Columnist Julie Muhlstein contends that Andrea Yates’ acts of violence compare with those of Osama bin Laden and Susan Smith (“No pity for parents who kill their children,” Jan. 10). Obviously, Muhlstein has never experienced postpartum depression, let alone postpartum psychosis. What Yates did was shocking, in that a mother’s instinct is to protect her children from harm rather than to perpetrate it. Muhlstein chooses to see this as evil, rather than evidence of the frightening scope of instability and unreality experienced by a woman whose cognitive abilities were dramatically impaired.
Muhlstein asserts that she “can’t comprehend” Yates’ actions. Of course she can’t. Women who have gone through postpartum psychosis have difficulty understanding this illness themselves.
To compare Yates’ situation with Osama bin Laden’s indicates a complete lack of understanding of the true nature of evil involved, and belittles the very real condition Yates suffers.
Susan Smith murdered her children, in full control of her faculties, because they were inconvenient to her romance.
Yates feared her illness, because she alone knew the power of it. She sought help, often from mental health professionals who underestimated the magnitude of the psychosis. She feared harm might come to her children due to her illness. Nobody was listening. And, something I have heard no discussion of anywhere, she mourns her children. She couldn’t handle the pressures of her children and the hormones they brought on, but she truly loved them. That is the duality of this type of psychosis. No wonder it makes no sense to us.
Incomprehensible as they are, Yates’ actions bring up the issue of culpability. Yates’ ability to comprehend her actions will be judged by a jury of her peers. Let us hope that people like Muhlstein stay home from court.
Snohomish
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