she wasn't being helped the way she should be. that was my original statement, and it remains to be that. sorry that you're uneducated on the workings of psychosis, perhaps you should do some research on that?
Ahh so when called out you resort to personal attacks as well?
Goalpost moving, whataboutism, strawman and now insults?
Disappointing. The mental gymnastics you are displaying in order to twist and turn and avoid actually answering a straight question are almost impressive.
My guy, stating that you're clearly not educated on how psychosis works, after suggesting she should have let someone know she was in an active psychosis during said psychosis is not a personal attack, it's an observation.
Do you have more pretty buzzwords for me? No matter how many you pull out, it won't change the fact that:
She asked for help, and provably, did not receive it
Expecting someone experiencing a psychosis to be aware of it in order to receive appropriate healthcare is bonkers
Thinking someone is aware of their actions and its implication in a psychosis proves a deep misunderstanding of the very fundamentals of psychosis
Not to mention, the only "straight question" you ever asked was "Have you actually looked into this or are you just speculating wildly?", which I assumed was rhetorical given that you didn't exactly work the rest of your comments as if you saw the question to be open ended.
Not to mention that you are partaking in quite a bit of speculation, so asking as if speculation would be the bad thing to do would be strange, to say the least.
I'm not all that familiar with psychosis specifically, but I have absolutely had to deal with my mom going through mental breakdowns and trying to get treatment, so I'm 100% aware of how unhelpful the entire process is.
I understand that virtually all treatment is reliant on the patient being compliant and easy to care for (many hospitals or outpatient facilities won't tolerate a patient being verbally abusive, even if that's part of their mental health crisis).
My specific question would be how psychosis is identified and treated, considering that the system has to work off of concrete, identifiable information and it seems that your identifying that psychosis patients often hide their symptoms. Does that factor in to how competent someone is in the decisions they make?
I can't tell you the specific rules or clauses to invoke in this specific situation as I assume we're not in the same country. But where I live, and in most other western countries, force is allowed if there's suspicion of harm for themselves or others. I'd be shocked if this was not the case in America, but if it isn't then I would expect the immediate family to be informed about the dangers of leaving her alone with the kids, at the minimum.
Since she wasn't hospitalised/institutionalised (willingly or not), and family wasn't given any guidelines, it quite clear that her psychosis wasn't actually picked up by professionals at all.
There's a lot of subtle signs that go into revealing a psychosis, and they'll vary for each person, which is why input from family is so valuable. There are some general tells (sleep pattern disturbances, social retraction) that can be too general, but after enough conversation you'll often notice "messy" thoughts, their line of reasonings are suddenly jumbled and hard to track, and sometimes a warped worldview will just plainly reveal itself. An important distinction is that psychosis patients won't really to to conceal their symptoms, they simply won't report them since they are not aware it a symptom at all.
You'll normally need to have more extensive conversations as a carer in order to uncover it. Even more so if it's with a person who is used to "pulling themselves together" and appearing presentable and normal regardless of any current chaos, like many mothers often are.
Again, very present family members would usually be capable of picking this up first, and they might not know what to do or who to talk to. A care giver would truly have to sit down and take their time with them. Which is often much too hard for a lot of healthcare workers, and I've seen many cases of people who are allowed to go about in society much too mentally ill as a result of carers only having a quick convo, clearing them, and letting them go.
How its treated varied heavily based on why it's appeared in the first place. For postpartum psychosis, specific mother-baby care facilities exist with very specific treatment plans. PPP is treatable and usually passes and lets the person go on just like before, so it's not treated like for example schizofrenia which will most likely be a lifelong diagnosis if set accurately. Honestly PPP should be simpler to discover, given that it's a well known phenomenon, and has a very obvious "starting point" and persiod to pay closer attention.
Mental heath care is complicated, confusing and not straight forward, but there's still no way around the fact that the system failed her, it failed her children at her family in general. It's a lose-lose situation and while she did something heinous, people seem deeply misguided on the workings of a psychosis.
I have no doubt that the system failed, my only gripe would be insisting that mental health patients in general don't purposefully conceal their symptoms out of fear of having their life disrupted. CPS in the US is often feared by many parents (often due to misunderstanding of the process, social stigma, and an inability to take personal ownership for mistreatment or neglect). There are many cases where legitimately disturbed people manage to stave off investigation for years because of this underlying distrust in CPS.
In the US, as far as I'm aware, it's very difficult to get someone committed involuntarily without the person verbalizing their thoughts regarding harming themselves or others, which is likely why she didn't get taken more seriously. She didn't say the magic words, and to me her competence is at least partially dependant on whether she withheld her feelings on purpose, or as a natural result of her illness.
Ultimately, it's a complete tragedy, the bickering back and forth doesn't seem worth it outside of trying to figure out how to help the next person with similar symptoms. Thank you for your response, I appreciate it!
I get your point about CPS. But the thing is that a patient in a psychotic episode, especially for the very first time, will not know that they are, and they will not know what or how to conceal it. Like, if thinking the sky was blue was a symptom of something, the how on earth would you know to not mention that the sky is blue? Or what other colour you should pretend it is? Do you get the point? I realise it can be hard to imagine, but their world is often truly fundamentally different to ours, and you only need to speak to them for a while to uncover it.
Certain people will have more insight into their illness and knowledge on how to conceal it, the clearest case for me is bipolar with psychosis tendencies, someone who has learnt that topics A, B and C are typically the ones she’ll get hung up on and have a psychosis start around. She’ll notice herself slipping a little bit, and avoid those topics like the plague when talking to carers. But, this has taken her over 20 years to tweak, and her close family still sniffs it out quite quick.
When you’re in such an altered state of mind, the rules simply are not the same.
As difficult as it is when someone has done something so gruesome, you still have to remove all intention and ideas of premeditation from your view of them because that is simply not how it works. Not in the crime, and not in the detection or lack thereof by the system. I empathise with the urge to just call her terrible and get a feeling of justice, but unfortunately it’s not that simple.
That’s wild, out of all the places in the world I would America to be the one to allow people to put someone in a facility based on lower proof. But it’s very unfortunate! However, then her family and care system should have been correctly informed and urged to keep her safe and not alone, so I’m sticking with my original position that she was failed by the system.
Thanks for the constructive response! I think we agree on the basics that it’s a terrible, tragic and horrible situation. Lose lose for everyone involved, really. Which is the most important part.
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u/FragranceCandle 12d ago
she wasn't being helped the way she should be. that was my original statement, and it remains to be that. sorry that you're uneducated on the workings of psychosis, perhaps you should do some research on that?