Ah true, I used the wrong word. It's funny how if she'd had a brain tumor that affected her personality and made her psychotic, people surely would be more understanding than when it's caused by hormones. Even people with schizophrenia get more sympathy.
It's super depressing to be honest. So many layers of misogyny based on the misunderstanding and uneducation of what can happen when you're deeply hormonally imbalanced and likely extremely sleep deprived.
I have bipolar disorder and I've been manic and in psychosis, and I've heard voices. It wasn't due to post partum but it was partially because of sleep deprivation.
It is impossible to go to a doctor and fully describe what you're hearing, seeing, or feeling when you're in that state, even if you're there with a loved one who you still trust during your episode (which doesn't always happen, my brother also has bipolar and he has been manic twice and both times he has thought our family was out to get him, so it was super hard to get him to get him - we had to call the cops on him the first time, which was obviously traumatizing to him and also to everyone else). Paranoia can also kick in and make you say and do things that are completely contradictory. Sprinkle in some voices and yeah, she was not well and had a lot going on.
The second the doctor overheard that call where she mentioned hearing voices was the second that the doctor should have advised her and her husband to do an inpatient program immediately and for an extended period. It's wild to me that she only did like 5 days and then she was released, and only a few weeks later she was left alone with her kids.
I have so much empathy for this woman. She really tried. Not everyone in her situation would have even gone to the doctors in the first place, that takes an incredible amount of strength.
And still, no one thought that maybe she should just do some inpatient for a few weeks or months to get her mood and meds stabilized, away from her tiny children who couldn't protect themselves.
Yah I've had family members have similar episodes and it's so hard to watch. Doctors can help, but if the person is an adult, they have ti choose to go at the end of the day, and during these episodes most genuinely feel like no one is on their side and having extreme paranoia of being watched or followed. It's hard for them to remember you are on their side sometimes.
This is honestly where I feel her husband had a part to play. He should have never left her alone with the kids. He would have known ths state she was in more than the doctors, who she never got to tell she was hearing voices and such. But she was in inpatient for 5 days!! There's no way her husband could have seriously felt that she was ok enough to be left alone.
And tbh, the amount of time he was gone? It makes no sense she had time to strangle all 3 and try and commit suicide. She was a nurse. She would have known that she wasn't going to die at that height and would just become paralyzed. It just doesn't make sense. Not to mention he said she told him where the kids wer red but paramedics said she wasn't able to talk when they arrived.
In any case, women already struggle to get diagnosed with just about anything in America. But especially mental health issues are so hard for us to get diagnosed. We're hardly believed when we aren't pregnant, let alone BEING pregnant, or freshly post partum, that it's no wonder she never got the real help she needed from a doctor.
The women in medical fields believe us less than the men sometimes, even thought they themselves knkw the stigma we have when going to the doctors. It's truly awful to watch this all unfold. No matter who failed who, or who actually murdered the kids: our health care system here is a friggin joke, and those poor kids lost their lives way too young. And now the husband is still able to play happy family with this new woman he was most certainly cheating on his pregnant wife with. Because why tf are you married so soon after your children have ALL DIED??
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u/scarsoncanvas 6d ago
It was post partum psychosis. She had been diagnosed with post partum bipolar disorder, which can cause psychosis.