Sympathy And Blaming Mental Illness For Someone Who Suicides And Murders Their Children?

[Queen Boudica]

The terrible cases we have had recently children have been killed by parents who then suicide and the sympathy that is given to these parents.

The latest case of the father who supposedly was depressed and a few days ago plunged his car into the harbour with his 4 year old and baby sons strapped in the back. To me that looks like a case of a man who has lost control and takes the ultimate revenge on his wife, a selfish egomaniac. Comments about what wonderful pillar of the community he was and this must have been due to mental illness, depression. To me that just doesn't wash. I cannot understand how anyone can kill their children, even when mentally ill and certainly not due to depression. I've been so depressed I wanted to die, I would never take my children along with me. In fact they are a reason to live. I just don't get why people are so sympathetic to these people and are so easy to blame mental illness. What are other people's thoughts on this, would depression lead to such an act or is it the act of a egomaniac?

 

[ms spock]

Three quotes that are relevant for this one are:

For instance, every time an obvious hate crime is portrayed as an isolated case of mental illness, this is gaslighting. The media is saying to you, What you know to be true is not true.

and

Intimate partner violence wasn’t seen as a serious crime until the 1970s. So, did we, in the last forty years, address the beliefs that cause intimate partner violence? No.

But now if you abuse your partner, you’re usually considered to be a bad person. So what do you do, with all the beliefs that would lead you to violence, if violence is no longer an acceptable option?

You use manipulation, and you use gaslighting.

and

I believe that gaslighting is happening culturally and interpersonally on an unprecedented scale, and that this is the result of a societal framework where we pretend everyone is equal while trying simultaneously to preserve inequality.

http://parenting.trendolizer.com/2015/07/10-things-i-wish-id-known-about-gaslighting.html

 

[Ronin]

I can see psychotic depression as a reason, but people's actions are still their own.

Understanding isn't an excuse or justification. I can understand a lot of things. Doesn't mean I condone.

 

[ms spock]

And I have a bit to say on this one, myself, personally, it is saying that Australia with it 1 in 3 women experiencing domestic violence is not really that bad - as it was mental illness and not sexism (thus inequality) that leads to these types of activities. This means because it was mental illness nothing can really be done, but if the violence occurs because of sexism - that means inequality has to be addressed, and there are vested interests around that from unequal pay to a intergenerational domestic abuse that could be addressed. It is easier not to tell the truth as it is easier to stay in apathy. He was a top bloke, shame he killed her, but it was mental illness and not the sexism is that I participated in (the social theory) that enabled him to kill those children/his partner (the social practice).

 

[ms spock]

The "mental illness" narrative allows the local community to avoid interrogating their own behaviours and their ways of participation in the practices surrounding "domestic violence". Sexist jokes, for instance, the devaluing of women, become indefensible.

 

[Queen Boudica]

well considering all that is happening with the sexism and humiliation of women in this government I have little hope of this ever changing @Ms Spock. It is really so depressing.

 

[ms spock]

I personally believe that there is no hope for change in Australia, at this time, @Lizio.

Australia is stuck within Neoliberalist ideology - where we had to get rid of our scientists. I think it was 1 in 6 science jobs being cut, because Neoliberalism doesn't like having anyone who might contradict it.

There is lip service to domestic violence, at the moment, but it will be a flash in the pan. I just saw what my sister went through getting away from her psychotic husband - legal family with legal family connections - they have intimidiated the hell out of her with all of what they can do. I dropped out of law school for several reasons and one of them was the lack of ethics in the Legal Ethics classes. They can do pretty much what they want. So can all the men on the North Shore, their Rape Crisis has the highest rate of reporting in Australia, but the lowest funding according to the head of the organisation. There are big invested interests against change. I was dealing with a top solicitor three weeks ago who described "losing his temper" at home and said "With all the rubbish in the media my daughters could think what I do at home is domestic violence" - I agree with him because he could take out anything I say or do on a very vulnerable person. But artlessly he described the domestic violence that he does at home - with no consciousness of what he was really revealing.

 

[ms spock]

I have done court support and the system is flawed, it is so disappointing.

 

[EmmaOwl]

The terrible cases we have had recently children have been killed by parents who then suicide and t...

I dunno. What about a young man who kills his father and then turns his gun on himself? A young adult who had uncontrolled schizophrenia? Who do we feel sympathy for in that scenario?

 

[Leighlee87]

I'm not sure I should ever admit to this out loud. I thought about (but never actually did) driving my car off the side of the road with my children in the backseat. I was in a horrible mental state. I had postpartum depression, thought my toddler had just been sexually abused (which turned out to be false allegations), and was walking back into/being forced back into a very abusive environment I had done everything in my willpower to shield them from ever experiencing themselves. There was so much of my past I hadn't pieced together in that moment, that the intensity of fear and terror didn't match the situation itself. Why was I so scared to go home? And why was I so sickened by the thought of taking them there?

To be honest I will never ever be able to explain the amount of terror I felt as I drove back home. At this point, being able to see abuse as abuse, I think I was having an intense emotional flashback--I just don't have the visuals to go with it. The extreme freeze response during my dissociative episodes and/or when I get upset, is a huge marker that something horrific would have happened when I was little. I've never been able to match the intensity of the emotions to the experience of what was going on as I drove back and it bothered me--made me feel crazy. Now I settle with, there was a reason for that emotional response, but I may or may not ever know what it is. Whether I was experiencing a flashback or not, there is a reason my brain reacted as strongly as it did. But there was sheer terror in the thought of taking my children into my dad's house.

I remember in and amongst all this, thinking that life should never have to hurt this much, it should never have to be this painful. And if I had known that there was a point in life where individuals have to navigate through this extreme pain, I would have never had children in the first place. I wanted to do anything in the world to protect them from experiencing that pain. I didn't, in that moment, realize that such pain isn't normal or something everyone experiences. The reason I didn't drive off the road? I didn't want it to hurt. I was scared they would survive or be in excruciating pain.

That thought process will never ever leave my memory, and it's one that disturbs me every day. Those are my children, and my emotions towards them are the same as any mother. But in that moment, I was really, really emotionally destroyed and honestly, mentally ill. This is what postpartum depression looks like, this is why it is dangerous, and this is what crosses the minds of mothers as they do these horrible things. Is it ever, ever justified? No. I wish more than anything, I could go back to that moment and have the wherewithal to know that I was a danger to myself and others, and to also have someone safe to turn to during that time. I had already been diagnosed, but it didn't turn horrific until trauma entered the mix. There was no one there to see me or know what was going on, there was no one there to intervene.

In the case of this story about the father killing his children, I don't know what went through that father's head, if it was a vendetta, sadistic pleasure, or honest depression. But having had those thoughts, I can see how it "might" happen, and I know it does happen .

That trip to my father's house? Is eventually what caused me to develop ptsd. I wish so much I would have gone with my gut, it was warning me of something. I just didn't understand

 

[whiteraven]

Yes, @Leighlee87, I used to work as charge nurse on a psychiatric unit, and we had a number of women admitted with postpartum depression/psychosis who had either killed their children or had done something to hurt or attempted to hurt them. In fact, it does happen, it is documented, and I have no doubt that they are at least temporarily without the ability to make a sane and rational decision. We had one patient who became psychotic with every pregnancy (and only then) - around her 7th month, she would do whatever she could to hurt the baby and, at the same time, talk about how excited she was that it would be coming soon. We'd have to monitor her 24/7 and in restraints sometimes, because she'd run through the hallways, throw herself against the walls and on the floor, bounce on the bed, and was a general danger to herself and the unborn baby.

I have no problem believing that people are capable of all sorts of acts that society sees as heinous. If a person has never had such horrible and desperate in his/her mind as a part of his/her depression, then he/she is, in some ways, lucky. To be that depressed and that desperate, is a terrible thing.

 

[Nessa7]

You can experience psychosis with depression. It can even look a lot like schizophrenia.

My father was literally psychotic. There were times that my life was in danger when I was with him, but people with psychotic depression pose a much bigger threat to themselves than they do to someone else. He believed that he had done something to make me extremely ill, our landlord was spying on him, cops were following him, his medication was controlling his thoughts somehow, and tons of other things that had nothing to do with reality.

My father had severe psychotic depression, but it isn't a rare diagnosis for someone that is hospitalized for depression. It also often goes undiagnosed.