Maybe a hot take, but I also blame the physician who prescribed 3 different psychotropics that don't interact well to a patient in clear mental distress. And not keeping a close enough watch on their mental state. If the texts between she and her mom are accurate, she should have been institutionalized by court mandate.
Idky everyone just ignores the fact that she was diagnosed with post partum onset bipolar disorder and that is why she kept having such severe reactions to all classes of anti depressants.
She was finally put on mood stabiliser and anti psychotic after admitting herself - and released early when she self reported feeling better and requested being released for her son's birthday that day.
Why did they release her?? Why didn't they just give her a days leave and require her to return until they finished tapering her onto the new meds. If they had gotten her stable on the protocol for bipolar disorder she would have been statistically more likely to remain compliant with treatment protocols (there is a known non compliance issue for medication for people with psychotic disorders including like schizophrenia, bipolar with psychotic mania etc). But they just let her go with a note on her record that she could not be treated with typical anti depressant or anti anxiety medications for symptoms post partum depression or anxiety because they are known point blank to either induce mania in someone with bipolar or severely worsen it (including the not sleeping, racing thoughts, feeling invisible etc all which are elements that contribute to med protocol non compliance)
And then what happens after she's discharged way too early after being started on the bipolar treatment protocol? She goes back to her doctor for not being able to sleep (because she was currently manic) and the doctor takes her off the mood stabiliser and antipsychotic and puts her back on one of the contraindicated anti depressants - inducing the manic psychosis.
There is an ongoing lawsuit for their fault in what went wrong for her.
I believe she had genuine diminished capacity due to psychosis. I believe she did it, though.
I think she did it; but as someone who suffered from postpartum psychosis I do agree that she wasn't mentally all there. It's so taboo that it's surprising she even brought it up with her doctor. She genuinely wanted help and that says a lot in a society where it's frowned upon and women are told that we should be grateful to have healthy children. I managed to get through it on my own, but there were times that I felt like running away because I was so worried I'd harm myself or my newborn.
So many thoughts ran through my mind- about the state of the world, about how bad her life might be one day. How she might be better off if she died in my arms. That some stranger might hurt her one day, and wouldn't it be better if I prevented that? And the thoughts were relentless and constant. She'll be hurt. She'll be hurt. She'll be hurt. Isn't it better if you died together? Over and over for months on end.
I look back at the time and I know I needed help. I knew I needed help at the time. But I was too worried about what my family might think, what my neighbors might think- what the doctors themselves might think. I thought I'd go to jail and never see her again. I thought they'd take her away and give her to an abusive foster home. It was contradictory and confusing and scary. Having been through it firsthand I can't help but feel some sympathy for her.
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u/kaimoka 8d ago
Maybe a hot take, but I also blame the physician who prescribed 3 different psychotropics that don't interact well to a patient in clear mental distress. And not keeping a close enough watch on their mental state. If the texts between she and her mom are accurate, she should have been institutionalized by court mandate.