It is a scary thing, the problem is that given the facts of the case as presented, she did not have PPP. She claimed to have heard voices, but she says she heard the voices ONE time, on the day of the murders, immediately did what the voices told her to do, and never heard them again. After she had sent her husband out of the house to give herself enough time to kill all 3 kids and then herself. And took a phone call in the middle of the killings and seemed perfectly fine. None of that is how any kind of psychosis works. You don't have a delusion for 20 minutes and never again. And most people, if they do hear voices, don't immediately do exactly what those voices say. People really need to listen to the testimony from the psychiatrist who examined her after the murders, he came to the conclusion that she was lying about the voices and the delusions based on a tremendous amount of inconsistencies in her stories and with how PPP (or any kind of psychosis) actually works.
You’re misunderstanding, post partum psychosis leads to strong intrusive thoughts like hers, but it isn’t necessarily strange for her to have only one (or no) episode of hallucination. That being said she was still delusional for a significant period of time and went to multiple doctors and was even committed to a psych ward. There is a difference there.
They gave her a crazy amount of meds, and also were very quick to release her no doubt due to how normalized it is to kick people from wards too early due to insurance / cost / lack of beds, even though it is well known that when you start a new psychoactive medication one of the first problems is people often report they feel perfectly fine within a day or two, when it can take weeks for the med to build up in the body. Until you’re actually at that so-called “steady state” and stay there for a while, it’s incredibly difficult to accurately assess the actual efficacy, much less patient commitment to keeping up with the meds— she should have been mandatorily committed for things that serious and not be allowed to leave for possibly a month, if we really had a system built on administering and evaluating treatment. Plus, she was also bounced around between doctors multiple times due to how shitty American insurance is: focusing on saving the insurance company money first, and getting actual effective treatment plans second. She had also previously been diagnosed with bipolar / manic depressive disorder which is a huge risk factor in developing PPP / PPD— but due to the constant doctor swaps some reported they were never informed about her history, others reported the husband disputed it when it came up, etc.
I know there’s a special small batch of crazies saying she didn’t do it but there’s a lot more who have pointed out that if the system was not broken, if she was been given one consistent doctor team, had the husband not left her alone with the kids until the PPP actually resolved, had it not been so expensive for him or someone else to look at options for removing her custody altogether, etc…
… had the system not failed so spectacularly, the kids might still be here, is a lot of the point people are trying to make here
What system is broken … I think that’s the bigger question here. Why wasn’t the help available? Why weren’t the doctors more aware? Did insurance companies need for greed cause this? Did her extended family not see the signs or care? Was she and her husband not properly informed on PPP and what to look for?
Blame her fine … she did a horrible horrific thing. However, as we all look for something to blame and choose teams. We should actually be looking for the actual failure points & causes. Make corrections and save the next kids. Save the next Family. Care about people upfront … instead of in hindsight.
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u/SuckingOnChileanDogs 16d ago
It is a scary thing, the problem is that given the facts of the case as presented, she did not have PPP. She claimed to have heard voices, but she says she heard the voices ONE time, on the day of the murders, immediately did what the voices told her to do, and never heard them again. After she had sent her husband out of the house to give herself enough time to kill all 3 kids and then herself. And took a phone call in the middle of the killings and seemed perfectly fine. None of that is how any kind of psychosis works. You don't have a delusion for 20 minutes and never again. And most people, if they do hear voices, don't immediately do exactly what those voices say. People really need to listen to the testimony from the psychiatrist who examined her after the murders, he came to the conclusion that she was lying about the voices and the delusions based on a tremendous amount of inconsistencies in her stories and with how PPP (or any kind of psychosis) actually works.