whatever is necessary.
Just for what its worth, I've never thought Andrea Yates was crazy.
All MOO
I never bought her insanity excuse either - at least at first. I thought that the maternal instinct should be able to break through any kind of insanity,no matter how profound, if such maternal instinct existed to begin with. I thought that the bond with her children would have to fight through the haze of mental illness as she systematically held each of her children down, watching them gasp and struggle and fight to stay alive, and as she actually chased down her older kids. I was outraged, horrified, appalled and refused to give her any excuse.
Then I researched her case.
My gosh I had no idea. Repeated hospitalizations. Suicide attempts. Delusions and hallucinations. For years. Warnings from her doctors that she should not have anymore pregnancies. Catatonia. Warnings not to levae her alone with the children. Bizarre behavior. Dry runs filling the tub "in case she needed it". Hallucinations that the t.v. was talking to her, telling her the only way to save her children from hell was to kill them.
She was on so many different anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications BEFORE she ever harmed her kids - Haldol, Risperdol, Ativan, Zyprexa, etc.
This indeed was a profoundly ill woman long before she killed her children.
But the question is not whether a post-partum depression can become post-partum psychosis or what psychosis means. The question is why does psychosis in these mothers so often involve the desire to harm their children? Why does the psychosis manifest itself that way?
You could say "it's post partum madness" or you could say "it was an act of spite".
NOT judging this woman, but I am getting very very sick of individuals harming innocent children.
I had a friend who's mother had PPD for years, back 40 years ago.
She ended up having shock therapy which apparently worked like a charm.
HOWEVER I note that my friend grew up unharmed, as did (no doubt) a million other babies who's mothers have suffered over the decades with PPD.
Why are the effects of PPD worsening? Because the PPD itself is getting worse, or because our SOCIETY is getting more violent?
Everywhere you look it seems as though some narcissist has decided the best way to get over whatever is bothering them, is to murder someone.
It's just not good enough. NO PPD in the world can cause a mother to slice open her children, one by one.
Sorry. Y'all who suffered it and survived, know it's true. I bet none of you posting here ever ONCE thought to stab or slash your baby, or if you did you ran and got help.
I'm reminded of the callous little madams who give birth in school bathrooms during the prom, and stuff the baby in the garbage.
Are they supposed to be suffering PPD too, while they adjust their underwear and head back to the dance floor?
It could just be that they are evil and selfish.
Men annihilate their families all the time and no one looks to hormones to excuse them.
Mothers have been killing their infants since time began. Infanticide is referenced in all sorts of ancient texts including ancient Roman legal documents, letters, etc., and in Elizabethan literature and news articles in the US since the colonists arrived . It is observable among Chimps and even Bonobos. In fact, it is observable among all sorts of different animals.
This is from a great, comprehensive academic research article about infanticide on the part of mothers:
When I first obtained the carefully transcribed volumes of homicides recorded by the Chicago Police Department between the years
of 1870 and 1930, I was stunned. [185 cases in Chicago alone, during that period] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=zuoUNRpZ4zcLvkFwmwctag&bvm=bv.67651124,d.cGU
It appears there may actually be a decline in the numbers today. A huge one. The author examined a database that shows only 219 cases between 1990 and 2000, total, not just in Chicago.
A book I have called Wisconsin Death Trip, gives various accounts of mothers murdering their children in Wisconsin, in the 1800's.
I do not believe out society is getting more violent and I don't believe these cases are increasing. I think our society is actually much less violent than years past.