Yes, it is insidious; a slippery slope, so to speak. There is no question that Andrea suffered from Depression; but that usually renders one incapable of acting; either on your own behalf; or someone elses.
. . .and so it could not have been, however, IMHO, a 'depressed' Andrea that morning, wrestleing, chasing; overpowering, not one, but five children that horrible morning.
Believe she was acting our her hate and anger at her husband. She 'talked' to her therapist about her feelings when it came to suicide; but remained silent about her thoughts about killing her children.
Suicide is understandable/'acceptable and of course, it involved her life.
She managed to contain her thoughts of murdering her children. Her anger at her husband, her need for a revenge, I believe, overrode their consideration.
She was sick, but capable. . .coming back at her husband in a 'manipulative manner' that in the end, topped his sick efforts towards her.
A slippery slope, for sure. . .into hell. . .
I don't understand this......I can't believe her motivations were toward revenge.....(I honestly don't know what her motivations were). All the literature I've read about depression, almost always it's suicide, not thoughts of murder......I was once depressed (severely), never thought of hurting my children. My depression got so bad, I thought, for months, of ways to end my life. First I would pray that God would take me while I slept. That didn't work. Then I began to weigh the "pros" and "cons" of doing something (i.e., put my car on a train track, or drove off the side of a mountain, or took pills, etc.), what were the chances of "success." What if I succeeded in 'this way,' or 'that way,' if my kids found me like that, which way would be 'better' . . . " (The thought of this now, looking back, is ridiculous.....there is, of course, no way that's "better."). But, at the time, this was my "rational" thought processes.
I kept thinking while depressed that my kids would be happier if I was gone....they deserved a "better" parent than me, and it would be better for them if I was gone than stay alive, making them miserable. Since I didn't want them to come upon my lifeless body, I began to think "I could wait until they're gone for the summer, out of state, then they wouldn't see....." These thoughts went through my mind, constantly.
I never told anyone about these thoughts until the day I went into the hospital. I called my family doc and told him had my kids not been home the night before, I would have overdosed on pills, but I didn't want them to get up in the a.m. and see me dead in bed. I never thought of murdering them, and I never felt revenge toward anything or anyone......I just felt everybody would truly be better off if I was gone (including me). What a hell that time was. As I posted earlier, after this hospitalization, my docs kept me on anti-depressants for two years. I took myself off, slowly. They didn't take me off, I wanted to stop taking the meds......I've been okay. I have asked close friends to "monitor" me....self-monitoring isn't always accurate....because of the insidiousness of depression.
Between close relatives there are always present all types of positive and negative emotions. The difficulty is that in insane person the slight marginal negative (or positive) emotion can get magnified and distort the perception and behaviour.
That way you can have the real emotions, based to some extent on reality, but completely out of whack. Add to it the memory recording the delusion or distortions as facts and you have a mess. Basing the prosecution on the statements of the psychotic person even if at the moment of the testifying the person is "sane" is very treacherous. You need a GOOD and VERY SMART psychiatrist to get the decent feedback but for the purpose of the law this information is USELESS.
Also since the onset of the psychotic episode can be gradual and close relatives lack the distance and objective criticism even the whole family can get confused and drawn into a pathological mindset for a while. Before they realise what is going on, some tragedy can happen. Even experts can make mistakes in such matters.
As well you can get the medieval trials through ordeals and be better off. The problem with the democracy that it lowers the complex problems to the level of the average intelligence which is not sufficient.