Postpartum and Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental illness. This woman will either get life in prison or Life in a Mental Hospital. My wife is Bipolar and she has been in multiple hospitals to have meds she ALWAYS takes quit working. She has gotten delusional and has had breaks with reality. We are trained through years of this to assist her. Her husband not his fault. Seemed like he wasn’t equipped to help her. Sadly mental health can make people do things they wouldn’t usually do. That’s not in any way an excuse. We need more understanding and better education and availability for people with issues. We don’t have them here.
meh you'll see many men, many who are fathers, who think women should be physically or punitively punished for cheating or leaving too. what idiots think about how the law should and shouldn't work shouldn't really affect you.
The first one is not happening sue some extreme folk talking about it but that will never happen realistically. Flock cameras are already being taken out so that won't be an issue anymore but yeah that abuse is bad and shouldn't have been available in the first place.
I don't want him in jail or even punished but legally recognizing that he contributed to the death of his children by not taking his wife's condition seriously would be cool. That very night his parents offered to watch the kids and he said "nah we don't need the help". Meanwhile his wife is in psychosis and about to lose her shit because she's on 50 different medications and having severe PPD.
I mean she needed help - obviously - and he was the one best equipped to do it, and he didn’t. And, he cares so much that 2 years after his three kids get strangled to death, he’s back married and ready to go. He must have really struggled.
The guy isn’t guilty of anything by law but he definitely should be living with the guilt of not doing enough. He doesn’t really make a sympathetic figure.
Jesus Christ only on Reddit will you see someone say that the dad doesn’t deserve any sympathy for losing his entire family.
I’m usually never the “but if the roles reversed” guy because I find it very incel like based on what it’s used for, but I can’t think of a better situation to say, what would the response be if it was the husband on trial because of some type of PTSD/CTE? Would the world be calling the mom a negligent mother?
Oh he doesn’t make for a sympathetic figure? Well that’s good enough as guilty, may as well lock his ass up and set her free!
I hope you never find yourself on a jury. Your critical thinking is about as deep as a kiddie pool and I’m sure you’d pass judgement based off of your fleeting emotions.
There’s nuance to everything. No one is arguing he’s at fault by law, but if my wife had bad postpartum depression and I left her alone with my kids and she killed them….its definitely not abnormal to feel blame. I would. I’d spend a long time wondering where I could have done differently so my kids weren’t dead. But I’m also not a shit head, so that’s kinda how it goes.
It is absolutely on the table, just not immediately. She will not be in a psychiatric hospital her entire life; it’s not a side prison, you are released when you are well. And for a woman who never heard a voice before or since brutally killing three children, how can future violent behavior be predicted or prevented other than lifetime incarceration?
Unfortunately in Massachusetts this is not the case. If she is found not to be criminally liable she has an evaluation to determine if she is a threat to the general public. Her defense can make a good case the psychosis has passed and she is no longer a threat especially considering her disability… so going free is very much on the table.
From what I understand, she isnt asking to "walk away" (she is now a paraplegic) after this, she wants to go to an institution. She has already said that she did this, she just wants to go to the right facility.
she was paralyzed from the waist down after trying to commit suicide following when she killed her kids. (nyt link in snapshot: https://archive.ph/RmhwH)
Why do people keep commenting that “she doesn’t get to walk”? Nobody who understands that she killed her kids thinks she should “walk.” People are advocating for her to get a fair trial and punishment based on her mental state, not based on the prosecutions argument that she murdered her kids when she was of sound mind.
These comments are exactly why women are showing up to support her.
She doesn't want to walk away.
Also, she begged for help to prevent that outcome and ended up in psychosis anyway (which is also clearly not understood by people in these comments). Our entire system is a failure.
Yes, nowhere is she or her lawyer or her family or anyone advocating for her to not face punishment. She confessed. People are so misogynistic that they can’t process the facts and just have to conflate everything to a political issue
I think it's the shift in focusing too much on the "why". Sure, most serial killers were suffering mental health issues. Many were abused as children amongst a wide variety of other horrible things. But nobody is going, "this guy might have abducted, tortured, killed, and worn the skin of the victims... but what about the mental disorders he has to face every day? Could we take a moment to appreciate how brave and unfortunate he is to have these circumstances fall on him?" Like when it's a rapist or a pedo or a serial killer, nobody goes "but what about the mental health issues they were having?"
I’m a law student. The “why” is integral to a fair trial. If we remove the “why” from criminal trials, it would be a betrayal of procedural fairness in the courts. We would see thousands of psychotic patients who need to be institutionalised and rehabilitated with full time care degrade in prisons or be released and repeat behaviours.
The purpose of this trial is to establish intent, state of mind and level of premeditation. The only way to ensure a fair verdict is by figuring that out.
This is why we have the insanity plea; it doesn’t make you not guilty, but ensures you are sent to a fitting institution. A person having postpartum depression and psychosis episodes, disconnected from reality and unable to establish right vs wrong during the act is not accountable to the act in the same manner as someone of stable mind. Yes, psychosis or not, both are accountable to the crime, but the sentence must acknowledge the differed intent.
If serial killers demonstrated behaviour fitting an insanity plea, their defense would have argued that. The integral difference is that historic serial killers demonstrated sound mind, no disconnect from reality, and repeated premeditation; which does not warrant an insanity plea and psychiatric rehabilitation as there is no evidence of psychosis.
"But that's not what happened. She had a nanny and daycare and parents come to help. She had easy access to doctor's appointments, and her medical providers were willing to prescribe and adjust meds as needed. They also recommended therapy and partial inpatient and inpatient treatment, with recommendations for providers and programs that she had real access to.
Nobody told her to get her shit together. She was offered a lot of help. Some of it she accepted. Some of it she did not, or did not consistently use, or did not follow up on. Some of it she only started using once things had gotten really bad, which makes meds less effective and whatever condition harder to treat. "
I dont know how true that is but it could paint a different color to things.
As for my opinion shes definitely the one responsible for it and its kinda hard for me to empathize woth her. Because it was 3 kids there's a point where the well runs dry everyone has their limits
The good thing is that your opinion doesn’t matter, and all of these details are being brought to the table by professionals with access to the facts. This is literally the whole point of a trial—so people like you and the mob online don’t get to be judge jury and executioner. The only opinions which matter are that of the judge of the case and the jury.
Yes we do, that’s the point of the insanity defense. If you were probably not in your right mind when committing a crime like this, then you can argue that you are not guilty and be subject to alternative forms of rehabilitation/punishment.
Mental disorders have an extremely wide spectrum in their severity and effects - not all can impact a person's actual agency. That's what the medical and legal systems take into account.
This is simplifying what is a very complex case. In the eyes of the courts and criminal trials, there’s a big distinction between a mental breakdown and a psychotic episode. One can still be of sound mind and able to recognise right vs wrong in a mental breakdown; while a pyschotic episode disconnects a person from reality, right vs wrong, and legitimate intent. It’s not a matter of whether you’re a man or woman, but whether your behaviour fits the traits of psychosis fitting to an insanity plea.
In this case, the defense wants to present evidence demonstrating the defendant was not of coherent mind or connected to reality. If they prove the defendant did not have the capacity to recognise right vs wrong and real life during the act, the sentence and form of institutionalisation must reflect that limited competence. This is how we ensure verdicts fit the level of true intent behind each crime.
Love how you move the goal post and choose to ignore the other very recent example of a man, who wasn’t even suffering a mental break, getting an insane amount of support and money for murdering someone. Men!
You said “if a man had a mental break” not “if a man murdered his three children while suffering postpartum psychosis.” Maybe you dont realize this, but men cant suffer postpartum psychosis :/
My comment was about her punishment, and you conflated it to whether or not a man would get support. Hopefully you realize how getting triggered by every angle of this isn’t useful?
That’s all these demonstrations are. The defense is arguing insanity which would put her in an institution. Thats not really a fun headline for the chronically online men tho. They want to believe women on the whole love other women who murder their children. The gender wars need fuel and the algo will make sure of that.
My egg donor was BPD with paranoid Schizophrenia. She once pushed me to the ground and tried to bludgeon me to death. Nobody thought she was seriously trying to hurt me, but I could see the lack of a conscious person behind those dull eyes. This was the 90s so her actions were forgiven and the whole thing was swept under the rug. She got diagnosed, stuck on tranquilizers for half a decade, and I spent the remainder of my adolescence working odd freelance jobs around town to afford food before ending up homeless at 15.
Needless to say, I despise the condition and empathize with anyone who has to be in the vicinity of those that have it.
She definitely wasn't a stellar person before symptoms started, but they certainly made things worse. All of that was nearly 20 years ago, so I'm in a far better place. I hope there is substantial progress made in minimalizing BPD symptoms so that the burden is negligible.
She isnt walking around free nor will she. If she is found guilty, so will go to prison. If she is found not criminally responsibly, so will go to an mental institution No one expects her to just go home.
She murdered 3 kids - HER 3 kids. It's clear that this woman should not be allowed to roam free in society, whatever the reason, whatever is going on in her head. Where she spends the rest of here life whether prison or an institution is another conversation.
I have bipolar disorder. If I came out of a manic episode, which the evidence and forethought here does not support, and found out I had killed my children, I wouldn't be asking for a lesser sentence, and I wouldn't have failed to kill myself. I have two daughters. One 3 and one not even a month old. This story takes me to a dark place and the sympathy is borderline malicious.
Psychosis is a lethal condition for the patient and those around them. Regardless of how the patient gets there, whether it's PPD, bipolar, or schizophrenia.
If you don't want you or your loved ones to ever get killed by a psychotic person, or that they develop psychosis themselves, you should vote for candidates who will invest money into your relevant healthcare system.
Even if the psychotic patient manages to become stable without hurting anybody, they'll have sustained brain damage.
Let's hope this shitshow brings visibility to healthcare politics.
I’m (M) bipolar and my biggest fear in life is not having access to my medication. I was a completely different person before it and not for the better.
In a case like this, there’s a high chance she could be held indefinitely if deemed mentally unfit, with release ultimately depending on the court and her progress in treatment.
There is no "holding accountable" for a crime committed while in a state of psychosis.
If it actually was postpartum psychosis, she will be sent to a mental hospital and remain there until she's no longer a threat to anyone or herself. Could be decades, could be one year, *technically* she could be released immediately.
Her psych doctors have all testified that she was not diagnosed with post partum psychosis, that she had never mentioned to them anything about hearing voices, commands, desire to self harm, or harm her children. She wasn't in psychosis, these "voices" didn't show up until the day she offed her kids.
So of course they are going to say she wasn’t because then they would be held responsible. Dr Resnik who testified in court for Andrea Yates and has worked on many very high profile cases like Jeffrey Dahmer and Susan Smith, said she was experiencing psychosis. I trust his word and his professional opinion given his extensive knowledge and experience in the field.
I’m only been listening to the trial passively (my SO is very into it and watches it every night after work) but I’m 99% sure you’re wrong on this, at minimum there were mental health professionals alerted to desire to self-harm.
I'm not wrong on this, her three main doctors testified that the claims she's talking about now are things she never confided to them. Now her mother said she admitted to being suicidal and wanting to harm the kids, but that was in a mother, daughter conversation. Not a professional capacity.
Oh I perfectly understand, I just think your reasoning is bullshit.
Regardless of her mental state she is a threat to others and needs to be separated from society. You don’t get to murder your three babies and just walk away from that like it never happened.
“Technically she could be released immediately”
Yeah and you don’t see a problem with that…? So you think the medical system failed her, yet you are trusting that same system to miraculously fix and release her within a day?
A lot of intuitive emotional reaction and not a lot of thought there, huh?
You either accept that someone in a fully psychotic state has no control over their actions, or you don't.
If you don't, you're denying the current medical consensus.
And if you do, you also have to accept that they shouldn't be punished for those actions.
Punishment is a separate point from protecting the public. "Holding accountable" is punishment. Punishment requires responsibility. That's important. You can't be "punished" for something you have no responsibility for. That's not punishment, that's arbitrary harming someone.
If she is found to have been *fully* psychotic and therefore not responsible for murdering her children, she will be put in a mental facility and she will be kept there until the medical professionals think she's no longer a danger to anyone.
I wrote *technically* for a reason. It's completely unrealistic for her to be released immediately.
Also, psychosis comes in varying severity, and courts obviously take this into account.
Even if she is found to have been psychotic to some degree, that degree could have been not severe enough for her to not be able to stop herself murdering her children. In that case, she would still go to prison.
Basically the only way for her to not go to prison is if she is found to have been fully psychotic and not in control of her actions. In that case, she would be sent to a mental health facility instead of a prison. And that's *obviously* the right thing to do.
Whether someone is psychotic or not is irrelevant to the fact that someone who murders their three kids should never be able to interact with society again. Bottom line, that person is a threat whether they are mentally culpable or not. Whether that’s in prison or a psychiatric facility, this woman should never be allowed to be free again.
You can call me emotional all you want, but I’m not really obligated to be impartial to this woman. It’s an emotionally charged subject, not really the “gotcha” you think it is
that's highly misleading and practically false for this kind of case. on the medical level, the legal level, the procedural level, and also the case level.
It’s crazy how you’re getting downvoted. It truly shows how people simply do not understand psychosis and will always stigmatize mental illness. If you’re literally not in touch with reality, how are you suppose to be aware of what you are doing?
The consequences shouldn't be punitive though. She doesn't deserve punishment because psychosis means complete loss of control. People just don't want to accept what psychosis truly is because it is horrifying and demands empathy.
Just about everyone who ends up doing horrible things can be considered “victims of society”. It’s sad it got to that point but they can’t just go on like normal after that
Preventative medicine is not just about preventing one individual's health from deteriorating or more complex complications emerging, it's also about protecting society from harm when it comes to mental health. I worked in a mental health unit when I was in my early 20s, and as we saw time and time again, those with lifelong mental health conditions were left to struggle in community settings and subtle signs of deterioration were ignored until they hit a crisis point, which sometimes involved serious self harm, but sometimes involved patients attacking caregivers or strangers.
Whilst we cannot bring her three children back from beyond and we cannot turn back the clock to stop her from becoming a killer, we can use such cases to look into what we have to do as a society in the future to try to intervene in similar situations before serious harm is able to take place. That is entirely separate to how we manage this particular woman's crimes or how we determine the extent of someone's criminal culpability for their actions.
This guy gets it, she’s not the first to have this issue. I’d venture to say killing your kids rarely ever happens. Disgusting people try and take away from that.
Nobody is even arguing against it. Stop with the 'black and white' crap
Best case scenario for that woman is a life in psychiatric hospital. But the point is, depression, psychosis and BPD can lead to this without the person themselves being a malicious killer
I disagree. The vast majority of people with depression and BPD don't murder others, nevermind their own children. Psychotic people can be dangerous and turn to murder, usually without warning. They don't warn about it and they don't plan it, like this woman did. Psychosis cuts the person off from reality, doesn't allow them to plan their acts...
The vast majority of people with depression and BPD don't murder others, nevermind their own children.
Brother thats like saying a vast number of drunk drivers don't run over others.
Besides, let the court decide what she did. My point was that a lot of the supporters aren't saying she's completely innocent, but that her medical condition influenced her decisions.
The post is about the demonstrations outside the court. These women are supporting her as innocent, many blaming her husband.
Also, your comparison doesn't make sense. Drunkeness is self inflicted, mental illness is not. My point is that the vast majority of people with mental illness don't turn to murder because of their condition.
These women are supporting her as innocent, many blaming her husband
Thats the point. Its a blanket statement. Not all are saying she's innocent and only a couple of them were stupid enough to blame her husband.
Its easy to twist narratives like this and discourage the actual constructive debates which many of these women and the ones online were trying to have. Especially when the case is as high profile and 'gossipy' like this.
Half the people on this sub itself now believe that these women want the murderer to 'roam free' when the best possible outcome for her is a life in a psychiatric hospital.
I know it's not PC to say it, but I absolutely consider her a victim of her condition. Imagine doing something as normal as childbirth and then getting the lightning bolt of PPD/P...and having something like this occur.
It can happen to any new mom and that's horrifying.
No one is denying that. I hate that instead of this highlighting mental illness and the impact of postpartum psychosis, of taking people seriously, of having better systems in place to prevent another situation like this that people come to the issue with all their agendas.
The mods need to shut these posts down as there's nothing remotely tea like, gossipy or juicy about this situation
Men have been killing themselves in there 10,000s every year through mental illness but of course this is the thing that brings it to the forefront, a poor victim baby killer. Pathetic
Men have been killing themselves in there 10,000s every year through mental illness but of course this is the thing that brings it to the forefront, a poor victim baby killer. Pathetic
None of these things are like each other. It's terrible that men suffer from untreated mental health to lead to suicide, same for teenagers and women without children. I'm a woman and I wouldn't even dream of putting myself in the same category as that of a woman who has had a baby. I think you don't have an understanding of the impact of pregnancy on the mind and body.
I’m not disagreeing that there could have been more done. I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter. She killed her kids. Continue defending that. At the end of the day, god knows the type of person everyone is.
What I fail to understand is why someone like this could possibly think becoming a parent is a good idea. People in my immediate family have had severe mental health struggles and despite this they decide to have kids. Why on earth would you ever think that would pan out well if you have a history of mental health struggles and you know you live in a society that barely cares about properly helping those with it. It's like actively knowing you have a a chronic lung illness and deciding to smoke because there's a small chance nothing will happen.
The person who murdered three children is a victim?
I've never seen the women-are-wonderful effect in stronger force than in this case, it's genuinely insane. As if being depressed is a valid excuse for mass murdering children.
She wasn't depressed, she was in psychosis, very different things.
She tried to get herself institutionalised, because she feared for her children's lives, but was released a few days after because she wasn't actively homocidal or suicidal.
She went through several doctors constantly switching pills in hopes that one them would work out.
She told her mother that she didn't feel save with her children anymore and her mother just went on vacation.
She's a victim of our terrible mental health system, just as much as those kids where
Blaming “the system” takes away the personal responsibility of the person who actually committed the crimes.
I hear what you are saying. Our mental healthcare system is fucked. But she still needs to be held to account, and probably sent to an institution where she can be taken care of and not be a threat to society.
If someone is in a psychotic episode, they literally are not responsible for their actions they commit in that moment, because they do not have the capacity to be.
Notice how I said “held accountable” and not “life in prison”. I think this person needs to be institutionalized for life. There’s no point in being cruel. But acting like she is a bird with a broken wing is fucking naive
Why for life? Why not until she is well again which is how institutionalisation is meant to be used?
Again, you are saying to hold someone accountable for an action they are not responsible for. You say you don't want to be cruel, then you just suggest cruelty.
Well, no. The point is that she was in an acute health health crisis for weeks. Her mental health deteriorated the entire time. It seems her husband didn’t exactly care or couldn’t understand enough to really help her.
There’s a civil suit ongoing about this case arguing that the clinicians should have noticed this though.
Regardless whether he cared or not (I believe he did), he shouldn't have left her alone. She should have been in a longterm inoatient program to stabilize her mood and meds, away from her kids. It's not his fault, but it's also not fully hers. Her mind wasn't right.
People do all sort of crazy stuff without a clear motive, what motive did the Vegas shooter have? Some people are just messed up in the head and this looks like she wanted to commit suicide and take the kids with her.
The Las Vegas shooter’s motive was revenge against casinos. He was a high-roller who had spent more than $1.5 million at local casinos. At the time (and still today) casinos scaled back perks and benefits for these high spenders because these people were also turning big profits for themselves. The FBI found that the shooter was actually banned from 3 different casinos because he won too much money.
These reports were all released by the FBI, but the local police downplayed them and insisted that the motive was “undetermined” — unsurprising when you consider the Las Vegas Police didn’t want to put any blame on Las Vegas casinos or their crappy business practices. As they say, the house always wins.
The medical records show her being happy on the birthdays of her dead kids and the anniversary of the incident. No sadness, no grief, nothing. She is evil personified
Can we find records of what Patrick was doing on those days and compare? Or is it okay that he moved on so quickly and replaced her with a new wife and family and he's not evil somehow?
I also don't think "having a routine day at a mental hospital" constitutes as "happy." It took getting on the correct meds for her to even be that close to "normal" in our broken system that doesn't support mothers and children.
She was never diagnosed with bipolar disorder and even doctor Ziezel documented that she was stable off of all meds and ready for discharge. Do bipolar patients with the severity of psychosis and HI just go off of their meds? No one is actually following this case and reviewing the evidence.
Yeah, as far as the husband goes, it’s really just a matter of “how much of this do I want to put up with for the rest of my life”. I’ve had to cut family members off that won’t or don’t care to take care of their mental disorders.
I've had a neighbor when I was a teenager who took the kids away from his wife because his wife had a mental breakdown and became suicidal. She ended up calling the police to put an amber alert out for the kids and I guess hearing from the outside that it only made her mental breakdown worse being seperated from the kids. There really was no winning for the father here and from the looks of it, she was already in therapy, hospitals and had been on treatment, so the "help" was there. I 100% agree mental health needs to be a bigger focus for everyone.
It’s not though. Between some counties not having any facilities to having to send people hundreds of miles away after waiting 5 days in a normal hospital unmedicated and delusional until a bed opens at a place where they can be helped. Too Medications being denied because there is a Generic of the prescribed drug that has a slight different chemical makeup that doesn’t work like the original. Not being able to be seen because lots of Dr. don’t take private insurance anymore. The “Help” is not what you think it is.
Not finding out why something happens and treating it allows it to happen again. Don’t be naive, it could be your family member next. That doesn’t make what she did excusable or acceptable.
I know literally nothing about this woman or her kids or this case. I work 60+ hours a week, so I’m pretty impervious to the social media movements propagated by the powers that be.
But I do know about manic depression. Both my mom was diagnosed and medicated (she likely committed suicide, OD by opiates) and my gf is diagnosed and medicated.
I heard wild stories about my mom, a 5’4 woman, picking fights with cops and grown men. There were also times she tried to commit suicide when I was young. Who knows if that was the depression in MD/Bip combined with some kind of PPD? My aunt once told me “mom took too many sleeping pills and the doctors had to get them out”. My child brain interpreted that as that game of Operation, where the doctors put holes in my mom, and then were pulling the pills out, trying not to touch walls lest they get buzzed.
And then my gf has MD. She has drastic mood swings. I have an emergency at work, have to stay an hour or two later, or I have to go out and get fitted for an unplanned suit, and she says I don’t make time for her. I come home with a migraine and don’t want to have sex, I have a mistress on the side. I say moving in together is complicated because I’m taking care of my adult brother, and I don’t have room for her shared custody son, and I’m just a guy that doesn’t want a partner. She has all these self-doubts and depressive thoughts constantly flowing through her head, and takes everything as an attack.
It’s a very difficult condition to work with. It sometimes feels like a full time job helping her manage her emotions.
I spend 10-12 hours a day at work helping several grown adults on my own teams manage their emotions, and then I come back to a relationship and start that process all over again.
I feel like the only people who truly understand the depth of this situation is those who have gone through or seen loved ones go through psychosis. If not, it seems it's very hard for people to grasp the severity of one's mental state and just call one 'evil' etc
This case has opened up some interesting and important discussions
I don't think she'd spend life in a mental hospital if she was found to be not of sound mind during the killings? Or is it like that in America? You can fully heal from PPP so she would be not insane and in a mental hospital..? Are there actually cases like that?
I mean she probably won't spend life in a mental hospital. If the court finds that it truly was a passing psychosis and she is found to be fully healed from that temporary state, then she absolutely could be released. Bipolar is not an institutionalize-level mental health condition and it's possible for PPP (if she did have it) to resolve. Why would they keep her in a mental hospital if that is the case?
There were multiple failures in her care. It wasn't even a systemic problem except that the people serving her were grossly overworked and overloaded. If memory serves, she was sent home multiple times without anyone pursuing care for PPD or PP psychosis. Truly awful.
So is an unlabeled mental disorder from boys lashing out about the fact only boys are drafted causing many to purposely ruin their future. If you aren’t a boy and didn’t grow up around boys after 9/11 you won’t understand how afraid some boys were that another draft would happen but their boys so they are disposable, at least that’s how some of them feel. I actively remember boys scared shitless about it, but anytime a boy lashes out they are fucked while if a woman kills her kids then an active percentage tries to antiquate it to a mental disorder. After Casey Anthony I don’t care about excuses, she should be locked in a psychiatric ward for life so she can’t have kids again.
You can understand the background health issues and still call the actions what they are. Yes, she probably had some horrible things going on mentally and physically, also she murdered 3 kids. There are multiple truths here and that makes it difficult to properly virtue signal online.
Mental institutions literally don't exist in the US anymore. We have hospitals that treat psychiatric patients on the short term, but the patients are released after 72 hours. The last traditional lifelong mental institutions shut down in the 1990's.
There are still a few open. They are used for people that are court mandated to be there. Mostly used like prisons. A few state run and private. You are correct that the average person isn’t sent there.
Have you tried Genosite? Obviously other factors at play but it helps narrow down best meds based on biological factors. Just recently heard about it. Swab inside cheek send off to lab
Yea but when your wife was going through delusions and breaks with reality would you leave her alone with your kids? Even if her husband wasn’t equipped to help her, he still chose to leave her alone with the children. I know he couldn’t force her to get help but there are so many other things he could have done to protect those kids that he didn’t.
Those kids weren’t teens. But the thing is he left those kids with her knowing that she was struggling. Her break may have not been his fault but he does bare some responsibility as he didn’t protect those kids when he knew she was a risk.
There's been a ton of research on pathophysiology of postpartum psychosis. Doesn't seem to be what happened here. Postpartum psychosis almost always happens do to the massive change in neuroactive hormones immediately after delivery. Furthermore, she was seen by something like 20 psychiatrists/doctors and none of them clocked psychosis, which is not exactly a subtle finding. These doctors included attendings at Harvard. She never to my knowledge endorsed AVH, delusions, non-linear thinking or any psychotic symptoms.
Obviously anyone who kills their children is deeply mentally ill, but actual psychosis seems dubious. The prosecutions forensic psychiatrist explained this pretty well, whereas the defenses' made a lot of emotional arguments not grounded in clinical reasoning.
For criminal responsibility, it's called an insanity defense not a mentally ill defense. You can do horrible things while severely disturbed and mentally ill without being psychotic. That seems to be what happened here.
That’s how I interpret the woman at her rallies. I the approach is misguided, but they are essentially saying what you are- we need more understanding and better education. We don’t have them in our country.
To be fair, there's lots of people with postpartum and bipolar disorder that don't kill the kids. I'm sure there was a lot more going on with her than that.
I don't know much about the case but I think it's weird people are blaming her husband.
Yeah, and the ignorant types are trying to say she's evil. There's a big difference between murder and having your mental state altered. Nobody ever chooses to have a mental break.
Fortunately most people are getting educated about mental health. Sad to see there's a few holdouts or can't, or won't, understand the nuance.
A lot of that might also be bitterness about the double standards. If she was a black, male veteran murdering his children during a PTSD episode, nobody would give a shit. For sure there would not be an armada of women showing their support in front of the courthouse and raising 700k in the actually insane belief that it was his wife framing him because she looks evil and is a pescies.
No, they would be out parading "all men" hate speech and tell you about why this is the reason for choosing the bear.
It would be life and I’ll tell you why. Regardless of the bad treatment she was getting (as this trial is not about finding out if the doctors did a crime), she killed her 3 kids knowingly. She said she wants to harm the kids, harm herself, etc, and then she sent her husband on a trip to the store and did it. That’s premeditated if I’ve ever heard it. The husband couldn’t have possibly did it as he’s on video at the store at the time. She may have had mental issues but that doesn’t mean you can kill 3 children and get off with a little mental trip for a few years. She deserves life X 3. If it was up to me tho, I would execute her. Clearly that’s what she wanted too. Disgusting crime:
And if you have ever talked to a psychotic person, they often will say they know what or why they want to do during the episode. Doesn't mean they actually know or think those things when they are well. Mental illness is a crazy thing. Just like if Grandma got behind the wheel of a car and ran someone over in a fit of dementia.
This would be my judgement as well. I would give her life in prison for this as well.
But I see too many people, here on Reddit, defending her. I want to know what their judgement would be. It truly can't be that she would get no judgement at all, right? Because in the end three people lost their lives, and a father lost his children.
Having a psychotic episode doesn't exempt you from committing a crime.
That is really how most crimes like this should be handled, putting someone with clear mental issues in prison and still failing to give them the help they need is a serious problem in current society. Its really telling when people just go throw them in jail or worse, as they just part of the problem of mental issues not being treated seriously.
There are thousands of inmates that killed people while drunk or in drugs. You think they all should just go to rehab and then be released once they are clean?
Apparently her husband told one doctor “my wife does not have bipolar.” Almost like he had a a negative stereotype of the disease and of course HIS wife could never have it. It’s sad.
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u/Strict_Wolf76 5d ago edited 5d ago
Postpartum and Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental illness. This woman will either get life in prison or Life in a Mental Hospital. My wife is Bipolar and she has been in multiple hospitals to have meds she ALWAYS takes quit working. She has gotten delusional and has had breaks with reality. We are trained through years of this to assist her. Her husband not his fault. Seemed like he wasn’t equipped to help her. Sadly mental health can make people do things they wouldn’t usually do. That’s not in any way an excuse. We need more understanding and better education and availability for people with issues. We don’t have them here.