Last week Lashanda Armstrong drove her car and four children into the Hudson River in upstate NY. She is described as having been nice, hard-working, ... a good mother.
How to understand such an act?
Let's look for clues:
1) She was a single mother of four, working full time, and going to school at night.
Meaning: her primitive aspect was tired and frustrated. Perhaps she was scared, angry, and sad.
2) She tended four children, had little support, and complained of being alone.
Meaning: her social aspect was overextended and undernourished.
Nonetheless I have no idea why this woman did what she did. I know nothing of her inner world, nothing of her life. It is easy to imagine her being overwhelmed, hard to fathom such destructiveness.
What was the trigger? Neighbors say that the children's father banged angrily on her door for 30 minutes earlier that day despite a court order barring him from the premises. After the altercation, she bundled her kids into the car and drove them to their death. One son escaped, later telling authorities that his mother had been mad about cheating.
Did emotional impulses overwhelm her? Which ones? Can emotions really be that powerful?
What happened to her reason? How could it go so astray? Before driving into the river she called an older relative to say "I'm gonna do something crazy". Her reason seems to have accepted the role of passive observer. Did it also make things worse by imagining her misery stretching endlessly into the future?
As the car filled with water, Ms. Armstrong reportedly changed her mind. She tried to reverse the car, screaming "I have made a terrible mistake," but it was too late.
Where had her maternal instincts gone? What happened to her wish to live? It is terrifying to imagine that our emotions can momentarily overrule all our other concerns. Yet it happens all the time.
Without having known Ms. Armstrong we can never truly understand this heartbreaking tragedy. Not knowing makes it all the more difficult to bear.
As an Emotional Detective I seek knowledge and awareness of my feelings. I focus on my inner life, trying to learn about myself, trying to prevent unnecessary mistakes.
This catastrophe suggests the incredible force behind our emotions, leaving me humbled and awestruck by their power - once again.
I was so sad to hear about this case. I also wondered: How someone who seemed to be a very good person can go this far in making a mistake? A huge mistake that involves the very people that she loved the most? (her children) A case like that really shows us the power of emotions. Emotions could take us that far. That's why I totally agree with the idea of getting to know our emotional world better.
Posted by: Elsita | 04/24/2011 at 07:54 AM
Here is the translation to what Alice wrote:
I just finished reading all your posts. I can't read or write English so I use the Internet translator. Looking within ourselves is something that fascinate me because it could be surprising, a world as vast as the external world... the way you focus on this inner view, investigating something in particular, self-knowledge, is something extraordinary, it gives me sense and order. I will follow your posts and I will be like a detective.
Thanks a lot Dr.!!
Posted by: Helping with translation | 04/24/2011 at 07:51 AM
Acabo de terminar de leer todos los post en orden de aparición. Yo no sé leer, ni escribir en inglés... por lo que me ayudo con el traductor en línea y de buenas personas que saben el idioma. La mirada hacia el interior es algo que me fascina por lo sorprendente que puede ser, un mundo casi tan vasto como el externo... el enfoque que usted da a esta mirada interior, una investigación con una finalidad determinada, el autoconocimiento, me parece extraordinaria, me da sentido y orden. Seguiré los post y enfocaré mi mirada como un detective.
Muchas gracias Dr. !!
Posted by: Alice Sailer | 04/22/2011 at 03:08 PM