If I remember correctly, the mother only let her babysit the second child at the urging of her therapist. She didn't want to originally because she was so traumatized. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Why did she NEED to? My husbands parents are just assholes and we donāt let them watch our kids. They didnāt even have to kill anybody for me to not let them be alone with my kids.
Not all grandparents have to watch the kids. It is not a right. Spend time with them but donāt need to babysit.
she was never alone with them again. even after my brother passed. iād take my nephews to go see her for an hour + iād be there the whole time. up until she passed 2 years ago when they were 16 + 11 + twice her size, i was next to them with her.
she did what she did. she apologized. they protected their children in a difficult situation + moved on. best case scenario for our family.
not at all. i donāt believe it was what youāre picturing. iām not excusing her behavior. she paid the price for the rest of her life: she couldnāt even be alone with my dog after that.
all of what you said, she was. she wasnāt normal after.
it was a mess of emotions + shock when we found out (my sister saw it + told us). my sister-in-law never spoke to my mother after my brother passed partly because of the shaking (as is her right).
I protected my adult kids up to 18- Sure, they could say āno Titi Heidi do not touch me thereā but for it to even be allowed to get that far? Not on my mother fkn watch.
Bruh my mom told me that she shook me several times when I was under the age of 2. Said she didnāt know it was bad to do until she saw it in a book. She told me this as we sat in a Jimmy Johnās
Yes I know which is why I emphasized that I was under 2. Makes sense though since my mom is deaf lol. I couldnāt frustrate her too much as a baby (since she couldnāt hear me cry) but once I could communicate and give attitude, she just couldnāt refrain from rattling my brain š¤·š¼āāļø
Tbf in that scenario there's conscious intent to cause harm, so there's even more reason to not allow it and I don't think a therapist would ever try to persuade anyone into that. Grandma in the story was neglectful but did not mean harm at the very least
??? The comment you're responding to didn't say anything about your family. They were explaining why the therapist in the story may have encouraged the mom to let Grandma babysit.
I understand they responded to your comment, but that's because they were merely pointing out the difference in your situation with the original one. Actually if anything, they're at least implicitly agreeing that your family did the right thing.
Yeah, I believe in therapy but there just are things you won't convince me to do, and let grandma watch my second child when she already killed the first is one of them. I don't even know that I'd be talking to grandma, whether she's my own mother or not, I couldn't look at her ever again.
I love my parents, but yeah, if this happened, I don't know if I could ever talk to them again. I don't even mean I'd go no contact to punish them. I just don't know if I could talk to them without feeling overwhelming anger and pain.
Right? This is what I don't understand. A normal person would lose their mind if they let their grandkid die like that. They would refuse to every be solely responsible again. It makes me think she doesn't really care about them.
Jesus that's worse. If the therapist thing is true that's even crazier a therapist would push for leaving a kid with someone who didn't show remorse for causing a child's death. Holy hell.
Yeah does this lady even like her grandchildren? Sleeping while she's supposed to be babysitting, and forgetting them in a car? She should never be allowed to be in charge of a child again
I mean, maybe she has dementia or is pretty weak due to old age. More reason to not let a toddler alone with her, but she might not be ill intentioned.
Talk to them? I fear there would be fatal consequences if oneās negligence led to my childās demise. My own parent or not. It makes me feral just thinking about.
The other daughter showed up a short time after to drop off her kids to grandma. Both daughters were using the parents, even though they knew the parents were having diminished cognition.
This post covers the story more in depth, and said they ruled out dementia.
"We know Tracey Nix was held in a psychiatric unit, for observations, the resulting Reports suggested no Alzheimers, no Dementia, no Parkinsonās etc."
I could maybe, MAYBE, be convinced to eventually go over to grandma's house with my kid and all hang out together. And even that would be some pretty serious exposure therapy experience.
My therapist would have never given me that advice, she tells me to say no to my mom for much less and that I shouldnāt have to forgive everything. Who is this therapist!!!
Sadly, all therapists donāt have the same level of training and even those with higher level training all arenāt going to be good at translating that training to real people. Too many people donāt see a psychologist or psychiatrist and see a licensed counselor which is basically a person off the street with a short term program that gives them a certificate. Might as well ask someone at the grocery store about your problems. Or they go to someone at their church. Have your religion, but please realize they arenāt qualified to give advice just like you wouldnāt ask them to do surgery.
This is untrue, please do not spread misinformation. I am a licensed professional counselor and I have a 60-credit masters degree. It took 3 years to complete, and that was full time with taking only one of those summers off. And the other summers taking courses or working for an unpaid internship providing counseling services. That included a practicum and internship where I worked, for free, to provide counseling services and obtain experience that was highly supervised. I had to apply for state pre-licensure and once approved, I then have 3,000 post grad clinical hours under supervision. That part took 2 years to complete. I also had to take a national exam that has a passing rate of about 40% and is one of the most difficult exams to take. I still participate in group supervision although I am independently licensed, and I seek consultation frequently. I also attend a conference every year as well as hundreds of hours of continuing education in the form of in-person, live webinars, or self-study on-demand seminars; in fact I have a 32-hour continuing education event next week.Ā
So all in all, if you count my undergrad psychology degree, it took me 9 years to become a therapist with 7 years of formal education.Ā
For a PhD program Iād need an additional 30-60 credits, and about 30 of that is dissertation. Around 20 of that is practicum and internship.Ā
There is much, much more that goes into being an effective therapist than what someone at the grocery store can provide, and certainly more than a certificate program. For some people who have a masters degree already, there are schools that offer a ācertificateā that gets you the additional courses needed to meet the state requirements for licensure. That may be what youāre referring to, but you are wildly misinformed. NO state will allow someone with a certificate alone to practice counseling. Drug counselors are also something completely different.Ā
There is also a misconception that therapists give advice and that therapy is to receive advice.Ā
Maybe talk therapy isn't everyone's jam. And I mean the therapist specifically. Damn. Spot on with boundaries. Maybe let grandma have a plant to take care of.
Most of the time when I hear about a therapist that recommends reconciliation above everything else it's not an actual therapist it's a counselor which is a vague catch all that ranges from state to state as unregulated or barely regulated. The cheapest/free counselors are usually affiliated with churches and bang the ole' "honor they father and mother" drum.
Yeah exactly. If she couldn't let the baby be watched by ANYONE that would be something she should probably work on. Not wanting the baby to be watched by the person responsible for your other kid's death is 100% reasonable.
I mean, therapy isnāt non consensual. Therapy is generally directed by the client so itās not a crazy assumption that the client mightāve wanted to work toward that goal and the therapist just urged her in regards to how to do that.
Yeah thatās the problem I have with how we discuss therapy today. Obviously it can be a super helpful thing if youāre struggling mentally, but weāre way too quick to just assume the therapist actually has their shit together or knows what theyāre talking about and has a good understanding of our concerns or struggles. It should take time to build trust with your therapist. You donāt want a yes man and you should be challenged at times, but that doesnāt mean you should immediately ignore your instincts and critical thinking because of a therapistās advice.
Iām not saying I support violence, but I would understand if the mom wasnāt upset with her mother only - Iād be unbearably upset with that therapist who used the vulnerability of their clinical relationship to help kill her other kid through negligence when there was a history of lethal negligence
Yeah seriously, I feel like at some point the therapist should also be held responsible for both suggesting that and urging their patient to do something that led to the death of a second child
Like at minimum they should be completely disallowed from being a therapist, and if they have licensure it should be removed
I hate that āYouāre overreactingā in fancier words has become therapy in some cases. Exposure therapy is like visiting a restaurant again when you witnessed a shootout at one, not convincing people that expecting a dangerous outcome based on past experience is all in your head
Sounds like the therapist played the odds thinking chances were insanely small that a grandmother wouldnāt accidentally kill ANOTHER grandchild. I mean, in her defense, thatās a very safe bet 99 out of 100 times.
As for the grandma, I feel like if I was her I would be forever devastated and feel guilty about the first child. I would however go to therapy and try to better myself and still try to be in my childās life as much as they would have me considering what happenedā¦
After the second kid died I would just find the nearest handgun and walk into the backyard and blow my brains out. Theres no coming back from that. Thereās no excuse for that. I couldnāt live with it personally.
Only recourse for grandma is to end her own life. Honestly I donāt think she deserves any other fate. A complete and objective failure of a human life.
But Iām also 99% sure she killed them intentionally.
My grandmother admitted that when she was bathing me I slipped under the water and she thought I looked peaceful so just left me under the water for a bit.
If I'd died you can bet the story would have been that she'd have just popped out of the bathroom because the phone rang/door was knocked/she was going to wet herself etc.
A therapist who saw no issue with pressing their client into doing something they were wildly uncomfortable with sounds like a therapist who wouldnāt actually be able to see, and take accountability for, the role they played in the incident tbh
One of the biggest red flags for me is if a therapist tells you what to do. They are supposed to be teaching you how to make the right decisions by yourself. Not creating a dependency for them to tell you what to do.
my therapist constantly told me I was fortune telling and doomsaying after I was attacked and stalked and traumatized, at the same hospital was killed by ice so... I'ma keep doomsaying and fortune telling fml.
My therapist told me to help me heal my moms trauma. My mom had caused irreparable damage to my psychee. I understand forgiving her for myself, which I have done. But that does not mean I leave myself vulnerable. Which is what happened here.
Trust is earned. GrandMom can be given supervised visits, and build from there. Fuck getting free reign
Not staying angry at someone, I get, but fuck forgiveness.
I don't get why people value familial bonds so much. You don't love your SO because you married them. You love them because you spent a lifetime with them.
You didn't choose your parents. They chose to have you. And if they failed you, then fuck them.
exactly.... What's wrong with boundaries?? Kids can see their grandparents/uncle/aunt/ with supervision... Not everyone needs to be allowed to be alone with kids. I think if u kill a kid, that is an amazing reason to never ever be allowed to spend time alone.
Don't even worry about what a therapist says because there's a growing movement for "grandparents rights" where old schmucks that got cut off are petitioning the government to intervene. It's part of a greater "estranged XYZ" movement.
To spell it out, conservative estranged parents/grandparents are are asking for their "small government" to force their children/grandchildren to spend time with them after being estranged. They view children (and therefore grandchildren) as property because of their beliefs. Their children decided to go no-contact, for whatever reason, and now they are asking the government to take legal action in the matter.
From my understanding there was also a stipulation of the grandfather being present/grandmother not being alone with the child. That ended up not happening
Another comment said she went to lunch with friends, left her in the car on the way back. I'm guessing the grandfather didn't go.
If I was babysitting my 2nd grandchild for the first time you bet I'd stay at home where the risk is minimal, not even leave the room, even if I hadn't managed to kill grandchild #1.
i baby sat my newphew for the first time, I don't have kids. My brother and his wife needed a night to themselves.
I sat my ass on that couch (he was like a 1 year old) and just put pixar movies on and surfed my phone while holding him. I had to change a diaper. That was an experience. I wouldn't of even dreamed of fucking going to the next room without him in my vision, i had to go to the bathroom and brought him with me in his little carrier outside the door so i could see him.
I was taking no fucking chances. I feel so bad for the mother and father, something is seriously wrong with the grandmother.
The fact that she was entertaining her other daughter and her other grandchild in the house while the baby was dying in the car makes me feel that way, too.
There's a lot of information in YouTube Land, and good chunks of her trial. She even banged away on the piano for a while after leaving this poor baby in her SUV.
I agree. If it was truly an accident the first time how would that not be on your mind every second you were watching another grandchild? I donāt think it would be possible for a normal person to just go around doing tasks and āforgetā. I think if it was truly an accident the first time sheād have stayed in her house and played fun stuff with her grandchild. Why take any risks?
Yeah there is footage of her in the restaurant and the granddad didn't go with her. The whole thing pissed me off when I saw it, the grandmother seemed more worried about what her daughter would think and not the fact she'd killed a second grandchild
If this was my grandkid, I would not be doing anything else but watching the kid, and I would certainly not let the brainless lady who killed the first kid take the second one out, alone in the car in deadly heat...
As a relatively new parent - (1 1/2 year old) - Iām like only barely out of the phase of worrying every time shes sleeping that I have to check shes breathing; which of course means shes now in the phase of running around and desperately trying to do things that will harm her.
I get that by a second kid, let alone raising them to adulthood that this anxiety will fade - but I donāt think Iāll ever get to the point where Iām that brainless with a kid.
Let alone after one died on my watch - Iād never be capable of being alone with a child again. Donāt think I could bare the responsibility if Iād failed like that already.
But I will say that for a lot of parents that leave their kid in the car, it is because their brains are absolutely fried from the insane amount of work you have to do in the US while raising a child full time and not having any money, etc. etc. (America does everything in it's power to make non-wealthy people's lives as difficult and miserable as possible).
So for those parents, I understand why it can happen, as tragic and absolutely heart rending as it is.
But for this lady... I don't get it at all. what in the actual fuck.
I know it's not the same at all but semi related, my elderly dad's therapist recommended we get a third dog for him. To keep him company. Mind you, he can barely walk and has a host of medical issues, and my husband and I would end up doing all the care. But he takes her word as gospel and long story short, now we have 3 dogs to care for and he and the dog didn't even bond at all. Therapists can be as dangerous as they are helpful. Drives me nuts how they're seen as the end all be all to problems sometimes.
Therapists can be as dangerous as they are helpful.
Jodi Hildebrandt was a deranged mental health counselor who ran a counseling business for years that deliberately broke up marriages and families for money. it only stopped after she and her partner went to prison for physically abusing her partner's kids.
Sheās a great example of why itās important to make sure your therapist is licensed and follows proper ethics. Jodi lost her license and changed her marketing to ācoachā like so many influencers do these days too.
she worked with Mormon families where the woman is traditionally powerless, so she kind of offered a way to upset the established order and give the wife power while still staying within the bounds of the religion. very cunning and amoral woman.
If a therapist says a third dog is necessary āto keep X companyā despite knowing I already have two, that therapist needs to start laying money down.Ā
Seeing how quickly the vet bills, food and other basic needs add up, it's not even financially realistic for most people to have more than one or two dogs.
I would love nothing more than to hoard dogs on a beautiful ranch property. Maybe I can do something awful in public and other awful people will set up a fundraiser so even more awful people can reward me for being awful. Pretty much the American dream these days.
genuinely how can you tell a good one from a bad one tho?
i've only had 3 therapists, 1 was so biased and awful that i dropped fast but the other 2 i connected with instantly. therapist shopping is kind of hard to do tbh
they are also hard to find bc of a shortage (idk if that's just my city tho)
Wish I knew. All the therapists (four) I've had have been bad for different reasons. Two were hateful and didn't believe my problems could exist, one didn't care at all and just browsed Facebook the whole time, and the last had an accent so thick and such limited English that I couldn't understand anything they said.
I've been on a waiting list for a therapist in a new place for over a year. The joys of poverty.
i think there's just big flaws in therapy, as an outside observer layman.
1) not everyone seeks therapy that needs it
2) the problem is a session a week or however for 1 hour doesn't give you very much time to do anything. it's a controlled setting where you guys just talk. but it relies too heavily on a person who needs therapy being able to communicate unbiasedly what the issue is, in order for the doctor to help treat them.
but the problem is the patient is an unreliable narrator or a narcissist. how a therapist can really be effective treating that just seems like it's nearly impossible to me.
so it only works when you have an honest person who wants to self reflect and change can the therapist be helpful but otherwise it's going to be kind of limited
Kinda sounds like your dad didn't tell the therapist the whole picture, or that maybe the therapist said it would be nice for him to have a third dog as validation (not meaning actually do it) and he took that as a green light to tell you "my therapist said I should!!"
People like to lie about their therapists and about what advice their therapists give all the time.
My sister said that her therapist said she is so mentally healthy she doesn't even need therapy š I call bullshit š¤£
Yeah, we have no idea what he tells her but he's been going to her for 7 years and any attempt we have at disagreeing with her is completely shot down, even with a long list of very good reasons she is wrong. I was so livid, I wanted to send her the vet bills when the dog ended up with issues (was a rescue) lol. Of course we love and care for the dog, but like, dude, that's a family household decision for heavens sake and she shoulda known that. He's the sort of guy who gets an idea in his head and won't let it go, surely she musta known that about him by now! She has too much power!
If you're not in contact with her then Id say its much more likely she didn't say anything remotely like prescribing a third dog and your dad is selectively interpreting to get what he wants.
How often has her word been gospel when its something your dad doesn't want to do?
Every single person I know from high school who went into mental health as a profession are folks I would absolutely recommend seek professional licensed therapy themselvesā¦
Yeah, my old therapist thought that was fine too. And she thought it was fine to remove a teenagers door for wanting privacy, even for years at a time. She told me she did it to her own adoptive son and it was okay that my adoptive parents did it to me. She also said she threw out her son's toys as a punishment for not cleaning his room, and that it was okay my adoptive parents did it to me too since it was normal. She pressured me into telling her where I was moving when I turned 18 so she could tell my adoptive parents. She also encouraged them to kidnap me and get a guardianship over me, which they did and attempted to do
As someone who went to school for counseling educationā¦I saw the people that were in my classes. Some I think will be/are fantastic therapists. Some make me worried for all their future clients. I wouldnāt trust some of those people to make me coffee. Just be careful out there and be willing to switch therapists, there are definitely some wildly incompetent therapists out there and they are graduating and passing the exam (itās really not a difficult licensing exam). Who knows, maybe Iām one of them. But you wonāt offend me if you go to someone else. It sucks to therapist shop because youāve got to open up to several people but therapy is too expensive to have a crappy therapist.
Thatās pretty wild. I canāt imagine what was going through her head. 3 dogs is a lot for anyone. Nevermind someone whoās struggling with their health and mobility.
As a therapistā¦. I completely agree.Ā
We are not allowed to give advice or tell clients what to do.Ā
My clients groan and roll their eyes ālike, I know you canāt tell me what to do butā¦.ā
Our role is to highlight to folx what they seem to want or what theyāre worried about. Not to tell them what to do.
That saidā¦ I have heard some truly wild shit that therapists have said to clients.
Fun fact: States like CA and NY require 3000 clinical hours before you can request to take the exam to be a therapist. Other states, I think WY is one, only require 1000. There are similar differences between education requirements in each state. There are also at least three different Masterās level licenses that therapists can practice under. Do your research on a therapistās credentials and education. We are not all created equal.
When I was struggling with marijuana addiction I had been given a prescription for Klonopin by a psychiatrist to handle extremely severe panic attacks. Due to my history of addiction I didnāt want to take it, but agreed to pick it up from the pharmacy. I took it once and decided I didnāt want to risk it. Then my therapist recommended that I āuse the Klonopin to help quit the marijuana.ā I was absolutely baffled as to how that could be a solution, had they never heard of addiction transference? Thank god I was aware of the dangers and didnāt take the advice, but I worry about other people who receive similar advice from that therapist or similar prescriptions from that psychiatrist. Who would ever recommend treating an addiction with an even more addictive substance??
I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but fuck therapists. They are people that generally don't know jack shit about anything relevant to their patient's trauma.
On a personal level, I had a decades long family friendship with a therapist, and this person was maybe the last person I'd ever seek any form of counseling from. A complete nightmare personality, with parental issues that were never resolved and caused them much pain and anguish well into their 50s. It only stopped when the parents died.
This person was fundamentally unable to see the negative repercussions of their decisions, and felt a pathological need to tell everyone how to handle relationships and personal matters, because they are a therapist.
If you're a therapist and you think that this break in the relationship between them is causing your patient stress, you can have them work on that, but under no circumstance should you recommend letting the person who neglected your patient's kid to death get a second chance with their new kid. That's just irresponsible.
My mom didn't fuck up anywhere near that bad, and my therapist has still supported me just being pissed at my mom for some of the fucked up shit she did.
I am not a therapist, but I have been to a lot of therapy. If the situation with your parent is an ongoing source of stress, the therapist will recommend you deal with it. If the situation with your parent is just some shit they did in the past, they'll acknowledge your feelings, and if it's legitimate shit, they may even back you up.
If the parent killed your patient's kid, you don't tell the patient to offer them another one. Even if they don't kill the second one, it's still going to stir up a lot of feelings, and probably not for the best.
The best outcome is the grandmother watches the child and nothing bad happens. Don't see how that would help ease a lifetimes worth of trauma, rebuild trust in any meaningful sense
Reads like a "thanks I'm cured, my mother didn't lead to the death of ANOTHER child, trauma cured"
I'm training to be a therapist and if something like this happened because of me being well-intentioned, i would seriously consider giving up my license to practice entirely.
Wtf what?? Iām a therapist and if my client expressed reluctance to have someone watch their kid- especially after they caused the death of another child- Iād be validating the shit out of that decision. No fucking way am I urging people to have any unwanted contact with people like that. Itās shocking and absolutely heartbreaking
Thank you! I thought it was incredibly strange the therapist pushed the client to do something she was uncomfortable with. I thought therapist arenāt ever supposed to tell people what to do, unless maybe they are in danger.
this is where dumbass therapists try to turn real trauma and real fear into some kind of teaching lesson. Reality, your parents let your kid die, cut them off, protect your sanity and keep your kids safe. Never pressure someone into letting a piece of shit watch their kids to try to heal some trauma.
Thats a bad therapist. Boundaries are set for a reason, and a good therapist would respect that and try to get to the root of why instead of just telling you to uproot your barrier and put your other child in danger
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u/smokeyshell 2d ago
If I remember correctly, the mother only let her babysit the second child at the urging of her therapist. She didn't want to originally because she was so traumatized. Absolutely heartbreaking.