http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2011/02/01/news/doc4d477080b3160559466499.txt

Please read the article. One says she knew why this happened creepy. I also knew the family.
Sad

There are comments about being in a church. Was she LDS?

Yes, she was LDS

How sad.

It is tragic. I believe that women carry the burden of having so many kids. Of course there is no reason for a person to do this. But, I do not judge. I feel horrible for the children. The father has been on the news exploiting it like the media likes. He even showed pics of the kids. And this is a small community. I hope the best for the children they are going to need it. :(

This is just horrible. What could have possibly possessed her? She was previously admitted into the mental hospital, she obviously was disturbed. My kids are what keeps me going. I would fight to the death for them. I cannot picture a mother giving her kids a bunch of pills and trying to kill them and herself. Awful.

I've been "that low" before. There was a time in my life that everything felt so dark that I was trying to figure out how I could end it all and take my kids with me so they wouldn't be left with the stigma of having a mother who committed suicide.

You also have to consider this--this was at the time Andrea Yates killed her children and I couldn't understand why she didn't kill herself, BUT my son asked me how I could ever think that way.

At the time--I hadn't been able to protect my children from some very significant bad things that had happened to all of us. To me, at the time, this world looked so cruel, WHY would I want to keep them in it. I certainly thought sending them back to God would be a lot better than keeping them here to suffer.

I've seen my kids suffer through even more since those really bad years--and I've been there to carry them through.

I hate to say it--but when my parents died 2 years ago, I was talking to my son (who made 2 suicide gestures 3 years ago)--and we agreed that we were a bit envious of my parents, that they were released from this pain in this world.

I love my kids more than anything--and it is why I'm still alive as I "guess" I pulled myself back from the brink.

BUT I have a lot of empathy for this woman. She was in a place I do understand. Somehow I survived and I brought my kids with me.

You are an amazing strong woman, Cl2. I really admire you.

i have survived with major depression in my life since 1991, so i know depression very well but never in my wildest nightmares have i nor could i think of taking the lives of any of my 4 children.and though i still surive with it in my life and probaly will have to be on medication for the rest of my life i have never considered sucide, with 4 children, i would never do such a selfish thing to them. they are the wind beneath my wings.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 08:10PM by brokenwings.

how nice for you

Thank you brokenwings. That was my point. As a mother, my children are the best thing in my life and she must have been pretty sick to do something like that. That was my point, not that anyone cares.

With all due respect you really live up to that name of yours.

To be in that dark of a place--it is beyond just "depression."

I had written something to "Bob Lonsberry" once because he was railing on Andrea Yates and saying she should go to hell.

Having dealt with severe suicidal depression in my life, NOBODY who is THAT DEPRESSED should ever be left alone with their children--not even for 60 seconds. When you have lost THAT MUCH HOPE in the world and you are in THAT MUCH PAIN, you aren't in your right mind--I'll qualify that by saying, "I wasn't in my right mind." I know some who have posted here before said they were in their right mind when they tried to commit suicide.

I was thinking about this after I replied--The reason I didn't do it is because I couldn't think of a "painless" way and I didn't want to have it end up like this situation was. I really was in so much pain that it would have been easier to die than go on living. My son says--to this day--after going through his own divorce, his father leaving us, etc., that at that time, we were SO ALONE and it was the worst time of his life.

I didn't want to mess it up--so I didn't do it, but believe me, I wanted to.

AND you are so far gone that you don't tell anyone. Nobody knew what I was thinking. One day about 6 months later, I said to my sister, "When I was planning our deaths . . . " It stopped her cold.

You would know if you had been there. I have been there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 10:01PM by cl2.

I have been through nasty periods of depression. Although they weren't as intense as you experienced, I thought about killing myself and how I would do it. I let things go I needed to do and felt like I was in a fog. When I recovered, the depression experience was incomprehensible. I found myself saying, "How could I even *think* that way?" It was baffling, like something else took over for a bit.

I can't even imagine what kind of pain you must have been in cl2. I have been in such dispair I didn't think I'd make it through the night,but that is different than what you are describing. It must have been worse than hell-as I describe my situation as hell. How did you keep going? Were your kids a big part of your recovery? I am so sorry you had to go through this and glad you are better now.

I love reading your posts and admire you a lot.

Well, her husband is a social worker. I know he had issues in town with a family bases on his work. I just do not really understand. It must have been horrible to have to feel that way. I do know working at a prison is not the greatest environment either. :(

Isn't supposedly the worst sin in Mormonism to kill oneself?

Let alone MURDER the children.

I am happy for the father that he will not have to bury his kids.

The selfishness is unbelievable.



Thank you.

I am sorry I did not think of her suffering.

Something she was choosing as a TBM.

I was thinking of the innocent children she tried to kill.

Yes, she was a mental prison guard.

She made that choice.

Again I do NOT see suicide as YOU see it.

You see it as tragic and I see it as her choice.

Have you forgotten about DUC?http://www.desivideonetwork.com/view/190d4s09z/self-immolation-of-a-buddhist-monk/

I am sorry I see her actions to kill the children disgusting.

Selfish.

I cannot feel sorry and bring myself to admonition for her life choices.

They made her a killer.

That is tragic.

Depression is not the only factor. The structure of the brain regulating aggressive impulses is apparently involved.

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061016/full/news061016-1.html

There's no better example of being enmeshed with one's children than to kill them because you don't want to live anymore. I don't have sympathy for parents who kill their children.

Women during the Holocaust did all they could to keep their children alive. I guess I would say that the only time I have sympathy is in situations like the Holocaust where a much worse torture awaited the child and a parent acted to ensure the child escaped being murdered by someone who wanted them to suffer. That I feel much sympathy and pain for. Short of that, I can't feel sympathy for this.

The instinct to live, to survive, is the most powerful instinct in human beings. Every child has that instinct and struggles to survive when a parent is trying to kill them. No child is grateful for their parents compassion in wanting to kill them so that they won't be left behind. While a parent may have given up hope, the human spirit/instinct of a young person is to live even in the worst circumstances. That's how children from war torn countries and concentration camps survive--and sometimes have good lives.

And most parents who attempt and fail at this, usually leave their children injured physically and psychologically.

I can understand someone having dark thoughts. Thoughts are not crimes, nor do I condemn thoughts. I can feel sympathy for her feeling depressed. No sympathy once she tried to kill her children.

a serious, often fatal illness.
I have a lot of sympathy for her.

yes, that is true, depression is a illness. but we still have choices within that illness as to weather we are going to let it control us or if we are going to control it

I've had depression and been around depression my whole life. My mother was depressed. Most of us understand depression.

But depression has become the excuse now for every person who murders children. Every person going through a divorce who murders their kids was "depressed."

We're all depressed.

It's a fallacy that when people are depressed they can no longer make choices. Psychosis is something else. Depression is not the same as psychosis though. I feel sympathy for someone psychotic, insane, who doesn't know what they're doing.

as someone who has dealt with suicide in my family...and mental illness...I personally feel suicide is EXTREMELY selfish, except in the cases of psychosis/mental illness/inability to understand (MR).

In this situation,why were the children involved at all? That doesn't sound like depression to me, it sounds like she crossed into something different. Almost as if she was wishing to inflict pain on someone else...

Its not a lack of compassion or empathy for her at all, more like compassion and empathy for HER INNOCENT CHILDREN. She could have easily done this...on her own, leaving them out of it.

If a parent reaches that point, she had cognition enought to drive up in the mountains, spend some time with her children (several hours), then she could have found someone to take them and do this to herself....

This may sound harsh, and I am not denying that she has problems...I just don't buy into the fact that she didn't have more then just depression, or some other agenda since her children were involved, and it was pre-meditated.

The foresight to plan out murdering your children, going to a place to ensure no one finds them while they're still alive, the energy to carry it out...

We don't assume men who do this were unable to stop themselves because they were depressed.

I'm sure she was depressed. I'm sorry for anyone whose depressed. But I'm tired of giving women a pass when they murder their children and just assume depression explains they had no ability to control themselves.

Psychosis, like I said, is something different. But I don't just ASSUME psychosis and that I should have sympathy for her. I assume the point of view of the innocent children until someone shows me evidence that she could not stop herself from what she did.

They are innocent and had NOTHING to do with this....

To say the woman could still make a plan and therefore she had the ability to prevent killing herself and attempting to kill her kids is an oversimplification. The woman could make a plan, but that does not mean that her moral reasoning was intact, which it obviously wasn't. The *higher* cognitive functions that include the kind of moral reasoning that would have prevented her behavior can be suppressed while leaving the ability to plan intact. I deal with that problem all the time in my work.

I also don't see why we can't have compassion for both the children AND their mother. It isn't an either-or proposition.

Bless her...I hope she finds peace if there is an afterlife.

This woman lost touch with reality...and I feel sorry for both her and the children who are going to be affected by this tragedy.

When I had my eldest, I developed PPD, which went from moderate to severe after a medical problem almost took my life. I had panic attacks, was paranoid, could barely sleep for days, and would horrible moments where I saw myself harming my child. I was not in reality at that point, and to this day, shudder to think what might have happened if I'd had something tip me over the edge, especially since my spouse didn't know what to do, and I would lie when dealing with my medical practitioner, positive that if they knew what was happening, they'd take my daughter away.

Before some of you start pointing fingers and judging this woman, I want you to think about times in your life when you've been out of control in some way. What kept you from doing something you would have regretted? A loving family member? A spouse or partner? Did you cross over onto a darker path, even with the concern of others?

I don't know a human being alive who hasn't had at least one moment where they were a hair's breadth from the madhouse. We are all mortal. We screw up. We can have something that would seem stupid to another become a final straw with horrifying consequences.

If the thing that put you in that dark and frightening place was not depression, then, for the love of god, get off your high horse, and try showing an ounce of compassion for someone who's experience so obviously does not match your own.

Thank you Vassalissasdoll--I hope I spelled that right.

Those of you who have not been THAT LOW have no clue what you are talking about. I don't care if you've had depression or not. There are LEVELS of depression. I've been depressed--probably am right now, but I have been as low as this woman and it is something you cannot explain.

My son tried suicide twice 3 years ago. The therapist even said my son dissassociated. My son does not remember either attempt. He cut himself severely and overdosed on Ambien--after his wife left him.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I found my way out of that dark place or I was just too chicken to go through with it, BUT I WANTED TO. I WANTED RELIEF from the pain I was in.

So--call this woman whatever you want--but let me just say--I HOPE NONE OF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF THERE. You have NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

No one is condemning depression or suicide.

I don't mean to speak for anyone else. I, at least, am not condemning suicide or depression. I don't know what others feel. But this is about a woman killing children or traumatizing children who witnessed her killing herself and trying to kill them.

If you could go back in time, would telling her killing children is wrong have helped her? People generally understand killing children is wrong. I bet this mother would have agreed, too, could she have still thought about it in any meaningful way. I think cl2 made the best comment when she said someone needed to prevent her from being alone with the children. The mother wasn't going prevent this on her own because she believed it is morally wrong.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 10:23PM by robertb.

Why assume her brain was impaired. There have been MANY stories on the news lately about men who murder their children during a divorce. Heck, one of my friends in Miami Beach was the security guard at a hotel a few years ago and had to deal with the aftermath of one. The mother and father and three children were vacationing. Both parents were physicians. The wife was threatening to divorce the father. This was their last attempt at a reconciliation. She went into the shower. He threw all three children off the balcony and then jumped himself. My friend saw the bodies. Another case recently, a guy took the kids on visitation, buried them. Another in DC a few years ago. During a heated custody battle. Took his two kids and murdered them to get back at the ex wife.

No one comes out assuming these men were brain impaired and calling for sympathy for them.

I just wonder why I should assume the women were so brain impaired, in the absence of medical evidence to their specific case? It's possible. But I don't assume that off the bat. Sympathy for her is not my first instinct just like it isn't when these men did the same thing. How does anyone have so much information about this woman's brain?

To me it is clear that the mother was not in charge of her moral thinking when she tried to kill her kids and then killed herself or she would not have done it.

I suspect you are thinking about whether or not she was legally sane and legally responsible when she did this (naturally). I am not thinking this way (naturally).

I think we would both agree she shouldn't have been left alone with the kids in state of mind.

I want to ask you, though, what does it diminish to feel compassion for her (which is not the same as sympathy, by the way)?

I would also point out that it may very well be that for the children to some day make sense of this, *they* may have to find some compassion for her. Would it be better if they did not?

Alice Miller writes extensively about how abused children/adults are prevented from healing by the belief they should feel compassion for the abusive parent. She has gone so far as to say that this is the great failure of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy. Because therapists (not you, but this is what she specifically says) tell the abused child/adult to understand and feel compassion for the abuser. To see the abuser as helpless, loving, didn't really mean it. That there's a way to make sense of it where the parent still loves them. That it is one of the reasons she says people stay stuck and do not heal.

She says that the patient/adult/former child needs to take the side of the helpless child, feel the injustice to that child, and not feel responsible for having compassion on the adult. And that the quest to make sense of abuse, to make it square with the idea that the parent still loved them, keeps people from truly siding with the unjustly abused child and therefore from healing. It's a heretical idea which is why she was a trailblazer.

Where abuse is so horrific, I tend to agree with her.

I guess I do think it diminishes the children, the reality of what she did to them, to be equally compassionate to both. But I don't think others need to feel the same way. I only mean that I don't feel an equal sense of compassion.

No one should be required to feel compassion. I wouldn't say people need to feel compassion. There are some things a people might feel compassion for and others not. For example, I feel no compassion for sociopaths who get enjoyment or gain from hurting others. I do feel compassion for people who are mentally ill and do things that hurt others. It doesn't mean I approve of their hurting others or think they shouldn't be held accountable.

As for the poor kids in this situation, what they will have to come to terms with in regard to their mother is her mental illness.

I read Alice Miller many years ago. From what I recall her comments are made in the context of a German culture that was controlling to the point of being sadistic. They were directed not so much toward abuse of children by people who were mentally ill, but abuse of children who prized power, control, conformity, and obedience over all else. I agree that no compassion is called for there--at least I have none.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 11:34PM by robertb.

I think what vasalissasdoll is saying is something I learned some years ago:
Anything one human being can do, so can another.Never say never.

We don't know what was going on with this woman. She appears to have some kind of mental illness. Tragedies like this happen over and over every day .... some place. The news is full of reports of people committing suicide, killing other family members and other horrific crimes. It never stops.

We human beings often do a good job of hiding our deepest fears. Even though we may know someone well, we do not know what they will do under every circumstance.

It looks like she planned to use pills to end her live and her children's lives, but it didn't work as she accidentally set the car on fire. Fortunately the children were able to recover and were resourceful.

Maybe the woman left a note, or some explanation of what was going on.

Exactly that, SusieQ#1. Thank you for saying it so well.

We have no idea what we'd do when pushed, or at least most us don't. I think there's a risk involved, when saying something like; "I could get depressed, but I'd NEVER harm someone". For a lot of us, it comes from that same head-space that we had in the church when we said, "God will never give me something I can't bear."

It's not true. People get handed things they can't bear all the time. Saying something like that simply gives others an excuse to judge them harshly, without knowing all the details.

I think we also tend to run the risk of making anything that involves children a--what's the term? I believe it's Sacred Cow. A trump card for any and all other arguments.

The mother is dead; she doesn't need compassion or sympathy from anyone. Our hearts and interests should be turned toward her survivors, who are still, and may always be, at risk of losing their lives over their mother's violent actions.

My mother attempted suicide when I was 18. She tried overdosing on pills, and when that didn't work she took a razor to her wrists. If I hadn't found her lying in a pool of her own blood and called 911 then she would be dead today. I'm 31 now, and I don't think there's been a day since this incident that I haven't thought about it. Instead of dealing with it I was shipped off to serve a mission in Australia, and to this day I still haven't forgiven myself for leaving.

These poor children need to be in therapy, but more than that they need to know that life won't always be ugly and cruel, that there are people and things and experiences that are good and life-affirming. They need to know that living is worthwhile.

I hope you forgive yourself for leaving... You're entitled to live your life.