I agree that there is a terrible misunderstanding among a lot of people about mental illness. My aunt has schizophrenia and my husband's mother has bipolar disorder. The difference in both of them when they are on their medications, and when they are off of them, is extraordinary. They can go from "raving lunatics" with impossible delusions, to the wonderful people they are when their brain chemistry is regulated. Believe me, my aunt has no opportunity to use her "higher brain" or "willpower" when she is gripped by hallucinations and delusions, they completely take over her world. In my aunt's case she thought she was responsible for the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy, and heard horrible screaming voices day and night telling her that she had to kill herself by drowning to avenge their deaths. She tried to drown herself many times. Her younger life was a torture for her and for her family. Fortunately she is still alive and has found a medication which helps, although not cures, her symptoms.
There was a terrible tragedy here in Orange County, California, about 7 years ago. A young mother was severly diabetic, and went into a diabetic coma at home alone one day, and her toddler drowned in the hot tub. She was not prosecuted, in fact everyone rallied around her and her family, it was a "horrible accident" and she was "not responsible" because of her diabetic condition, which she worked very hard to control. She got lots of love and support for losing her precious baby. Andrea Yates had likewise been diagnosed with a severe illness, a CHEMICAL IMBALANCE, a PHYSICAL ILLNESS, schizophrenia, and had prior severe post-partum depression, psychosis and suicide attemtps, and had been taken off her meds, and herself recognized that she was very ill and tried her best to get help but was turned away. Why don't people understand that a person with schizophrenia and psychosis is unable to control her actions and really cannot make a choice? The lack of understanding about mental illness in this country appalls me. I understand that in the case of a mother killing her kids, people just get bloodthirsty and want someone to pay. However, that is not the right thing to do in this case. If somebody puts some LSD in my morning coffee, and I hallucinate that the devil is after me and try to hurt someone, I'm not making a conscious choice about my actions, and I therefore cannot tell right from wrong because of my screwed-up brian chemistry at the time. It's the same thing with schizophrenia - those of you who think it's not a "real illness" should do some more research. It's a condition caused basically by LSD-like chemicals flooding the brain and making it impossible for the victim to behave rationally.
I'm very glad that the case was re-brought to trial and that Andrea was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and that she was transferred from prison to a mental hospital. Those of you who think she should be drawn and quartered had better hope and pray that neither you, nor your kids, nor your parents, nor your spouses, ever gets a serious mental illness, because then you will exprerience first-hand what it's like to be severely ill with a physically-caused condition, and to have everyone denigrate and punish you for not "snapping out of it".
