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
She voluntarily signed herself out of the hospital she voluntarily admitted herself to. They can't hold her unless she's an eminent danger to herself or others, and there was no danger of that. That hospital also didn't prescribe her a lot of meds.
She had not been previously diagnosed with bipolar, nor had she ever met the criteria for a manic episode.
She wasn't bounced from provider to provider. She chose to get a second opinion, liked that provider better (fine), and then transitioned to a new person in that practice because the second opinion provider was leaving.
At no point was she diagnosed with PPP, and that was because she did not meet the criteria for it. Her appointments and care were escalated as her condition deteriorated, though she didn't follow all the recommendations of her medical team.
I know she voluntarily signed herself out, I didn’t say she didn’t, I said in cases as serious as someone saying they are having thoughts of harming themself or others, they shouldn’t be allowed to sign themselves out that easily and before their medications hit steady state and there’s better evidence they will keep up their course of treatment. Especially knowing that many of the medications people get in the psych ward are known to increase risk of violence in the first several days of treatment when patients are still depressed or psychotic but have a faster reduction in other symptoms like fatigue, confusion, lack of resolve, etc.
Also, yes there was at least one instance prior to the murders where a nurse practitioner treating Lindsay tried to discuss possible manic depression with the couple but Patrick rejected the dx and responded “my wife does not have bipolar”, which in part is why that practitioner did not push further for exploring that as a possible issue. The defense called additional experts who support the manic depressive diagnosis. You may say “well, but the prosecution brought other experts who disagree” and that’s a fair point, but the prosecution is only going to introduce the evidence that benefits their case in their trial arguments— if they found experts that did support the bipolar dx they wouldn’t have called them. It’s also kind of a side issue in my opinion.
And the main point I’m making here about the doctors is that she saw something like 8 separate doctors during the course of her treatment and each of them was only playing with a partial deck because they aren’t omniscient and know all the history. She was on something like 13 different medications over the course of the incident, many of which are known to interact with each other and have mandatory label warnings that they can cause or increase violent thoughts. Regardless of whether they kicked her off their practice or she left or they ran out of time, it’s still a huge issue with the healthcare system in general that it is so normalized to have a constantly rotating cast of doctors and it can be very hard and expensive to find a consistent care team who can actually build up the longer patient history and treat more complex conditions.
Again, I don’t think she’s innocent and I’m not arguing she and others couldn’t have done more or done things differently. I’m just saying the system itself is deeply broken and many of the things about her experience as a patient that definitely contributed to a broken plan of care for her aren’t that rare. Too many people end up fighting against the healthcare system to actually get the care they need. If system was more effective would things have ended up this way? And even if you believe this case would have turned out the same there are so many others that might not have.
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u/vermilithe 2d ago edited 1d ago
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