Madeleine McCann's mother reveals suicidal thoughts in new book

by biker_don 08.05.11 14:07

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/08/madeleine-maccann-mother-suicidal-thoughts

Kate McCann has revealed that she was plagued with depression and suicidal thoughts after the abduction of her daughter Madeleine in Portugal four years ago.

In a new book chronicling Madeleine's disappearance and the toll it took on her family, McCann also writes of her pain at being branded a "cold, emotionless woman" because of the public face she put on during the investigation.

"It's quite frightening when I see myself in those early days," she writes. "To me I look incredibly fragile and confused and lost." Despite appearing to be brave and composed, she says, she was on the verge of a breakdown.

"I had an overwhelming urge to swim out across the ocean, as hard and as fast as I could; to swim and swim and swim until I was so far out and so exhausted I could just allow the water to pull me under and relieve me of this torment," she writes.

"I wasn't keeping that desire to myself, either. I was shouting it out to anyone who happened to be in the room. Both this urge and the expression of it were, I suppose, an outlet for the crucifying anguish.

"Somehow, inflicting physical pain on myself seemed to be the only possible way of escaping my internal pain."

McCann also reveals that she was tormented by "a macabre slideshow of vivid pictures in my brain" as she tried to imagine what might have happened to her three-year-old daughter.

"I was crying out that I could see Madeleine lying, cold and mottled, on a big grey stone slab. Looking back, seeing me like this must have been terrible for my friends and relatives, particularly my parents, but I couldn't help myself."

In excerpts from the book published in the Sunday Times, McCann revisits the night of her daughter's abduction from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.

"I ran out into the car park of our holiday apartment, flying from end to end, yelling desperately: 'Madeleine! Madeleine!' It was so cold and so windy. I kept picturing her in her short-sleeved Marks & Spencer Eeyore pyjamas and feeling how chilled she would be.

"Fear was shearing through my body … Even now, when the dark clouds close in on me, I find myself shaking my head manically and repeating over and over again: 'Not Madeleine, not Madeleine. Please, God, not my Madeleine.'"

The McCanns want the British government to urge the Portuguese authorities to review the case and have written the book to raise money for the Find Madeleine campaign.

by ufercoffy 08.05.11 14:12

"It's quite frightening when I see myself in those early days," she writes. "To me I look incredibly fragile and confused and lost." Despite appearing to be brave and composed, she says, she was on the verge of a breakdown.

by Guest 08.05.11 14:43

biker_don wrote:
"I had an overwhelming urge to swim out across the ocean, as hard and as fast as I could; to swim and swim and swim until I was so far out and so exhausted I could just allow the water to pull me under and relieve me of this torment," she writes.

"I wasn't keeping that desire to myself, either. I was shouting it out to anyone who happened to be in the room. Both this urge and the expression of it were, I suppose, an outlet for the crucifying anguish.

"Somehow, inflicting physical pain on myself seemed to be the only possible way of escaping my internal pain."

With Gerry out at work all day, the children were at risk, yet no authority intervened.

That my friends is how bad child protection is today.

by ufercoffy 08.05.11 14:56

As a GP, if someone presented themselves to her at the surgery saying stuff like that she would have reported them and had their children taken into care.

Kate's suicidal thoughts seem to happen around anniversaries.

By ANTONELLA LAZZERI

Published: 30 April 2010

KATE McCann has admitted that after daughter Maddie disappeared there were times she wished she and her family were dead.

Speaking just two days before the third anniversary of Maddie's abduction on May 3 2007 Kate revealed her agony was so great that she used to hope that her, husband Gerry and their twins S*** and A***** would die in an accident.

She said: "I used to have thoughts like we'll get wiped out in the car on the motorway. So it would just happen, we'd all be gone, and the pain would be away."

bigshock

Why would she want her remaining kids to be dead?

by littlepixie 08.05.11 20:09

I can't understand any adult who would wish their children dead but there seems to be more and more cases recently where parents who are in debt or some other form of trouble are killing themselves and their children.
Selfish IMO

by Wyatt Burp 09.05.11 20:23

Madeleine McCann's mother reveals suicidal thoughts in new book Daily_10

The McCann's spokesman (Clarence Mitchell) was forced to deny that Mrs McCann was suicidal......

So who's telling lies - Kate or Clarence?

by Guest 09.05.11 20:28

Wyatt Burp wrote:

The McCann's spokesman (Clarence Mitchell) was forced to deny that Mrs McCann was suicidal......

So who's telling lies - Kate or Clarence?

Howdy Wyatt Burp, welcome to the forum

welcome2

by Mulder Scully 09.05.11 20:46

littlepixie wrote:I can't understand any adult who would wish their children dead but there seems to be more and more cases recently where parents who are in debt or some other form of trouble are killing themselves and their children.
Selfish IMO

She has only ever thought about herself. She was 'into' her friends, it was her holiday too, why would it be her fault if Madeleine hurt herself in the apartment etc. Now the kids are getting in the way of her wanting to kill herself, to stop her own pain, so the kids have to die too? Why are the authorities not investigating her PDQ? The woman is off her trolley.

I would have posted sooner but I was affraid

of The Judge.

by Guest 09.05.11 20:50

Mulder Scully wrote:
littlepixie wrote:I can't understand any adult who would wish their children dead but there seems to be more and more cases recently where parents who are in debt or some other form of trouble are killing themselves and their children.
Selfish IMO

She has only ever thought about herself. She was 'into' her friends, it was her holiday too, why would it be her fault if Madeleine hurt herself in the apartment etc. Now the kids are getting in the way of her wanting to kill herself, to stop her own pain, so the kids have to die too? Why are the authorities not investigating her PDQ? The woman is off her trolley.

I would have posted sooner but I was of The Judge.

Hi Mulder Scully and welcome2

by RBxHN 09.05.11 22:27

I think we are all being rather cynical here. I honestly believe that she must have been at the depths of despair.

by **Jill Havern** 09.05.11 22:33

RBxHN wrote:I think we are all being rather cynical here. I honestly believe that she must have been at the depths of despair.

Madeleine McCann's mother reveals suicidal thoughts in new book Kate_a14

What, like this you mean?

by RBxHN 09.05.11 22:40

Unless that was the day she wrote what is quoted above I really don't see the point of the photo. Surely they are allowed to have a bit of fun with their twins?

They can't always look miserable!

by littlepixie 09.05.11 22:54

She wasnt out looking for Maddie though was she. That is a staged, pre-arranged photo shoot using her children. Hardly likely to find her daughter but more likely to advertise her two remaining kids to the paedophile she "claims" took her eldest.

by RBxHN 09.05.11 23:02

Well not at that particular time no, she was having her photo taken with the twins and her husband. Is that not a normal thing for families to do?

by littlepixie 09.05.11 23:08

RBxHN wrote:Well not at that particular time no, she was having her photo taken with the twins and her husband. Is that not a normal thing for families to do?

Who was taking the photo though and what was it for?

by Guest 09.05.11 23:13

The McCanns once admitted in an interview IIRC that they had an arrangement with the press in PDL, that they would have about half an hour a day to take photos, and then they would leave them alone for the rest of the time.

by littlepixie 09.05.11 23:27

If I had genuinely believed that my child had been snatched from a holiday apartment by paedophiles, my remaining childrens' feet wouldn't have touched the ground. They would have been out of there on the first plane home with my mother. No way would I be posing them and showing their faces in the press.

by Guest 09.05.11 23:30

littlepixie wrote:If I had genuinely believed that my child had been snatched from a holiday apartment by paedophiles, my remaining childrens' feet wouldn't have touched the ground. They would have been out of there on the first plane home with my mother. No way would I be posing them and showing their faces in the press.

And you certainly wouldn't put them back in the creche, the next day or was it the day after.

by **Jill Havern** 09.05.11 23:38

candyfloss wrote:
littlepixie wrote:If I had genuinely believed that my child had been snatched from a holiday apartment by paedophiles, my remaining childrens' feet wouldn't have touched the ground. They would have been out of there on the first plane home with my mother. No way would I be posing them and showing their faces in the press.

And you certainly wouldn't put them back in the creche, the next day or was it the day after.

Or leave them to go globetrotting and see the Pope. Even his prayers were no good.