School, mental health, etc.
The college I attend has mostly online classes at this satellite campus. Full-time is two classes per eight-week semester. I am full-time. This semester I’m taking Forensic Psychology and Personality Theory. Both classes are pretty interesting, although the people in my Forensic class are a little scary. The first week of class we talked about the Andrea Yates case. Even if you don’t want to bother with the link, you may remember her. She drowned her five children in the bathtub in 2001 while experiencing post-partum psychosis. Many of my classmates thought she should be sent to prison instead of to a psychiatric facility, and a few even thought she should get the death penalty.
It really upset me to see people be that cold towards someone with a long history of mental illness. They seemed to think she killed them because she was cruel and heartless, and that she was faking her mental state. Those children dying was a horrible thing, but there’s so much stigma about brain disorders in this country that Yates doesn’t get the compassion she deserves. It bothers me to witness people having no empathy.
I have a mental illness. Well, a couple of them. My major diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. This means that when I’m not medicated I have mood changes between suicidal and manic, plus hallucinations and delusions. It is not fun. I also have OCD, ADHD, and seasonal affective disorder. Amazingly, I’m functional. I thank my wonderful psychiatrist for the excellent medications I’m on. It took years to find the right drug combination, and we still have to tweak it from time to time, but I’m pretty much sane currently. It’s a nice feeling.
I was pretty depressed until a couple of weeks ago, but it turned out that was due to birth control pills and I stopped taking those. Hormones fuck with me big time. I’ve had BC pills make me psychotic in the past. Not cool. I’m giving up on hormonal BC and getting a tubal ligation if my insurance will pay for it. I see my doctor Friday to talk about it. I’m getting too old for kids, which is fine because I don’t like them very much anyway. My nine year old niece and four year old nephew are awesome, but I have to take them in small doses. I just don’t have a lot of patience for children. I’ve never wanted any of my own, and the Viking (my husband) doesn’t want them either.
And now I’m just rambling. More later, I’m sure. I feel chatty today.
Having lived in Houston during the case, I don’t see how anyone could believe it was all an act. But some ppl don’t see things the same way I do. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I agree with you.
Comment by MandCmom — January 24, 2012 @ 9:41 pm
I never understood why mother’s would kill their kids till I had my own. I wouldn’t do it but I understand it.
After Bug was born, in those first few months I wasn’t sleeping because she wouldn’t sleep and wanted to eat constantly. I was sleep deprived and nothing prepared me for that. Some woman put her kids in the back of the car and drove into a lake. At the time, everyone was going on and on about how horrible she was. I sat there, understood it completely, and it made perfect sense. After that, I decided to never judge another mom about anything they do. It’s ten years later and I still live by that. People go through enormous changes when there are kids involved. Our society isn’t very kid friendly for a lot of reasons (parents work, kids are not welcome, the press making parents freak out and being helicopter parents, big changes that are done in secrecy, etc.) How a person deals with being alone, with a screaming infant who is colicky, no sleep, no eating, can’t go to the bathroom because this infant is attached to them, hasn’t showered in three days, and this has gone on for weeks if not months. There is no logic and the parent is trapped and not okay. There is no telling where that parents mind is. It’s easy to judge them when you have had a good night’s sleep. Any otherwise mentally sane person is going to lose it if they are a new parent with no sleep for weeks.
Sadly, many in your class won’t know this till they have their own and been there. I will never judge a parent, even if they kill their kid. Yeah, it’s bad, I would never do it, but there is still a little part of my reptilian brain that gets it.
Comment by Fizzgig — January 25, 2012 @ 9:15 am
It seems like all new mothers are expected to experience nothing but unrelenting joy all the time. Nobody tells pregnant women what really happens. It sucks, because then these mothers feel like failures if they get stressed out or feel any emotion that isn’t total happiness. I feel bad for them…
Comment by SwitchKnitter — January 25, 2012 @ 9:24 am