On pain and suffering
If you are like me, and hearing about the suffering of babies and children tears out your heart and soul, please stop reading now.
Go find something cheerful or funny to read. Don't even leave a comment. I will understand. Come back soon though, after I have this out of my system.
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I do regret writing about things like this, but I am suffering terribly right now, and I feel that I must write about it.
It all started almost 5 years ago for me, this suffering. After having my first child, hearing about awful things happening to babies and kids became much harder than before I had kids. Somehow, pre-kids, I was able to move on and not let it impact me. Now, however… I simply don’t know how. Only the passing of time makes it bearable.
My problem got really, really bad a few years ago when I heard the story of how 3 year old James Bulger was taken from a mall in Liverpool, England by two older boys and murdered. It had happened over ten years earlier, but I had received a chain email about a petition to not let the boys who killed him remain anonymous after their release, and it was new to me. I was so torn up over what happened to him, and I felt helpless to do anything else except dig up every bit of information I could on his story, in hopes that the true details of what happened weren’t as bad as my imagination made them. And in his case, that was partially true. Not completely though, and it still took me many months to stop thinking about him night and day.
After that, it was 10 month old baby Margaret Schlosser, whose own mother cut off her arms. It happened just before Thanksgiving of 2004 and it tore me up beyond belief. I was grieving for months.
After that, there were Christian (9) and Gracie (3) Vasilev whose mother stabbed each of them over 100 times last April. That one tormented me. Over 100 times – I simply could not imagine the horror.
Then, last summer I saw a show on a news magazine show about Sadie (3) and Zachary Longo (5) and how they were found in the ocean. Their father put them in pillowcases and dropped them into the frigid ocean off a bridge in Oregon one freezing December night in 2001. They were alive when he dropped them in. Earlier, he had strangled their mother and baby sister Madison, and dropped them in the ocean too. That one was bad for me.
3 little boys were dropped into the bay in San Francisco last fall by their schizophrenic mother too. I obsessed for awhile over that, trying to imagine just how horrifying it must have been for those boys.
Most recently, I heard the story of how Nixmary Brown was horribly abused and finally murdered by her stepfather. All the while, her mother had never helped her. She was killed over taking a cup of yogurt out of the fridge, and a suspicion of her breaking a printer. It happened just this past January, and I still ache over her tragic death. Before she died, she asked her mother to stay with her (she had been injured severely and was bleeding from the head), but her mother left her to die alone anyway… retreating to her own bedroom and leaving Nixmary on the floor of the room she was forced to sleep in. To die alone.
Then, a week ago, I read about how a father in Colorado killed his three children in a fire in their home, in order to collect the insurance on them. Jay Nicholls was only 9, Sophia was 5 and Sierra was 3. The original article made it sound like he set them on fire. In this case, my need to know the details paid off, as I learned that they actually died of smoke inhalation. That only made me feel somewhat better, though.
But now I am struggling over, in my opinion, the most horrific one to date… I read about it last weekend. Baby Marcella Hope Yellowbear was horribly abused and killed at the age of 22 months old in Wyoming in July 2003. Her father found her hanging by her overall straps on a closet rod in the closet, unconscious. Her mother admitted to hanging her there. But her cause of death is not agreed upon by those involved in the case. The other possibility is that she died of the cumulative effects of abuse that the mother says the father did to her. And he, of course, says the mother did the abuse.
I will not even give the horrific details of what they did to this poor baby. Death must have come as sweet relief to her. And yet… she endured the abuse for around 4-6 weeks (in the time they regained custody of her, up to her death). Before they got custody of her again, she was living with relatives, and was a normal, sweet, happy toddler.
This story is fresh for me, and in so many different ways worse than any of the others. I suppose partly (or mostly) because she endured the abuse for such an extended period of time (and it was so horrific), and maybe partly because she was only a baby. A baby who had a normal life, up until the month or so preceding her death.
And no matter which parent abused her (although I suspect both did), how could the other one stand by and not protect her? Her mother is claiming abuse as well, so there is that argument. But I KNOW I would lay down my own life in an instant to protect my children. And even we weren’t “bonded” as parent and child (remembering that they never had custody of her until just before her death)… I still feel that I would even risk harm to myself for ANY child being hurt.
The father was convicted of her murder and got sentenced to life in prison, but the mother was no innocent bystander. Even is she hadn’t participated in the longer term abuse… what kind of parent punishes a child by hanging them by overall suspenders in the closet? A less than 2 year old child???? Regardless of whether that caused Marcella’s death or not – it is cruel. And she had every chance to seek help. The relative who had been caring for Marcella went to their home after returning from out of state asking to see her. The mother wouldn’t let him in, only speaking to him through the window. She could have asked him for help, if she was truly a victim as well, and yet she did not. I blame that relative as well… he must have known something was wrong. He called social services (who said they couldn’t help, since it was in the jurisdiction of the Indian reservation), but why didn’t he beat the door in? Why didn’t the neighbors who later recalled hearing loud thuds - and then a child crying - do something?
I know I need to quit asking so many why’s. It is too late for Marcella. It happened almost two years ago.
But how can I get over this? How can I stop the terrible pain when I hear about children suffering in such unimaginable ways?
It will continue to happen, I know. But when it does and I hear about it, I LIVE it for a very long time. I go to sleep struggling over it. I wake up thinking about it. For weeks.
It is a stress my kids sense, and one my husband has to deal with, because from time to time it boils over and I have to burden him with it.
And truly, I don’t know what to do about it anymore.
Peace. Holly. Written on Monday, April 10, 2006
11 Comments:
It's so hard to read about these things. Especially when sweet innocent children are involved. It makes you just want to pick up all the kids you see who aren't being treated well and hug them, and take them home.
For me, I can only read these stories at a surface level, if at all. If I let myself get emotionally involved, it would be very hard for me too. That's not to say that these stories don't make me sad. Of course they do.
For me it's more potent when I see abuse -- there's no way to avoid it then. I came home from the store bawling once after seeing how a mother treated & spoke to her children.
When you love your own children so deeply and you're a mentally stable person, it's hard to fathom how this can happen. But there are mentally unstable & ill people out there, and people who don't know how to manage their emotions, and they can & do do horrible things.
These horrible crimes are out of your control, Holly. You are such a kind soul to grieve so for these babies. It is incredibly heart-breaking.
No one is going to harm your babies. You take wonderful care of them. That's how it's supposed to be.
Is there any way you can not read the stories? And pray for children instead? (and for mental health for anyone who cares for a child)
I think your compassion and empathy speak volumes about who you are as a person. Most people don't allow themselves to become so vested in stories like these.
I have seen some amazing and horrible things in my career, things that I never would've imagined possible before and am unable to forget about later. Because of this, I can tell you what I do and how I deal with it.
Here's the thing, we don't really have a good idea HOW many children are in circumstances like the ones you wrote about. We may never know. All we can do is to push for updating the system (if not to completely re-work it entirely), push for stricter punishments (how about state mandated sterilization for convicted child abusers?), and a stronger push for children in high risk environments to be adopted.
As for you... well, you can simply focus on affecting this change and not allow yourself to read or hear about stories like these. Turn off the TV, put down the newspaper. Refuse to listen or be told about it. It will still happen, it will always happen. Whether or not YOU personally know about it won't change a thing as long as you are trying to do something about it. Maybe parental education is a good place to start. I know when I brought my son home from the hospital I didn't even know how to burp him!
If you can't handle tuning it out, try and figure out a way to heal yourself. Maybe make a donation in that child's memory, volunteer, whatever you can, just as long as it's meaningful to you.
Anyway, my vote is on the media blackout and affecting change suggestion. You can't change the world if you can't see for the tears in your eyes. But you CAN make a difference.
So make a decision to make a difference.
Great post by the way!
I know what you mean about taking on that grief, Holly -- I do that, too. Now I don't subscribe to the newspaper, and I read CNN online. I don't watch televised news most of the time; I get the weather reports online. Getting the news/weather online helps me to limit my exposure to a lot of the awful stuff that newspapers and TV news broadcasts use to sell themselves.
That said, I still see some awful stories and I still grieve over them. My thoughts over the past couple of years have been similar to what Andria suggested above -- limit exposure to the media, and work for change. As for the change, that could be lobbying on a national level, or volunteering in your neighborhood, or just being nice to children on a local level (saying hi to your kids' friends, befriending other moms, helping out single moms by babysitting, etc.). Does that make sense? I believe everything we do, no matter how small or how local, makes a difference if we do it consciously (and even if we don't).
If you continue to read the news stories, maybe you could make small gestures. For instance, in the past, I've donated occasionally to accounts set up on behalf of kids who've lost their parents in various tragedies. I'm never able to donate a huge chunk of money -- usually only a few dollars -- but I think every little bit makes a difference. Once I donated five bucks to the account for three kids whose parents were killed, and I got a thank-you note from the kids, which broke my heart and reminded me that these are real people being affected by the good and bad forces in the world...and showed me that I should keep doing stuff like this -- being part of the good forces. Something like that.
I don't think I'm expressing myself very eloquently here. Basically I would recommend doing something positive for every negative thing you hear/read -- pray, donate, work for change, hug your own kids a little more. Try to be part of the good. We can;t solve everything, but we can do *something.* *hugs*
Dunno
You MUST strike a balance between immersing yourself in lifes ugly realities with the Good that is taking place. May I recommend that you stop by my site, scroll down to "COOL STUFF", click on The Hole In The Wall Gang Camp founded by actor Paul Newman and then click on and pplay the 12 minute movie. I think this will give you a new avenue and perspective. Worth a try!
Hey,
Holly, I know how you feel. During my schooling as a paralegal, a family judge came and spoke about child abuse. He brought a slide show of children in my county who had been abused and the horrific things that these "so-called parents" did to them. I cried off all my make-up. And it planted a seed in me that when my youngest gets off into school, I want to go and work with the legal system to help these kids get out of these kinds of situations. Like you, I grieve over them, and just want to shake and/or maim the adults who do such cruel things to innocent kids.
I feel your pain. And here's a cyber *hug* coming your way!
Thanks for the warning in advance. But I stayed and read your post anyway. I'm the same way when it comes to children and even, to a lesser degree, animals. It makes me physically ill to hear stories like that. But people who feel nothing are the ones with the problem, not us. You have nothing to get over.
Oh my, I found myself crying reading each paragraph. I have heard of a couple of those. I heard of a few when I was pregnant with two of my kids and I had to go and throw up it upset me so. There are so many good people out there that can't have kids and these evil parents get to have them and then abuse the right. Oh my, what is this world coming to.
I feel your pain. I wish I could say a magical word to make your pain go away.
I feel the same way when I hear horrible stories about animals being abused on the news.. I know people don't think animal stuff really matters, but I find it horribly upsetting - and stories like the ones you mentioned haunt me in the same way.
Did you ever read the book "The Secret Life of Bees?" I've often felt like that one sister, the one who couldn't get the sadness of the world out of her head or heart.. so I completely know what you mean. I'll stay awake nights thinking about things like this. I probably shouldn't have read this post - but how can you not?
Sweetie, I had such a problem with this a couple years ago; I talked with Dr. Zen about it and she had some good suggestions. There are also some good Buddhist meditations to work through this type of thing. Plus, could it be a part of the Anxiety?
I think of it as a gift, Holly. (I don't have this particular gift.) I think the question is, how can you channel this wonderful sensitivity you have into something that is positive for you.
xo
NO WAY Holly...I am the EXACT same way. I read these stories and torture myself thinking of them and just cry and get so upset! I last read about Nixmary Brown and knew it would be a bad idea but I can't help it. I know exactly how you feel, it's so upsetting. I don't know what to do about it either. If you get help, pass it on :) Until then, stay strong and try to stay away from the stories. Easier said than done, I know! Take care!
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