andrea yates.

I've just read a story about Andrea Yates in Texas Monthly. When this actually happened, I was about thirteen years old. I was far too busy being excited about entering high school to do more than watch the stories on TV about it. I don't think I would've been able to appreciate the magnitude of the situation at that age anyway. All I knew was that a mother had killed her children. But I also knew that things like that happened. Over the years, though, I've watched news stories and video clips from the courtroom and have found myself horrified at all of it.

The story is by Skip Hollandsworth and I was very impressed at the delicacy and tact the story is written with. I mean, here is a woman with five children (none of which were more than two years of age apart) with a history of post partum depression. She is encouraged to keep reproducing by members of her church even though it was a very, very bad idea to do so. I suppose her husband got tired of her being dependent on himself and his mother, as he announced that he would be leaving her alone for one hour in the mornings and one hour in the evenings to increase her maternal responsibility. He didn't bother to tell her psychiatrist.

I also understand that Andrea Yates was not acting like herself and that her mother was stunned at this plan because of Andrea's actions of late, like giving a toothless infant solid food. Her mother said Andrea was meticulous about this kind of thing because she knew solid food is not exactly good for a baby with no teeth. Her psychiatrist had taken her off of the antipsychotic she was taking, and instead upped her antidepressants. On June 21, 2001, she drowned her children in their bathtub because she felt her children were damned and she needed to save them.

I have not had a child, so I have never had post partum depression or psychosis, but I do know the signs and symptoms and I do know that this woman was suffering from both of these. There are people who still say she is selfish and evil and just wanted to be rid of her children, but they're wrong. Someone who is evil does not show remorse when she comes to realize what she has done. Someone who is evil does not miss whomever she killed. Someone who is evil would shed no tears.

I am appalled at the mental health treatment she received. I am appalled that she was encouraged to keep having children. I am horrified that a psychiatrist lied during the trial just to see her go to prison, suggesting that she got the idea from television, especially when the episode in question was never made. I am saddened that people still think she is evil. And I am disgusted that people are angry because she was sent to a state hospital, thinking she's getting off easy. I know what state hospitals are like, and I'd rather be in prison. Those hospitals are horrible. A patient has no rights. Prisoners have more rights than patients confined to a state psychiatric hospital.

Andrea Yates might get better. She might not. Either way, she will have to live with the knowledge that she killed her children, even if she didn't mean to, even if she believed she needed to at the time. I think that will be enough of a punishment without ignorant people calling her evil and condemning her to hell. The entire thing makes me sad. It makes me wish that people would take psychiatric disorders more seriously. It makes me wish that they would understand we did not ask for this. We do not enjoy it. It's not for attention. I wish they would understand that it is not demons that need to be cast out and that it won't go away just because we find God. I feel for her and her whole family and anyone involved. It is a sad situation, but I can't help but think that if she'd had more support and better care, I wouldn't be writing about this.