Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Rusty Yates Is Back In The Saddle Again

I have always felt sympathetic toward Andrea Yates and now, as a mother of several small children, I have an overwhelming amount of compassion for her. I can't imagine a worse scenario than the one where you come out of a postpartum-induced haze to learn you have murdered all of your children. I stand by my opinion that the kindest thing that could have done for her was to leave her to her delusions. Let her believe she "saved" her children.

Over the summer, I experienced a time where I felt my body and mind were betraying me. I was violently angry, deeply depressed, and extremely volatile. I was behaving in ways that way back, in my rational mind, I knew weren't "right". Something was very, very wrong. There were some days where I wondered what I might do if I made it to the edge. But I didn't know where the edge was and where I was in relation to it.

Brian didn't know what was wrong with me and didn't want to make the situation worse and upset me further by suggesting I see a doctor. I finally came to that conclusion myself after I had a massive, sobbing meltdown at a Bible study surrounded by women I hardly knew. I don't know if there could have been a more out-of-character sign than that.

But Rusty Yates knew. He knew there was something wrong with that poor woman. She'd been treated by doctors and been hospitalized for psychotic episodes relating to postpartum depression. He knew. And because he knew, he is more culpable than she will ever be in the deaths of those children. His job as her husband was to protect her. Instead, he left a psychotic woman alone with his children and she drowned them all. Then, he divorces her.

Now, here we are, all these years later and he's "celebrating" his new baby on Good Morning America. The proud father has also emailed pictures of the new baby to his former wife in the mental institution. "[We talk about] kind of how things are going and we talk about the kids. I mean we talk. It's like she and I knew our children better than anyone, so we'll reminisce a lot about our children," Rusty said.

Is he freakin' kidding me? This takes cruel to a whole new level.

It makes me sick to my stomach that GMA thinks this is newsworthy. He magnaminously "doesn't blame his wife for what happened" adding "she feels a lot of guilt over what happened." Too bad he doesn't feel any guilt over what happened.

I could go on, but I am literally sick to my stomach. Here is the link to the article. The comments are pretty interesting, too.

Rusty Yates is back to business as usual with only a slight delay as his former wife now finally has all the help she needs.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Better

I think things are getting better. I'm not sure, really. I don't feel so overwhelmed, but I don't know if I'm doing anything differently. This is Brian's last week of school for this quarter so he'll have more free time. Or at least things will be back the way I remember them.

Brian's younger brother got married this past weekend and Lily was one of the flowergirls. Everything was so nice and it made me a little sad that Brian and I eloped and didn't do any of those things. No multiple bridal showers. No bachelorette/bachelor parties. No rehearsal or intimate rehearsal dinner. No bridal portraits. No surprising the groom looking stunning; Brian cinched me into my corset. No reception. But hey, no bossy mother telling me what to do, either, which was one of the main reasons we eloped in the first place.

I am already making plans and lists for Thanksgiving, probably my favorite holiday. My main concern now is exactly what all I'm going to make for dessert, knowing we will have limited room in the refrigerator. When I was growing up, my mother put on a feast that lasted for 3 days. I almost wish I could say I'm exaggerating for humorous effect, but I'm really not. But I loved it. It worked because we had out of town guests that would arrive on Wednesday and leave on Saturday and all we would do was eat.

This is my favorite season of the year. Thanksgiving, my anniversary and Christmas all rolled into one. A close second is Easter through Mother's Day.