----- Original Message ----- From: "Chad Cooper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 2:46 PM Subject: RE: Andrea Yates
> > > Deterrant means, for example, that someone who is > > considering stealing > > somthing will consider the fact that people who steal go to > > prision and say > > "gee, I better not steal then." (S)he is deterred from > > her/his actions. An > > insane person will rarely be deterred, because their thinking > > process is not > > logical. If they are in a highly controlled environment, they will be > > seperated from society. > > > > Dan M. > > Perhaps the notion of Justice and punishment needs to change for the 21st > century. Many of the most horrific crimes recently are those where the > perpetrator knew it was wrong, unaffected by deterrence, and did it anyway. > When a criminal like Andrea Yates immedately calls the police after the > crime, there is either not enough of a deterrence, Criminal? What was the motive for her crime? (I will agree that it was a crime by any standard I can think of.) Chad, have you actually read much about this trial? I realise that I may have you at somewhat of a disadvantage since I live just a few blocks from the Yates residence and this is *the* top news story locally, but I cant imagine that you would have read a version of it that would not evoke some kind of sympathy for the plight of this woman. > or there is not any > deterrence method what would work. Another example would be the 30+ suicide > bombings in the last year killing thousands. > > Perhaps the Hari Seldon had the answer - You make them dissappear from > history. Ahhh....ok....so we just murder the mentally ill, is that what you are suggesting? I hope not. :( WHY I SYMPATHIZE WITH ANDREA YATES When I first joined Brin-L, I was going through a divorce with a woman who had been diagnosed (before we were married) as having DID. (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Before we married she seemed to be improving and things seemed wonderful, but almost as soon as the honeymoon ended she relapsed into her previous behaviors. In her mind I was her enemy and the cause of all her problems, all her unhappiness. During our marriage I was screamed at for 2 or 3 hours at a time on 3 or 4 days each week. I was threatened with baseball bats and large kitchen knives. She threatened to kill me in my sleep on several occasions. I hate to tell you how trivial a thing could be that would set her off. There were times I sat in the driveway afraid to go in the house. I never knew what kind of greeting awaited me. She used to hide syringes around the house and use them to draw blood that she then smeared on her face while she watched herself in the mirror. She hid razor blades and would cut herself when she was depressed. She swallowed whole bottles of pills (usually Klonopin). She had hallucinations and delusions. (she saw pentagrams on the ceiling and imagined devil worshipers had lived there before us for example). She confabulated vividly ( through dreams and/or hypnosis treatments) wherein she came to believe her parents were satanists and that she had been sexually abused by them and their fellow satanists. (She actually had been sexually abused but under much more mundane circumstances). She believed that she had killed a baby during a satanic ritual she had been forced to participate in. About six weeks into our marriage she discovered she was pregnant. And after our sons birth she suffered from a serious case of post partum depression. She wanted nothing, I mean nothing to do with him. It is ironicly fortunate that I had been laid off the week before he was born, because I had to take care of Rory with a little help from my 10 year old step daughter. He slept with me downstairs on the couch every night. I did virtually all of the changing and feeding and care for the first month of his life. Around then I was able to convince her that I needed to go back to work and I needed her to take over. You cannot imagine the stress I felt those first days, leaving my son alone with her while I worked. I feared everyday for a couple of weeks that she would abuse him or I would come home to find him dead. Sound familiar? Oh it was bad a lot of the time. But sometimes it was worse. And I will be a bit honest about it. After living in this unhealthy enviroment I began to behave toward her as bad as she did toward me. There were times when I was determined to give as good as I got. I am guilty of verbally abusing her. I am guilty of emotionally abusing her. And there were times when our disputes became physical. Nothing extreme, but I would slap her back when she slapped me or push her after being pushed. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior. I am guilty of physical abuse. I am guilty of physically abusing someone who was mentally ill. My behavior. My fault. I am responsible and there are no excuses. The fact that it only happened 2 or 3 times means little. It is supremely humiliating to find that you could be reduced to that level. I never thought of myself as that kind of person. I always thought I was better than that. But I have to live with this shame and do my best to never let myself get into a position where I might act so badly again. I realise that my ex-wifes mental illness was in some sense rubbing off on me. I was catching the bug. I wasnt able to hold myself above the action where I could see what was going on. I think about this pretty often. I was susceptable when I thought I was wise and knew better. I never expected to be so wrong in my estimation of myself. I thought I was strong. Strong enough. I wasn't. And maybe I'm not. But after all that, maybe now I am. I'm not sure I want to find out. Now it may seem that I see my ex-wife as a sick wretched harridan who made my life miserable and who drove me to humiliate myself. I'm really sorry that I leave that impression. My ex-wife is a sweet loving person, smart and likeable, with good character. She is a strongly moral person. She is as good a mother to her children as she can possibly be (considering her liabilities.). She truely loved me and I did her. But she suffered. And when she suffered, the people she loved suffered. Thats part of the nature of love I suppose. I care about her, more than just caring for the welfare of our son and her daughter implies. But my life has moved on now. These days her status seems pretty good. She seems healthier than I have ever known her to be and I am glad for it. But as bad as things were for and between us, I know they could have been much worse. I am grateful that the things I feared most never materialised. Maybe you can understand why I dislike discussing mental illness. I lived with it for so long and it affected me in so many negative ways. I know that I have grown from my experience. Hopefully I am a better person. I like to think I was a good person before, but I no longer have as much confidence in that. Andrea Yates......her mental health problems exceed My ex-wifes by an order of magnitude. Everything she suffers is much worse than what I saw. She killed her children. But my experience tells me that the delusions and compulsions she suffers would overide any logic, common sense, or reason you might expect from a normal person. I saw some pretty crazy stuff and have little difficulty imagining the scope of her insanity. Now, I have revealed more about myself than I feel comfortable with. A lot of it bad things about myself. I'm kind of expecting that people might see me in a more jaundiced light and I cant say that I would blame them. I have trouble forgiving myself for the bad things I did. I hope you guys understand that I might not feel like discussing this. This cuts deep and while it might be seen as theraputic by some, I find it painful and difficult to express. rob
