Andrea Yates — that help she needed

Every time I read about Andrea Yates, I shudder. She’s just like me. High school valedictorian, good grades in college, pursued a profession, stopped working outside the home when she had her first child, deeply religious, super mom, five kids. Except Andrea Yates’s five kids are dead. Drowned one by one, methodically, on a sunny morning after her husband went to work. She laid them out so neatly on her bed. Side by side under a clean white sheet. All except the last. He was so big, seven years old, as old as my Angela. He fought hard. She probably didn’t have the strength left to carry his lifeless, waterlogged body from the bathroom down the hall to her bedroom.

I know what she did was wrong. How could you not know what she did was wrong? Her four little boys grinning in the family photo they keep showing in the newspaper and the magazines. Her baby girl just seven months old. At Andrea Yates’s trial, the prosecuting attorney said in closing arguments that Andrea wanted to rid herself of the burden of raising five kids. They had become a “hindrance.” The prosecutor made it sound as if Andrea Yates planned to kill her children, then go back to work. Maybe she could get a job as a nurse, work the way she did before she had kids.

The prosecution got it wrong. Andrea Yates didn’t kill her kids because they were a hindrance. She killed her kids because she was horribly mentally ill. And in her twisted and depressed mind, she thought she wasn’t a good enough mother. She told the police the children “weren’t developing properly.” She had failed.

By all accounts, Andrea Yates traveled into a dark chasm of mental illness. In the two years before she murdered her children, she’d attempted suicide twice and been hospitalized four times. She’d been diagnosed with severe postpartum psychosis. She’d been given many different antidepressant and antipsychotic medications.

In the midst of Andrea Yates’s struggles with mental illness, her husband thought it would be “fun for the kids” if the family lived in a converted bus in the backyard. While he went off to work every day, Andrea tried to keep four small boys clean and fed and entertained in a run-down recreational vehicle that had approximately 350 square feet of livable space. Neighbors and family members said that when she was herself, she was a great mom. She let the boys play with Play-Doh and paint. She let them make messes and be creative and be kids. And then she cleaned up. She home-schooled. She sewed their clothes. She did everything just right.

A while back, I stood on the edge of that chasm where Andrea Yates traveled. I had four small children at home — Rebecca, Angela, Lucy, and John, aged five, three, 21 months, and newborn. My husband Jack worked at home. He helped. If I wanted to run to the store in the middle of the day without taking all four kids, Jack would watch them. He could entertain the girls while I nursed baby John.

When Johnny was five months old, Jack got a job in Santee. Every morning, Jack drove away from our home in San Marcos. All day long, I fixed meals and snacks and changed diapers and accompanied toddlers to the bathroom. I sorted and washed and folded and put away mountains of laundry. I did craft projects with the kids that never turned out right. I planned what I thought would be fun activities, but the girls always ended up bickering over some toy or perceived unfairness.

I thought I should be happy. After all, I had the privilege of staying home with my children. My children were healthy and bright and developing normally. Instead, I found myself slipping into a black hole. At the end of every day, I looked back and saw a string of failures. The unsuccessful painting project. The dinner no one liked. The harsh words I’d spoken to one of the kids before bedtime. I thought, “I’m just not holy enough. If I pray more, I’ll be happy. I’ll be better at this.”

I tried to pray. I wasn’t happy. The black hole yawned wider. Every day I stood on the edge and stared down. I found myself shouting and throwing the unsuccessful craft projects across the room. One night after I’d put everyone to bed, I sat on one of the kid’s chairs in my kitchen and wept uncontrollably. I never thought of hurting myself or my children. I thought that if I just went away, Jack and the kids could surely find someone who would be better for them than I was.

The next day, I called a counselor Jack and I had seen together earlier in our marriage. I started seeing Dr. G. every week. He helped. He told me to get a babysitter and get out of the house sometimes. He told me to remember the strong, confident, competent person I was before I had four kids.

I got the help I needed. I didn’t go as far into the chasm as Andrea Yates. When I had my fifth child, Dr. G. and Jack and I worked together to make sure I stayed far away from the black hole. When I weep for Andrea Yates and her children, I only wish they had been as lucky as I.