Millie's story - The up-and-down romance with a mental patient

illie Strom didn't immediately fall in love with Rodney Yoder.

That shouldn't surprise anyone. A woman might have reservations about a man like Yoder, who has spent 12 years as a mental patient at Chester Mental Health Center and has a history of abusing women.

"And he was being described as something of a jerk in the media," Strom said. "All of that, of course, gave me pause."

Strom lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was the wife of the late blues man, John Lee Hooker. She was married to Hooker for five years when she was younger. They were divorced, but she said the two remained friends until his death last year.

She met Yoder by e-mail. Yoder sent her an e-mail last summer after he heard she was launching an authors' symposium in Vancouver.

Strom, whose brother was institutionalized by their father when her brother was younger, brought in authors who were critical of psychiatry and mental-health practices.

That caught Yoder's attention. His e-mail laid out his story and asked if she would write him back.

Strom then read an article in Time magazine about Yoder's argument against forced psychiatry and his beliefs that mental illness is a myth. It was an opinion she shared.

Strom and Yoder, who has been arguing that there is no such thing as mental illness as an attempt to be freed, began exchanging e-mails and then telephone calls.

Despite the distance and his incarceration, within a month, Yoder wanted things to become romantic.

Strom said his motivations at first weren't purely starry-eyed. He initially thought a close relationship would help his case -- which she found offensive.

"It's not the way you want to be romanced, you know?" she said.

But he also added that none of that would preclude any real romantic emotion.

After pondering Yoder's past and getting to know him better, she found him to be affectionate and dedicated. He also seemed intuitive to her feelings.

Then Yoder proposed in a letter. Strom accepted. In the course of planning a ruse, she said, they really fell in love. She even visited him in Chester last month.

"It's a real love story here," Strom said a week after meeting him. "I know it sounds crazy."

She said she couldn't imagine Yoder being violent. They had planned to live together in Vancouver if he was released.

Two weeks later, Strom broke things off and then later said the wedding was postponed indefinitely -- "until he can tone down his rhetoric," she said in a phone interview.

She said she and Yoder had an argument after Strom learned a Canadian writer was "distressed" at a "hateful" letter Yoder had written to her.

"I love Rodney," she said. "It's just at this point he doesn't seem capable of understanding parameters. Of controlling his anger. When he's angry, he lashes out at people. Of course, a lot of people do that."

Strom said that may be part of Yoder's situation.

"It's not a way to gain support," she said. "He can't afford to not be polite in his arguments."

When Yoder called the Southeast Missourian the day after his break-up, he seemed desolate and less interested in talking about his freedom. He went back and forth between saying that he still loved Strom and calling her an enemy.

His attorney is trying to put off his early-December court date challenging his incarceration because he and Yoder feel they can't get a fair trial in Randolph County. But as of last week, it was still on track.

Yoder agreed that the breakup with Strom made his situation seem more desperate.

"Of course I still want my freedom, I still deserve my freedom," he said. "But without Millie, well, I don't know. I still love her and she still loves me, but she's let people convince her I'm Hannibal Lecter. Now I guess everybody thinks that."

Strom said that she still believes in Yoder and that he is not mentally ill. She also believes someday he will be set free. However, she's not sure where Yoder fits into her future, if at all.

"I don't feel hopeful about us, but I still do about him," she said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137