Mommy's misery
BY Debbie O'Rourke
In this season of bright lights and dark thoughts, I think of young mothers like Andrea Labbe, who recently killed her husband, Brian Langer, and three-year-old daughter Zoe, and then attempted to kill two-year-old Brigitte before turning the knife on herself. Motherhood is strong medicine. The one life experience I would not have missed, it has been a strange voyage that cracked the protective shell I'd built for myself and released both great strength and shattering vulnerabilities.

We women experience a range of reactions to the infiltration of our bodies by others. The degree to which we welcome sexual congress or pregnancy varies widely according to our natures and our personal histories. And our acceptance of these penetrations is only the beginning of a process that profoundly affects our identities.

It takes a kind of violence to propel nature's biggest fetus (in proportion to the mother) from inside our bodies out into the world. The storm continues as we find ourselves constantly on call. After giving birth, I felt I'd been cleft in two and would never be one person again. As nursing ended, the severing of the intense psychic bond between my son and me was a source both of mourning and relief.

For me, the most difficult demand of motherhood was being with someone constantly, being always both a responsible human being and good company. During that first year with my baby, my skin felt tattooed by the impression of small hands. I love to be touched, yet often during the months of highest mother-infant contact, my husband's caress was too much after hours of that relentless, loving tattoo.

In older cultures, community child-rearing and prohibitions against sex while nursing prevent women from being the focus of the kind of persistent need to which young mothers like Andrea Labbe are subjected.

With three children under four and a husband who was crazy about her, how would Labbe's skin have felt at the end of the day? After three births in as many years, into how many pieces was her consciousness riven?

Most who take on the role of motherhood get through it. Most of our kids survive our mistakes and our occasional dementia. But many of us have felt enough dislocation and stress during our mothering years to feel compassion for Labbe in equal measure with our horror.

Post-partum depression is not only a hormonal event but also a complex societal phenomenon rooted in our nurturing practices. As always, children are the chief victims of our blindness.

Motherhood is blood, laughter, milk and tears
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horrible... i couldn't find any thread that related in case you are wondering WHY I post all this...

___________________
DALLAS STAR ™ °¤§£¤y°

Treat people as if they are what they ought to be and you may help them to become what they are capable of being.

Last edited by dallastar on Jan-05-2005 at 03:14

quote:

Originally posted by dallastar For me, the most difficult demand of motherhood was being with someone constantly, being always both a responsible human being

Sounds like someone shouldn't have been a mother then... It's not like one wouldn't know the above was going to happen when they had a child...

I've got some mixed opinions on this... I'll save the details for myself.

___________________
- rabbit.joker [funny¿rabbit] | www.rabbitjoker.com |www.ddtt.org

Dark Dirty Tech Tribal. | Hands in air (trance) and feet on the floor (house).

The bitch should have thrown herself off a bridge after she started to get all these delussional thoughts.

What a complete waste of space.

___________________

"Hell is full of musical amateurs; music is the brandy of the damned."
~ George Bernard Shaw

thats how fucked up post pardum depression/psychosis is!

___________________
Trance in my pants

Men could not even begin to understand the degree of emotion a woman can feel while pregnant, or after the pregnancy. So I really do not think that it's fair for any male to offer any judgements of something they cannot possibly relate to.

Yes, you can give your opinion, but I do not think that it is fully educated until you have read up on Psychology and Neuro-Science, personally spoken to many women who have had children about this particular subject, and have either experienced it yourself, or have studied it for quite some time.

Try to have some compassion for your fellow human beings. Clearly something wasn't resting well on her mind for her to do something like this. Do you not recall where you have felt pushed so far to the edge where you were about to, or did, snap?

This is not only mental, it is chemical. A woman's body undergoes so much during a pregnancy that things are drastically changing from minute to minute. With the demands of your physical self, along with the demands and expectations of many other people, as well as your mental self, you can be so stressed and become very wary, that depression easily sets in.

If any of you have had depression, especially severe depression, you can understand that with this disease, you are not always thinking rationally.

With the combonation of irrational thinking, massive chemical fluctuations, and raised expectations of everyone around you, I can only imagine that you could easily be pushed to your limit, and snap to the point of complete insanity.

My heart goes out to her and to every other woman who has, or will experience a similar experience. It is too bad that it came to this in the end, and I hope that her and her family rest in peace.

quote:

Originally posted by Theresa Men could not even begin to understand the degree of emotion a woman can feel while pregnant, or after the pregnancy. So I really do not think that it's fair for any male to offer any judgements of something they cannot possibly relate to. Yes, you can give your opinion, but I do not think that it is fully educated until you have read up on Psychology and Neuro-Science, personally spoken to many women who have had children about this particular subject, and have either experienced it yourself, or have studied it for quite some time. Try to have some compassion for your fellow human beings. Clearly something wasn't resting well on her mind for her to do something like this. Do you not recall where you have felt pushed so far to the edge where you were about to, or did, snap? This is not only mental, it is chemical. A woman's body undergoes so much during a pregnancy that things are drastically changing from minute to minute. With the demands of your physical self, along with the demands and expectations of many other people, as well as your mental self, you can be so stressed and become very wary, that depression easily sets in. If any of you have had depression, especially severe depression, you can understand that with this disease, you are not always thinking rationally. With the combonation of irrational thinking, massive chemical fluctuations, and raised expectations of everyone around you, I can only imagine that you could easily be pushed to your limit, and snap to the point of complete insanity. My heart goes out to her and to every other woman who has, or will experience a similar experience. It is too bad that it came to this in the end, and I hope that her and her family rest in peace.

Fair nuff, as a man i don't understand what went through that womans mind before she killed her childern and husband. Still, i stand by my judgement. She shoulda thrown herself off the bridge the second she started to get those crazy thoughts...woulda saved two innocent lives, if she had the courage to harm herself first, her death would have meant something.

If this had been a man who killed his wife and kids, no one would even be talking about medical excuses like post netal depression. The woman was clearly unstable -- i feel sorry that no one was able to pick up on it and get her the help she needed. That being said, once she killed a member of her family, i lost every little bit of compassion i might have otherwise have had.

She's burning in hell...where she belongs.

___________________

"Hell is full of musical amateurs; music is the brandy of the damned."
~ George Bernard Shaw

quote:

Originally posted by Theresa My heart goes out to her and to every other woman who has, or will experience a similar experience. It is too bad that it came to this in the end, and I hope that her and her family rest in peace.

Why would your heart go out to someone who killed her husband, child, and attempted to kill her other child? There is no depression in the world that justifies that. I know many women who have had that problem but none of them killed their children!
And it's more than just "too bad" that it came to that. Jesus christ, how's that for flawed reasoning?! "Oh well she had post-partum depression so it's okay, poor woman..."
Yeah right.

___________________
Whatever it may take I keep on trying.

yeah, she shoudlve spoke up before it got that far but she probably wasnt thinking right (no shit)

___________________
Trance in my pants

quote:

Originally posted by Theresa Yes, you can give your opinion, but I do not think that it is fully educated until you have read up on Psychology and Neuro-Science, personally spoken to many women who have had children about this particular subject, and have either experienced it yourself, or have studied it for quite some time.

And let me guess - you have?

I don't think so.

___________________
- rabbit.joker [funny¿rabbit] | www.rabbitjoker.com |www.ddtt.org

Dark Dirty Tech Tribal. | Hands in air (trance) and feet on the floor (house).

quote:

Originally posted by rabbitjoker And let me guess - you have? I don't think so.

Ha ha, good point RJ. You are right, I have not experienced it myself, but I had somewhat studied it in highschool (which included talking to a few women who had been through it), and as a woman feel that I have a degree of a better understanding as to how the female body can really just mess with you. I was also a nanny for 4 months to a new born baby, lived with the people, and trust me, I saw the effects of postpartum on the mother, and she even had me there to help her out.

loca, you would be surprised to know that this is not the first instance of a woman killing herself or child due to postpartum (correct spelling by the way). This is more common than you seem to be aware of. Do a google search and you will see that thousands of women over the time of history have experienced something of the like; some resulting in death of both the mother and baby, or one of the other. Postpartum is a common disorder that isn't, in my opinion, treated properly, or offered the appropriate kind of help. That is why I have sympathy. It is unnatural for me to feel anything more than sympathy to someone I have never met, and knew nothing of other than this specific incidence.

It is more understanding than it is reasoning. I am not reasoning what she did, but I am understanding how she may have been feeling. People are too quick to judge other people and their decisions about situations they have never even been close to experiencing. There is no level of common ground, and a persons own perceptions are put into place, which are often unfair. I may not believe what she did was the right thing to do, however, knowing a little bit about it, I can say that I can fathom where she must have been coming from.

I do agree that she should have spoken up when she realized she needed more than help, but even if she had, there is a likely chance that her cries for support would have been underminded, and possibly dismissed all together. In fact, who says she didn't ask for help? People sometimes don't quite get the dire need a person has until it's too late.

It should be commonly understood amongst society, so that women don't feel so much shame and terror of their own thoughts and feelings. It must be a terrible feeling thinking negatively towards a little baby that you have grown such a connection with, and unconditionally love. It would be awful to not only come out and make yourself look like a terrible human being, but a horrid mother as well by admitting you feel these things.
I just hope that this will bring awareness to more people that things like this can and will happen, and that there should be better support programs put into place for these women.
Just my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by Theresa Yes, you can give your opinion, but I do not think that it is fully educated until you have read up on Psychology and Neuro-Science, personally spoken to many women who have had children about this particular subject, and have either experienced it yourself, or have studied it for quite some time. Try to have some compassion for your fellow human beings. Clearly something wasn't resting well on her mind for her to do something like this. Do you not recall where you have felt pushed so far to the edge where you were about to, or did, snap? This is not only mental, it is chemical. A woman's body undergoes so much during a pregnancy that things are drastically changing from minute to minute. With the demands of your physical self, along with the demands and expectations of many other people, as well as your mental self, you can be so stressed and become very wary, that depression easily sets in. If any of you have had depression, especially severe depression, you can understand that with this disease, you are not always thinking rationally. With the combonation of irrational thinking, massive chemical fluctuations, and raised expectations of everyone around you, I can only imagine that you could easily be pushed to your limit, and snap to the point of complete insanity. My heart goes out to her and to every other woman who has, or will experience a similar experience. It is too bad that it came to this in the end, and I hope that her and her family rest in peace.

I personally disagree with almost everything that you stated in this post. Coming from a person who has had a baby myself and went through the stages of post natal depression. I didn't try to kill my daughter nor myself, I got my head around it and went and talked to a professional. There was absolutely NO NEED for this women to kill her family. When you are going to your post natal OB appointments, they talk to you about post natal depression and the effects of it. To pregnant women, there is SO MUCH awareness about this subject. So for you to say "my heart goes out to this women" it makes me sick!

i am happy to read all the different types of opinions here, just know that everyone is entitle to this action.

This was horrible disaster that occured and let it be a lesson for us to learn.

((((((((

I was truly shocked when i heard abotu this story - b/c all summer i lived at ossignton and dupont, and my great girlfreind Andrea (same name as the lady that comminted crime) well andrea lives three doors down at 556 concord - where the murder happened at 561!!!!!


so close. It really hit me when i heard about this!

___________________
DALLAS STAR ™ °¤§£¤y°

Treat people as if they are what they ought to be and you may help them to become what they are capable of being.

Last edited by dallastar on Jan-06-2005 at 01:42