Kiki, you always say what Im thinking. I dont have time to write detailed posts like yours, but if I did, Id say the same thing.
The following is just my opinion. Feel free to argue, disagree, extract quotes, etc. No, Im not a mental health professional, but I have tons of life experience teaching kids from elementary through college. I have 4 kids and 6 grands, and Ive dealt personally with a relative who was brain damaged in an accident. Still, he could still lie, deceive, con, and manipulate to get what he wanted.
IMO, defense attorneys routinely ask themselves, How can I capitalize on my clients background, mental/emotional status, upbringing, disabilities, aberrations, blah, blah, blah to introduce doubt in the minds of a potential jury? But dont we all have something imperfect in our backgrounds or personality? Aren't all of us learning challenged in some way? Still, most people integrate with others in acceptable ways, and recognize theirand othersboundaries.
Even a little 5-year-old kid recognizes lying vs. truth. During our development, lying is usually the first thing purged. Lying is not tolerated in most normal workplaces and is considered a major character flaw. I teach college English, and plagiarism is the capital crime of academe. Why? Its a form of lying.
Based on Mistys actions over time, my opinion is that she is at least as functional as that aforementioned five-year-old. She understands the English language and knows the difference between truthfulness and lying. She may be uneducated and backwards, but she has slick cognition when the situation demands it. She walks out when the questioning gets tough. If youre truthful, the questioning cant get too tough. Walking out requires the recognition that you are about to approach a minefield and that you may be required to deviate from a memorized script. She also has the ability to use MySpace or Face Book (or whatever it is) to access someone and threaten them, if Im remembering reports correctly.
As Ive said before on this site, Misty has youth and health on her side. She could have the world by the tail. She could muster the fortitude to break the cycle of drugs, abuse, and living on the fringes. She could say to herself, If I have to crawl over broken glass, I WILL get a GED (or more) and find my niche in life. I WILL not be bound by what I was born into. I WILL not have a wasted life, but a productive one.
Its not so much that Misty needs nurturing but that little Haleigh needed nurturing that night and got none.