don't read this if you have a weak stomach....

[16th ave.]

this occured over the weekend down in south Texas. its awful and is one of those cases where something definitely went wrong somewhere for this woman.

Police: Woman accused of killing newborn ate brain - Yahoo! News

 

[Dadu2004]

Ummmmm, yeah, I'll skip this one.

 

[16th ave.]

yeah, wish i had too. was reading the first part of it in the news and this is the latest.
terrible.

 

[fallon]

that's horrible :-(

 

[IADad]

I wish there was something like a CAT scan for mental illness, that maybe you could just walk through like a metal detector (I guess it would be a "Mental detector" then...) and they'd say, Nope, you can't comein/go home/go wherever, you'll be going with us for a little while so we can talk about what's going on in your head....

 

[Skyburning]

I wish I hadn't read that.. Even if I did do something like that in an moment of insanity I wouldn't want to be found not guilty I'd want to die. Ugh...I can't even imagine. My stomach is in knots after reading that...

 

[Xero]

I don't know if all of these incredibly disturbing threads are necessary. Its starting to bother me, no offense 16th ave.

I don't think I need to describe how horrific that was. I can only imagine what that had to be like for that poor baby. My heart is in my stomach right now. That was greusome.

 

[16th ave.]

none taken. it Is disturbing and heartbreaking. don't even want to think of it myself. but my heart goes out to that family. it will be a very long time before the other kids' lives get back to normal, if ever. the whole family is going to have a hell of a road to travel for the rest of their lives in dealing with this thing that has happened.

it brings up lots of questions. one of which is What went wrong? or How in the world could this have happened?
It has reminded me of Andrea Yates, the lady w/5 kids from Houston.
my own thoughts take the line of this possibly being an extremely severe case of ppd or other mental illness that was never treated or even realized by the mother and her family. If this mom's act turns out to be due from ppd or some other sort of mental illness--it can help to bring more awareness these things and help get people to start watching more closely and get more to start getting help w/out being afraid of the stigma of having a mental illness and so on.

skyburning, i'm w/you on that one. mental illness or not--if i ever did something like that just send me to the chair.

the cat scan thing--if only it were so easy.

 

[IADad]

we had a case here (and Xero, stop reading right now) in fact is involved the mom of one of my eldest son's classmates. She took the boy and his younger borther, who was just shy of turning 2, took them out into an isolated area sliced their throats and then cut herself and then went to a farm house witha story about being attacked. The little boy died, the older survived, but with the knwoledge that his mother tried to kill him and the vision of having see his little brother murdered by their mom.

It chokes me up just to write this.

we had all hoped that she would just plead guilty and be done....nope, she's pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, which I guess is fine, everybody's entitled to a trial, but it string things out and now, I'm afraid the 7 year old is going to have to testify...I'm with the two of you. If that was me and I'd done something horrific like that I wouldn't want to continue to live...

I don't usually wish others harm and I believe their fate is ultimately in someone elses hands, but I just kind of wish she'd have been successful at doing herself in, although , if she hadn't made it to the farm house, the older boy may not have survived, so who knows.....

 

[Xero]

That's awful.. well you know, both of those mothers have a terrible fate ahead of them and I can take comfort in that.

 

[16th ave.]

now, i aint saying what the mothers did was right. there is nothing right about this sort of thing.
but: where is the comfort if or when they are found to be mentally ill?

this is the kind of thing that could really get debated.

 

[Skyburning]

but: where is the comfort if or when they are found to be mentally ill?

I think it's clear she was mentally ill but I don't think there is any comfort to take in that. I think it's regrettable that she didn't get the help she needed but I still think she is responsible for her actions.

 

[IADad]

That's awful.. well you know, both of those mothers have a terrible fate ahead of them and I can take comfort in that.

yeah I know that, but like with thee case here, I want to stop her from having a trial, from dragging the child she tried to kill up on the stand...the really crazy thing(no pun intended) is that her husband goes and visits her...

how many of you could possibly ever even consider going to visit your spouse if they'd killed one of your children. I understand love and compasion and foregiveness, but I just don't think I ever could, and maybe if he can that makes him a better person, for showing that compasion, but I can't fathom it and I wonder whether it's dangerous to the surviving son...to know that his dad goes and visits his mom...does he feel betrayed?

You know I probably fear mental illness more than cancer...I just can't imagine if I, or my DW, ore wrst of all one of my kids developed a serious mental illness. I understand that it's an illness, but if they do something criminal, somethin heinous, how can you keep loving them?

 

[Rosa]

Before I had Flynn and Honey, I was a psychiatric nurse, a lot of people pull the old, they're pretending to get a soft ride in a mental health unit. A lot of people with serious mental health issues are just hidden away, so out of sight out of mind. A massive number of our patients had PND that hadn't been diagnosed so it became worse and worse and worse until the patient literally goes mad.
This woman in case had already received mental health treatments in the past, her husband clearly had a case of the, I can't be bothered's for things to become this sever after previous bouts of serious mental health issues.

 

[TabascoNatalie]

mental ilness doesn't mean comitting crime. i bleieve if you are a parent, a family, i guess you'd see that your child gets help as he/she shows the symptoms, not afterwards something very terrible has happened.
what troubles me the most, that the system can't be trusted -- criminals easily get away with "mental illness" instead of a full sentence.

 

[IADad]

Rosa, I think this may be another societal disconnect. I live in a city with a large university research hospital, that is also the state's indigent care facility for a lot of mental illness cases, and I know that there are a tremndous number of people that are diagnosed, drugged and released to the streets. I'm guessing that that may not happen as frequently in Wales. It used to be the case that people where hidden away, but that changed here in the late 60's and early 70's, now they treat a shocking number of them out-patient, and when they drop out of sight of society they present a forumula for disaster....

I agree with TN, that the system can't be trusted, but I'm more worried about their failure to hold and treat, than their faiilure to diagnose accurately.

 

[Rosa]

We have one the of the biggest high security mental health hospitals in the UK, patient is admitted, released, jumps of the local cliffs, a patient is admitted, released, jumps off local cliffs. A nice little cycle that never ends.

 

[TabascoNatalie]

in my home country, two years ago there was a terrible murder commited. the murderer was found and declared insane. he spent two year in hospital, then declared sane and released. there was a big public outrage, and the court reviewed his case. it was decided, that he's now sane enough to serve his jail sentence. but guess what.. nobody can't find him in the country. he's gone. Probalby in UK or Ireland. how cool is that?

 

[mom2many]

Mental illness is something I find to be no joke, most of you know that my oldest was diagnosed bi-polar, and it was scary, what was scarier is the fact that HE didn't realize what was going on, I think he knew on some level something wasn't right, but because he was in a manic phase he couldn't see it.

So although what she did is unimaginable, and very horrible, I can't help but feel that not only was the baby let down, so was the mom. Once treatment starts to work (and to me it is very clear that there was some mentall breakdown) she will have a hell of her own to live. Living with that would be living in hell, but at the same time she will plead not guilty, we have a very strong will to live, even in the face of something as horrible as what she did.

 

[TabascoNatalie]

I have a very good friend, who was diagnosed as bi-polar. she spent some time in mental hospital. afterwards, she was declared "autistic adult". that was a rare case. strange enough, it is very easy to diagnose a child with autism. but as for adults -- in documents it turns into schisophrenia and many other mental illnesses, even though in fact it is autism.