"We need to talk about dad"

Yes, it was really moving,and made me quite teary too, SirCharles.

selks great synopsis. Thanks. I watched it too and wept through most of it. Terrible watching a family struggle through as best they can due t some kind of mental illness having struck the dad.
Brief programme but fascinating. What a terrible thing to happen to a family.

Well, I've just watched it. What an incredible programme, and what an awful tragedy.

The father experienced a brief psychotic episode triggered by the death of his father. Not a 'brain injury'!

The things that stood out the most to me -

• a very middle class family who talk to each other a lot but hedge around real communication
• pressures for both parents caused by the idea of creating a 'perfect' family environment....that pressure added to the father's psychological disturbance
• and those patterns of 'perfect family' behaviour meant that when the father came out of prison for the assault he came straight back to the family home, further traumatising Henry
• Henry is very traumatised and probably needs therapy, but he is very brave in trying to deal with the 'fall-out' of it all with his family and the family relationships
• How resilient and forgiving the mother was, maybe too much so
• The father has buried his profound grief at what he has done and the effect of it on the family and found it hard to discuss because of that, but that was damaging to Henry.

Just fascinating re the family dynamics and the psychology going on. The brief psychosis was not gone into very much, it would have been interesting to hear about it from a medical/psychiatric point of view.

Terrible, terrible tragedy. But a compelling and fascinating programme.

So did anyone apart from me actually watch this then? Tbh I'm still feeling a bit freaked out by it - the father came over, to me, as someone who should have been jailed - and the denial - and the consequences for the kids ...

What hully and mad said - I wasn't assuming brain injury for this case, I just happened to read the thread and responding to how unusual or not personality change with a brain injury was - and went 'aha, this is something that has affected me, I shall post!'. I'm afraid I haven't watched the programme or read the article, cos well, er, I cba.

same here. the convo about acquired brain injury was already ongoing when i added my two penn'orth - no idea about this case or film.

although i did lol a bit at sakura's distaste that we were only talking about men with acquired brain injury, not women. well, dh is a man, which is where my experience of abi started, (i didn't personally get blown up, and nor did any of female relatives) and the rest of my posts weren't gender specific. our not-for-profit provides rehab opportunities regardless of gender.

it did make me a ponder a bit though - it can't really be correct, but ime most victims of abi do seem to be men - i'm assuming because of the cultural aspects of masculinity that encourage them to drive too fast/ ride powerful motorcycles/ get blown up etc... interesting point though sak. (and it reminds me of my trans friend who gave up motorbike racing when she started to live ft as a woman, and who looked at me as though i was crazy when i asked why)

this case looks very strange though. def not abi. and def one of those 'is he faking'? we won't ever know if he was in his 'right mind' or not.

my brain injury personality change post was simply in answer to the query as to how normal this was.

I have no idea what went on in this partic case, I read an article about it at the weekend and the elder son said the dad refused to discuss it (apols if this has been said).

It all sounds most Lizzie Borden. I wonder if we will ever know the whys.

Sardine it is quite normal to protect younger children when the Dad goes mental, whether or not it includes physical violence. It is a natural reaction by all family members.
I know.

I don't know how helpful it is though.

At the end of the day families muddle through. And if you are middle class you get no support from the state because the drs & psych people see a family with a house who are just getting by and judge you less needy than others without any of the basics around them. Unfortunately being middle class you don't often have the money to get the support any other way. Sad situation. bitter experience.

Lambeth - just seen it. Is it too late now? Am now going out for rest of day but will check back this evening.

I think what you are referring to is the old 'mad or bad' arguement, currently showing in a hospital or courtroom near you!

bibbety: I think there's a difference between someone who is violent because of a brain condition (either injury or disease process), because of a mental health condition, or because of personality (sorry - I'm not sure of the right neutral terminology, so apologies in advance if I used the wrong words, but O hope you can see what I mean)

Each cause may require a different response (and can also result in a different level of criminal responsibility).

But in any of them, it might require removal of the person from the family/community for the safety of others.

Whether the action is forgiveable is again a separate issue - a parallel example might be someone with dementia who becomes irrationally violent. You would forgive them, for (like with injury) they cannot control or alter the physical changes to their brain nor the effect that damage has. But you might still have to move away for the sake of your own safety, or find the afflicted person a safe place to live with specialist support.

I think society should have a healthy distrust of men, judging by the statistics of male violence, especially male violence against women and children.
No more ostrich-like behaviour, pretending each and every man is an abherration. He's not. If he's violent, he's a garden-variety man. Again, this is not my opinion, this is an objective fact, judging by the statistics in the UK and around the world.

okay how about we shift the focus away from brain injuries (in men, of course. Nobody here is discussing women's brain injuries. Nobody needs to) and onto men's culturally condoned violence, especially against wives.

As Bue has already linked to

Its this case I think.

(Bibbity did you get my PM offering you money?)

Well, I am going to watch the programme THEN comment on here, instead of speculate.

I think its irresponsible to have taken him back even for a few months, what if the children had been the next targets, ? she has a duty to to protect.

"That is what I'm finding interesting. The assumptions that people are making. Of course maybe he did have an episode, but the point is that I don't know, and neither by the sound of it does anyone else!"

Not much to discuss here then is there? And I suspect the tv programme will be equally unsatisfying.

I'm not trying to make any kind of point about guilt or non-guilt.

I know of this family but you are correct in what you say; when people have breakdowns/episodes like this, there is always the possibility that they are faking a disorder. It is difficult to fool everyone though. The fact that the marriage was over soon after is also not unusual. Almost impossible to carry on when your partner did such a thing to you. Actually very difficult to cope with personality changes of any type as you can feel you are now with a different person, not the person you made a choice to spend your life with. A colleague is unfortunately dealing with this in her own personal life; her husband recently had an event that was initially thought to be a brain haemorrhage or stroke but now seems it was neither. Gravely ill, now completely recovered, but with small changes to his personality that she is finding difficult to deal with.