130. Andrea Yates: Postpartum Psychosis, Depression & the Deaths of Her Five Children

SPEAKER_00 0:08

There are some crimes so horrific that they stop us in our tracks, not because they're the bloodiest or they're the most mysterious, but because they seem to violate something so deeply woven into our understanding of humanity that we struggle to even find words for it. A mother is supposed to protect her children. It's one of the few truths that seem to be almost universal. Across cultures and centuries, we expect a mother's instinct to be one of fierce protection, even self-sacrifice. So when a mother becomes the one who takes her children's lives, our minds immediately search for an explanation. How could she do it? Was she evil? Was she selfish? Was she calculating? Or was something happening inside her mind that none of us could see? Every generation seems to have one of these cases. The headlines explode, television panels fill with experts, social media divides into camps. Some insist there can never be an excuse. Others argue there must have been an illness no one understood. Then, after the verdict is read and the cameras leave, the conversation quickly fades away until another family is shattered, another courtroom fills, and we begin asking the very same questions all over again. Tonight's story is about one of the most infamous mothers in modern American history, but it's also about something much larger than one woman. It's about postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, a mental illness so rare that most people will never encounter it, yet so devastating that when left untreated, it can completely detach a person from reality. It's about a medical community that has learned painful lessons over decades, about medications that can save lives, medications that sometimes require years of trial and error, and medications whose side effects can be almost as frightening as the illness they are meant to treat. It's about warning signs that are sometimes recognized too late, and it's about families desperately trying to help someone they love while navigating an illness they don't fully understand. This episode is not an attempt to excuse what happened. Nothing can erase the loss of innocent children. But if we're ever going to understand these tragedies, if we're ever going to prevent even one family from experiencing them again, we have to be willing to look beyond the headlines and ask harder questions. Because sometimes the most terrifying monsters don't come from hatred. Sometimes they come from a mind that has become so convinced it's doing the right thing. This is the story of Andrea Yates.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I'm Darlene and I'm Melody. This is Hard Times and True Crimes. So before we get started, we wanted to give a quick shout out to a few special listeners. Memphis, my daughter, and her two new friends, Brenda and Ashley, are listening to the episode today. And tomorrow they're going to be starting their law school journey.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Oh, wow. That is great. Impressive because I know it took a lot of work to get there. So way to go.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Absolutely. So we're really excited for all of you and didn't want to let this episode go by without cheering you on.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

So have you been keeping track or following the Lindsay Clancy case? Oh gosh, the the woman with the children. The postpartum depression. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

I've been following that on court TV. Okay. I haven't been following it like that closely, but but I was aware that that was going on.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yes. As I'm watching that, you know, it really brings to mind another case very similar to that one. Okay. So you'll probably know this one right off the bat.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Because I'm gonna share with you and our listeners the story of Andrea Yates. Andrea Pia Kennedy was born in July 1964. She was raised in Houston, Texas, and was the youngest of five children. She was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family. She was described as quiet, smart, highly disciplined. She was active. She ran and swam regularly. She was the captain of the swim team at one point. She was her class high school valedictorian. She was an officer in the National Honor Society. So, I mean, she sounds like a high achiever. Yeah. Which we normally attribute to a firstborn.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Not to the baby of a family. Right. But whatever reason, she was a high achiever, it sounds like. Being a high achiever doesn't come without some stress. And as a teen, Andrea did struggle with bulimia and depression. And she even spoke to one of her friends about suicide before. Okay. She graduated high school in 1982. And after that, she went to nursing school. Once she completed nursing school, she worked as a registered nurse at a cancer center for several years, like eight years. Okay. She met Russell Yates, he goes by Rusty, in 1989 in Houston at their apartment complex. They were both 25 at the time. And Andrea, who I have already described as quiet, she was typically not the instigator in a relationship, but she uh did initiate the conversation and they hit it off. She was actually, I guess, getting over a prior bad relationship at the time. Okay. And so she met Rusty and they they became a couple. In April of 1993, they married. Okay. Now Rusty was employed at NASA as an engineer.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Andrea continued to work as a nurse until they had their first child, Noah, in 1994. Rusty was a fundamentalist Christian. Once he made the comment that they intended to have as many children as God gave them.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Now there has been much said in the media about that, and most people do frame it as something that he forced on Andrea. But given that she was raised Catholic, I don't believe that. No. Chances are she also was just as much in agreement with that as he was. And yeah. And in fact, I did find one article where she stated that it was a mutual decision between them. Okay, because Catholics, they don't believe in birth control. Correct. Okay. No. Given that, those circumstances, Rusty and Angela had five children within a seven-year period. That is a lot of kids. Yeah, well, within within that short time frame as well. Yeah. Their children were Noah. He was born in February of 94. And then John came along December of 95. Paul in September of 1997. Luke was born in February 1999. And Mary was born in November of 2000. She was the only daughter.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Now Andrea was also a stay-at-home mom, and she chose to homeschool her children. Many people who knew her said she became increasingly reclusive and more overtly religious.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Much of that has been attributed to the influence of a traveling preacher named Michael Warineki. Throughout my research, I came across article after article describing him as an extremely legalistic preacher whose teachings had a profound influence on Andrea. Rather than relying solely on what others had written, I decided to go directly to the source and visit his website to learn more about him. Okay, so was he coming to their church? Like how did they come in contact with him? They met on campus at, I think I want to say Texas AM University. I may have that name wrong. Rusty met him there. Michael and his wife, they have like this traveling evangelism ministry that they include their whole family in, and they travel all over the world. And actually, one of the things he says on his website is that they didn't really know the Yates very well. Okay. They only met with them a few times. They wrote some letters back and forth. They sold their bus to Andrea and Rusty.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

They had a bus that was converted into like a home, and they did sell their bus to them. All right. That was pretty much the extent. It wasn't like they were like some of the articles said that he counseled them and he was their mentor. But that's not true. That was exaggerated. Okay. I want to save some of that discussion for the end because it is definitely more nuanced than the headlines make it seem. So I do want to revisit that with you. Okay. But one resource said that Andrea's family and Rusty were concerned that she was idolizing Warrencki and maybe taking his views to an extreme level. But it was after the birth of her fourth son, Luke, in 1999, that her mental health went downhill quickly. Andrea began experiencing depression and feeling overwhelmed. They were living in a converted bus during the time. Oh my gosh, I bet she was. So you got four little children, you're living in a bus. That's not going to be easy for anybody. And Rusty advised her to speak with, you know, some older women about it, her feelings of being overwhelmed and maybe his mother and her mother.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Okay. And men sometimes don't know, you know, they're just thinking she's, you know, overwhelmed with the kids or housework. Probably her mental health was the last thing he was concerned or thinking about.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that point up because I do want to talk. We are going to talk about a lot of stuff at the end. But so yes, and I agree with you on that. So at four months postpartum, she attempted suicide for the first time by taking an overdose of an antidepressant that was prescribed to her father. She was admitted to a psychiatric unit at Methodist Hospital. After six days, she was discharged to continue outpatient treatment with a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Eileen Starbranch. About one month after that suicide attempt in July, Rusty found her in the bathroom holding a knife to her neck.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Dr. Starbranch and Rusty had her admitted to the hospital again on July 21st, and it was against her wishes. During that stay, she admitted to the doctors that she had experienced visions and heard voices since the birth of her first child. Wow. Okay. Dr. Starbranch later described her as one of the five sickest patients she had ever treated. At that time, she was given meds, including an antipsychotic called HowlDall. And she experienced, in Rusty's words, a remarkable turnaround.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Andrea's family was concerned, though, about those tight living quarters on the bus, and they thought that was probably adding to her mental state. And they began to urge Rusty to get Andrea into a house. And he did. Okay. In August, the next month, Rusty bought a house and the family moved out of the bus and into the home. And for a while, Andrea did seem to improve. And then in January of 2000, she had a visit with Dr. Starbranch and she told her that she had stopped taking her meds. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Was she like feeling better? So she thought she didn't need them or something.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

There was not any explanation of that, but there were a few articles that alluded to the fact, and again, I don't know if if people are just putting their own spin on it. Right. But a couple of articles I read said that Rusty urged her to do that because they wanted to have another baby. And he did not want her on the meds while they were while she was pregnant. I'm not going to state that as fact here because I don't know that. But in March, she did become pregnant with their fifth child. Their only daughter, Mary, was born in November of 2000. Andrea seemed to cope during that time until four months later in March when her father passed away. She had been close to her father and she had helped with his care during his Alzheimer's diagnosis. So when he died, it was it just sent her into a spiral. Right. So that grief coupled with your postpartum hormones. Sure. You know, just was not very good combination already. She became withdrawn, barely speaking, not eating well. She was struggling to function in day-to-day activities. By the end of that month, Rusty contacted Dr. Starbranch once more about Andrea's decline. So again, we do see him calling the doctor for right. He's actively trying to help. Dr. Starbranch wanted to see her immediately. This call was made on a Wednesday, but Rusty said he couldn't bring her in until the following Monday. And I don't know why that was.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

But they never made it to that appointment because on March the 31st, she was hospitalized in a near catatonic state. She appeared delusional. She was having bizarre thoughts, and they placed her on suicide watch. And at that point, she was treated by a psychiatrist named Dr. Mohammed Saeed. She was hospitalized for two weeks. She was released by request, both hers and Rusty's request, two weeks later, and put in an outpatient program. Dr. Saeed recommended that someone be with her at all times and that she not be left alone with the children.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Once they got home, Rusty's mother came for a visit. She came to help Andrea with the kids. She was only supposed to come for one week, but when she got there, she did realize that Andrea was worse than she had thought, and she decided to stay longer. So she checked into a nearby extended stay hotel. Yeah, okay. So what she would do is she would come to the home after Rusty had left for work. There would be a gap of about an hour, and then she would come and stay with Andrea and help with the kids. So there was Oh, that's a good mother-in-law. It really is. So that did leave a window of time when Andrea was alone with the kids. Right. And she was not supposed to be. Right. Now, again, you there's so much I've read about this in articles, and then later on newspaper accounts would give a different version.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

So some people said that Rusty had made the statement that he was trying to leave her alone for small periods of time so that she would not grow dependent on having to have someone there, that she could have to be forced to do a little bit of the day-to-day stuff on her own. I don't know if that's true. I looked for that quote, I didn't see it, but Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

I feel like he's probably gonna get demonized just for being a man and for being a Christian.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Well, you are exactly right. Yeah. Her mother-in-law's description of Andrea during that time was that she was almost catatonic. She was staring into space, responding very slowly or not at all, trembling, refusing food, scratching her scalp so much that it caused bald spots. I do know that some of those medications can cause those tremors and the picking at the scalp. Was she on medication at that time? She was on a lot, yes, different medications, the howldol and other antidepressants. Okay. One of those was a fexor. Keep that in mind. Okay. There came a day in May of 2001 when Andrea filled the bathtub with water. When she was questioned about why she had done that, she reportedly said, I might need it. But she gave no other reasonable explanation. And nothing ever became of that. It was just an odd behavior. The next day she was admitted back to the hospital once again, and she was there for ten days. She was treated with howldol, and Dr. Saeed recommended electroconvulsive therapy, but she declined that. She was discharged after ten days. She appeared improved once more. She was sent home, still taking howldol, and howldol is an antipsychotic drug. I don't remember if I said that. Rusty made the comment to one paper that at this time the howldol that she was on before it had helped her tremendously. This time when she was on it, it was helping her and it she had improved, but she was obviously not a hundred percent. And he gauged her at about 65% improved at that point.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

But still struggling a good bit. At home, she was still emotionally absent. She had been back able to pick back up on the childcare duties, but her mental state was still very concerning. She was detached, she showed no emotion, withdrawn. But Rusty didn't believe she was a danger to the children.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Right. I don't think most that's not the first thing that you think. I mean, especially I would especially back then before the stories like hers. Right. Right. I mean, you know, widely reported.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Exactly. Yeah. So on June the 4th, at another follow-up appointment, the howl doll was reduced. She denied being suicidal or having any psychotic symptoms, and Dr. Saeed began tapering her off of the antipsychotic drugs. He didn't think she was psychotic and didn't feel like she needed to be on the howldol. Although Rusty emphatically did think she needed it. So he asked the doctor to keep her on it. Yes. And then on June 18th, at the next follow-up with Dr. Saeed, he refused to keep her on it. Although Rusty insisted it had worked well before, the doctor had concerns about side effects. And so he would not admit her back to the hospital. He was tapering her off for that. And so Rusty was frustrated by that. All that happened at that appointment were that her antidepressant dosages were adjusted instead. Like I said, effects or was one of those drugs. And keep in mind, those drugs have do have side effects, and some of those side effects are homicidal thoughts. And this is where I'm going to give the warning because obviously this episode concerns children, and this part is very hard to listen to. I had a very hard time researching it, but I do think it is important to share. If you're sensitive to this, you may just want to fast forward a little bit. The family routine was now to limit the time she spent alone with the children. And on this day, Rusty got up, he went to work at around 8 30 in the morning, and his mother was scheduled to arrive, you know, about 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

For that hour, hour and a half that she was alone with the children, Andrea filled the tub once more. And then she brought the children to the bathroom one at a time. She started with the youngest boys, Luke, age two, then Paul, age three, John, aged five, and then baby Mary, six months old. After holding each child face down in the tub until they drowned, she carried them into the master bedroom and placed them on the bed, covering them with a sheet. After the baby was drowned, she left her in the tub and called seven-year-old Noah into the bathroom. When he saw Mary, he asked what was wrong with her. And then Andrea pulled him into the tub. Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is really rough. He fought back and managed to get out of her grasp briefly and began to run. But she caught up to him and dragged him back into the bathroom where she held him face down into the water until he was drowned. She then removed Mary and took her back into the bedroom with the other boys, covering her with the sheet, but she left Noah in the tub. Andrea then called 911. It was at 9 48 a.m. She told dispatchers that she needed police officers sent to the house for a welfare check. When they asked why, she did not elaborate. She just reiterated that they needed to send someone. Then she called Rusty at work and told him he needed to come home. He asked whether anyone was hurt. She told him that the children were. When he asked which one, she answered all of them. When officers arrived, she answered the door quietly and fully cooperated with them. They found the four children in the master bedroom, soaking wet beneath the sheet, and of course found Noah face down in the top. Andrea was still wet and admitted she had killed the children. At her confession, in which officers described her as being in a zombie-like state, she stated that she was not a good mother and that the children were not developing properly. And she felt she needed to be punished and that they needed to be saved. Andrea felt she had spiritually damaged her children. She thought Satan was influencing her and the children were becoming corrupted because she failed to mother them properly. And she was afraid they would grow up and lose their souls and be condemned to hell. So she decided that killing them while they were young would save their souls and ensure that they went to heaven. Furthermore, she believed that her own execution would destroy the evil inside of her. And this actually became central to the case. The question was never if she killed the children, but whether the psychosis prevented her from understanding that her actions were legally or morally wrong. Right. The children were remembered with a candlelight vigil outside of their home after the tragedy. A visitation was held on June 26, 2001, and a funeral was held on June 27th at Clear Lake Church of Christ in Clear Lake, Texas. The five caskets were white and arranged in a circle. Their father, Rusty Yates, talked about each child while standing at their casket, then kissed them goodbye. He had photographs on display showing the children at their most lively and beautiful selves. Later that day, they were buried, three on one side of a beautiful headstone, and two on the other side at Forest Park East Cemetery. And if you go to findagrave.com and you can see those pictures they showed, it is literally heartbreaking because just yeah, those precious babies.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

I just can't I can't imagine him and then like the mother-in-law, you know, probably having so much guilt for, you know, just not being there for showing up a little bit if she had been there a little bit earlier.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Right. I know. I'm I can't yeah, you can't even imagine all the things that they probably had to to sort through.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Her husband, Rusty, supported his wife after the killings. He spoke to the media explaining her struggles, and that they had tried to get help. He felt that the medical professionals were the ones who had failed Andrea. He was devastated, but he also knew that in her normal state of mind she would never have done anything like this. Andrea was charged with capital murder of three of the children. I'm assuming they left the other two off in case they needed to go back and retry. In January of 2002, the death penalty was on the table because it was a capital murder. Sure. The defense, of course, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In Texas, insanity is treated as an affirmative defense, meaning Texas law required the defense to prove that because of severe mental illness, she didn't know her actions were wrong at the time. So although she doesn't have to prove her innocence, she did have to prove that she was insane. Right. Ten psychiatrists and two psychologists testified. Several professionals concluded that she was severely psychotic. Dr. Starbranch testified that she also had warned the couple that Andrea faced a high risk of another psychotic episode if she became pregnant again. Now Rusty's testimony contradicted that. He testified that Dr. Starbranch had told him if they did become pregnant again, then she would want to start Andrea on an antidepressant early. Okay. Starbranch denied that on the stand. She and Rusty were contradicting each other. Right. But she also denied having contact with Dr. Saeed's office regarding Andrea's care. But a fax report from her office to Dr. Said's office showed differently.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

It was a transmission of Andrea's records to his office from hers.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Whether Dr. Starbranch warned Rusty about the possibility of more children bringing on another postpartum depression episode. Rusty later said that he and Andrea had mutually agreed on a large family, but after Baby Mary was born, they had agreed not to have any more due to her depression. Okay. Friends and neighbors said that Andrea was a good mother. She was gentle with her children. She cared for them very well. The children were not neglected. They were always with Andrea in public. They were well behaved. This was just not an abusive household by anyone's definition. This is such a sad story. Gosh. I mean, it yeah, and it doesn't have a happy ending either. So four of the psychiatrists and one psychologist testified that around the time of the deaths when they first were evaluating Andrea, that she either did not understand right from wrong or believed her actions were right.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

And so I do believe she knew right from wrong. Right. I think she just felt that she was doing the right thing in spite of what the legal definition of right and wrong. Right, right. Even the prosecution's own mental health expert agreed that she was psychotic. But his argument was that she still knew it was wrong. He pointed out that she waited until Rusty was gone. She didn't tell anybody what she was going to do. She covered the bodies and she called the police. But this same expert, the prosecution's expert, Dr. Deets, he testified that an episode of Law and Order had aired shortly before the killings. He claimed that episode featured a woman with postpartum depression who drowned her children, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. And because Andrea reportedly watched Law and Order, the prosecutors suggested that she may have gotten the idea from that show and believed that an insanity defense would allow her to escape punishment. And then that claim was repeated during questioning and mentioned by the prosecution during closing arguments as well. On march thirteenth, two thousand two, Andrea Yates was found guilty of capital murder. Deliberations lasted only three and a half hours. A jury of four men and eight women rejected her insanity defense, but they didn't believe that she would be a continuing danger, so the possibility of a death sentence was removed. Okay. After the verdict, Rusty walked outside where the media was waiting for a response. He told them how his family had been let down by the medical system and the criminal justice system. Here's a quote from him. We were offended that she was even prosecuted, he said. He initially wanted Dr. Saeed charged with a crime for giving his wife inadequate treatment. But he told Time magazine that prosecutors laughed, saying fat chance. When questioned about why he risked the safety of his children, he went on, We didn't see her as a danger. The real question to me is how could she have been so ill and the medical community not diagnose her, not treat her, and obviously not protect her, our family from her? Sure. And now there's a little twist because after the verdict was handed down, but before the sentencing took place, the defense discovered that that episode of Law and Order did not exist. Really? Really? He just made it up. Well, what he said was this testimony was obviously false, but Dr. Deets, he acknowledged it that he had made a mistake, quote unquote. Oh my gosh, that's a huge mistake. It is. And her attorneys moved for a mistrial, but the court denied the mistrial. Oh no, that's not fair. No. And on March 15th, 2002, they did begin her sentencing. Andrea was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Of course, her defense team appealed, and they argued that false testimony could have influenced the jury. And I wondered if it was meant to, because he that expert witness was also paid $500 an hour for his testimony. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

And I don't know how you make a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah. How do you make a mistake on a TV episode that never existed?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah, he said he was a consultant on that that episode. Really? That's what he said. On January 6th, 2005, so three years later, the Texas First Court of Appeals overturned her conviction. They ruled there was a reasonable likelihood that false testimony could have influenced the jury. So Andrea Yates was granted a new trial. Rusty filed for divorce in 2004. Now his divorce was finalized March 18, 2005, which was just two months after Andrea was granted that retrial. Her second trial began in mid-2006. The prosecution argued the same position. The defense presented extensive evidence of her psychosis, her multiple suicide attempts, catatonia, numerous medications, hospitalizations, and the prior medical warnings. And on July 26, 2006, the second jury found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity. Wow. The jury concluded that severe mental illness prevented her from legally understanding that her actions were wrong when she committed them, but she wouldn't be released. She was transferred to Carville State Hospital, which is a state psychiatric facility in Texas. And her case is reviewed regularly, but she has repeatedly chosen not to pursue release. Wow. Later, Rusty remarried a lady by the name of Laura Arnold in March of 2006. But he always supported Andrea's defense and he has stayed in contact with her. Rusty and his second wife had one son together, and he was the stepfather of Laura's son. They divorced in 2015.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

And that was a shorter episode, but I'm kind of glad because we have a lot to discuss. There's just a lot to unpack with this. Yes. This is one of those cases that seems to have a different explanation. It's like some people say it was her religion, or it was following Michael Waronecki, or it was Rusty's fault. It was the doctor's fault. It was the medications, it was postpartum psychosis. It was Andrea trying to get out of her life. Right. And so we asked, can several of those things be true without any one of them being the entire explanation? Right. You brought it up at the beginning. You you mentioned something about like what we knew about the medications in 2001. Right. You know, did they appreciate how dangerous postpartum psychosis was back then? Did they even know? Or did her doctors fail her? Because some of those medicines have some severe side effects.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

And I know that back in back during that time, they were prescribing effects to everybody. If you went in, you know, saying you were feeling a little low or you're having anxiety, they were I know several people who were prescribed effects.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

So we have a lot of elements to this story. I understand there are medications, like some people definitely need to be on some medications. Sure. But I know some people who are on a lot of different medications, and it really scares me like what kind of mental state they're in. Right. So you have that element. Yes. I think it's it's over and under prescribed. That's a good way to put it, actually. And then one thing that bothered me, which again, you already brought it up, is that they Rusty was painted as the villain. Right. And yeah, maybe there is more he could have done to help, but maybe he just didn't know. Exactly. I mean, hindsight, it's 2020. Yeah, so experienced postpartum depression with my fourth baby. And that was a very dark time for me. And although I didn't have thoughts of hurting my children, or really I didn't have any suicidal thoughts either. Right. I did have the thought they would probably be better off without me, which probably is just the step before suicidal thoughts. And so when I was researching this the other night, I asked him, I just reminded him about that, and I said, Were you ever worried that I would harm the baby or myself? Right. And he said he did. And I had no idea that he was worried about that. He did try to get me to the doctor. Wow. And I honestly barely have any memory of that time. It was I was not sleeping. And were you catatonic? I don't know that I would say catatonic, but I do remember one day sitting at my desk and he was asking me some questions and I could see his mouth moving. I could not tell you what was coming out of his mouth. I couldn't answer his question. I couldn't form a thought. And he he tried like again, he was the best husband. Yeah. He helped around the house. He helped with the babies. He would say, Go lay down and go to sleep. I've got them. I'll feed them a bottle. What I mean, I was breastfeeding, but he was like, it doesn't matter. Go get some sleep. But I couldn't sleep. I would go lay down and I was wide awake for days at a time. Yeah. He it was that was a really rough time for me. And I finally, when I did finally snap out of it, and then I found out I was expecting Silas, that was after Amos.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

I found out I was expecting Silas. I was scared, and he was scared that I was going to go through that again. And people will say, Oh, snap out of it. Oh, you can't snap out of it. You can't. No. This time, when when we were both talking, like, oh gosh, what if I go through that again? Right. Again, he just didn't know how to help me. He didn't know what to do. And I said to him, Okay, if I start having any of these symptoms, A, B, C, whatever, just drag me to the doctor, kicking and screaming if you have to. Like, let's just agree on that now. And he said, Okay, at the first signs of this or that, or you're not sleeping, you're not getting to that point. Right. And I said, Yep, just make me go. I don't care if you do have to drag me. Thank God. Silas came along. I didn't even have the baby blues, nothing. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

It was just a one-time. Yeah. So I I have a family member who went through that. I didn't know, I didn't really have words to it for it until you said it, but that kindatonic stay. I had to go stay with her while she was experiencing that. And I mean, she wasn't the person that I knew. Right. And I would say, How do you feel? And she would say, hopeless. Yeah. And she just, she couldn't talk. She couldn't. I just remember she would just do that like with her fingers like this. She wouldn't eat anything. She couldn't sleep either. And I was just like, She is going to die. Like, I don't know what to do. And I took her to the doctor, and when they said it was depression, I'm like, no, this is worse than depression. And the lady was like, no, this is clinical depression. And she prescribed medicine and she did have a lot of prayer. And she did snap out of it, but I didn't think she would. I thought she was not herself. It was very scary.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

It's very scary. Yeah, it's scary. That's the words. And that's what Tim admitted that he was scared for me and he just didn't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

And imagine trying to take like you were trying to take care of a baby in that state. I can't imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

And in my case, and in Andrea's case, not a baby, but a house full of tell toddlers. I had two, I had a toddler, two teenagers, and then another a newborn baby. How long did that last for you? I would say about three months. Wow. Okay. So that's a long time. Yeah. And I always do get a little bit of seasonal depression. And see, he was born in the fall. So we were having those long, dark nights. Yeah. And I do remember the day that I thought I might be okay. And then gradually after that, it just got better and better and better. And then when spring was here, I was totally fine.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Wow. So it must have been a combination of the seasonal depression with post-and then the hormones. Yeah, definitely. I always had one day, but it was always the third day after my babies were born. I would wake up just with that doom, gloom, but it it would last a day. I don't know if it's something to do with how your hormones flood in. But I would always think I can't imagine people who have to deal with this for months or for weeks.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Right. I'm glad you said that because I do want to clarify the difference between the baby blues and postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. So I thought I had postpartum depression after Bailey. But then when I really had postpartum depression with Amos, I recognized I probably had the baby blues because it was very short-lived. It was like you said, it just kind of all came in for a day or two and then it wasn't very long. And I was terrible, but that would be the baby blues, which is very common. Postpartum depression is that long, ongoing clinical depression that just kind of doesn't let up for a while. And then of course the psychosis is when you get to that point where you need emergency psychiatric care because you cannot function and cannot be trusted alone with yourself or other or the hearing things, hearing voices, seeing hallucinations, all of those things. Yes. So I'm glad you said that. Yeah, I wanted to point out I meant to say that at the beginning. And you know, my friend Stacey raised a good point because she said when we go for our monthly checkups while we're pregnant, and then at the end of our pregnancy, we go every two weeks before it's born, and then you go every week, and then we go six weeks without being seen by a doctor, and then you don't go again for another year. And something really needs to be done with our postpartum care because she said our doctors need to be assuring us that they're there to help us. And then she went on to say she had some postpartum depression. She would have been terrified to tell her doctor that she was having these scary thoughts. She didn't have thoughts of harming her baby either. But she thought to herself, she would have not minded jumping out of the car 65 miles an hour, but she would have been terrified to tell her doctors that had a checkup because she would have been afraid they would take the baby.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

Right. I can't imagine if you were having those thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

How do we take care of our mothers without them feeling threatened by that? Like how we we do have to do better. Yes. But my friend Stacy made a point. She said that she always thought Rusty should have been more aware and shouldn't have left her alone. And she said it also makes me think of many in our community and what she means as our homeschool big family community that we were a part of. She said that because there are some who think that having more children is a step to holiness and they and sometimes the wives feel they don't have a choice. There are some families that take that to an extreme. The extreme is not having a bunch more children, the extreme is somehow misunderstanding that this is the only right way. You have to do this, and if you don't do it, you're sinning and you got yeah. Yes. So that brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk about, which was the whole quiver full thing. Right. So apparently Andrea and Rusty were what you would call quiverful families, which means having as many children as God gives you.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

And I don't know if you know this, and I'm not trying to make this episode all about me.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

No, it's but it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

A lot of the things really resonated. I've been in these circles. So I don't know if you know this, but I was in a quiverful circle. Okay, no, I didn't. I used to volunteer my bookkeeping services for a ministry that raised money. I'm not gonna name it, but they raised money for tubal ligation reversals and vasectomy reversals. And it was the quiverful movement. I did that for quite a while, which was kind of what led to Tim and I starting over having more children. I know.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

I was just thinking, I wonder if I had anything to do with that.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

I had a lot to do with that. So I'm not saying I speak for the whole movement, but what I am saying, I do believe that children are a blessing from the Lord. Yes, 100%. And I I have friends, I mean, not just even one set of friends, I have several friends, families that have 10, 11, 12 children, 13. That's not anything bizarre in the the homeschool circles that I travel in at all. And many of those families do just fine. Yeah. So when people want to point at that as the cause, I just think, you know, you can't blame that. Any anybody can take any movement and go to an extreme with it. And anyone with a mental illness can take an idea to an extreme until it's twisted. Because people who are experiencing psychosis often develop delusions built around things that already matter deeply to them. Right. So for some it's g government conspiracies, and for others, it maybe it's technology. But for Andrea, her religious beliefs became intertwined with her illness. Her psychosis didn't invent those things, it just distorted them. And that's a distinction that needs to be made. Because I think in this story, a lot of people want to point the fingers at that. And even this guy that she supposedly was following, I went to his website. Right. I didn't look at everything he believed, so I'm not saying I agree with his, right? But he seemed like an evangelist, like somebody who's just preaching the Bible and in heaven and hell and the truth of the word. Whether she took that and it became and in her delusion, it became something else altogether, making her feel like she wasn't a good mother, and you know, that's a whole different thing. Right. So he actually does have a rebuttal on his website. I will link it in our show notes. Yeah. If you're interested in his response to that whole thing, it'll be linked and you can go read it. I thought it was well written and it seemed solid, and it didn't seem the way the media made it sound like he was some crazy guy. Right. That's just how they paint Christians. Oh, yeah, of course. Why are we still talking about Andrea Yates 25 years later? That leads me back to the Clancy's trial that's going on this week. There's a lot of similarities between Andrea. Andrea Yates and Lindsay Clans. As we're recording this episode, another mother sits in another courtroom accused of another unimaginable crime. Once again, the country's debating postpartum psychosis, medications, mental illness, responsibility, and whether this tragedy could have been prevented. And maybe by the time you're listening to this, the jury's already reached a verdict in the Lindsey Clancy case. Maybe they haven't. But whatever that verdict is, it won't answer every question. Andrea Yates reminds us that some tragedies resist simple explanations. We may be able to decide legal responsibility in a courtroom, but the deeper questions about mental illness, family faith, medicine, prevention, those are gonna stay with us. Right. Before we close, I want to leave you with something more important than just my opinion and my experiences. If you're a new mother and you're struggling, please hear me. You are not alone, and there's no shame in asking for help. Postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety are far more common than many people realize. Postpartum psychosis is much rarer, but it's a psychiatric emergency, as we said. So if you or someone you love is experiencing hallucinations, delusions, confusion, or thoughts of harming themselves or their baby, seek immediate medical attention or call 911. If you simply need someone to talk to, there are people who understand. I've included links in the show notes to Postpartum Support International, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline, and other trusted resources. If this episode reminds you of yourself, your wife, your daughter, your sister, your friend, don't wait. Reach out because help is available and recovery is possible. Maybe that's the greatest lesson we can learn from Andrea Yates' story. Not simply to look back at a tragedy, but to recognize the warning signs today and help someone before another family has to endure unimaginable heartbreak. And perhaps one of the best ways we can protect children is by making sure we never stop caring for their mothers. Those were some hard times. Yes, they were.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Now I'm not on social media, but I'm definitely in the camp that believes there can never be an excuse for murdering your children. And anyone that does deserves to die in prison. No matter how depressed your part of them is. But you make sure you tell everybody you know, even if they're in the other camp, to check out hard times and true crimes. Remember to like and share and subscribe all the episodes and feel free to buy the girls a coffee. And for all those listeners out there that tune in just to hear my lovely voice, be looking for a nightcap with Curtis, a manly bedtime podcast designed to help you go to sleep faster, stay asleep longer, and have wonderful dreams about manly things. Till next time, goodbye.