Poor, poor woman

[Mookie81]

Complete lack of support and nowhere to turn.
A terrible deed but I feel so sorry for her.
And where the fuck was her ex? Living in Spain while she was driven to despair.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9186243/Olga-Freemans-friends-reveal-agony-trapped-flat-son-loved-dearly.html

@5zeds

A child who could not communicate and needed medication to sleep was smothered to death by his only adult carer. It’s a truly horrible story. Like a lot of the other posters on this board I am uncomfortable with the use of his disability to justify her behaviour. There does seem to be an underlying attitude that “it’s understandable”. It isn’t understandable to kill your child like this.

I don’t think it’s his disability that is “being used to justify his behaviour”.

It’s more that the immense strain her 24/7 caring role - without respite or significant help - placed on her, helps explain why she b came psychotic.

There is a distinction between his disability and her life as a carer, and yet another distinction between her life as a carer and the role statutory services should have been playing in easing her load.

Lockdown one just pulled the rug right from under her. School, respite and anything else she could have accessed: All gone overnight.

That poor woman, that poor child. She was delusional and hearing voices, support services had abandoned them, the bloody feckless father had abandoned them.

So very sad and could have been avoided.

I was a lone parent for many years to a child who has autism, she also had attachment difficulties and every day was a relentless slog from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to sleep. She screamed relentlessly, she smeared poo on the walls, she was violent to me and her siblings. Her father did not and still does not accept my child has difficulties despite me receiving two separate diagnosis for her.
On the day she pulled a knife on her sister and tried to stab her at the age of 8 and I pushed her out the way and had my arm sliced, I phoned social services and I begged for help, I then went to the school and begged for help.
I had one interview with social services and was sent a leaflet on a parenting course that I should take.
I have worked and worked and worked to get help for my daughter, I have been ignored by schools,
Doctors, camhs. I only thank god now that we seem to have moved past the worst of it and I am not stuck in lockdown with her as she was then.

The father of this child is a disgrace, too many women are left to get on with it. I feel only sympathy for that poor woman and her son. I have had only the briefest snapshot of what she was going through as my daughter did not have anywhere near the level of needs or difficulties this child had. There were times I was on my knees with it.
The system failed this woman and her child, as did her ex husband.

No father to be seen. Almost worse than just disappearing, basically fucking off and pleasing himself at the same time as making all the right, utterly hypocritical noises about how much he loved his son. He utterly dropped the child - wanted some nice times, but none of the difficult stuff. Didn't even stay in the same country - made damn sure his lifestyle and his lovely photography career wasn't damaged or even compromised. She knew that if anything happened to her, Dylan would be on his own. I've no words for what a fucking disgrace this so-called 'father' was and I think he should be charged with neglect, quite frankly. He was as much a parent as her and he did FUCK ALL even when he knew she wasn't coping.

Bloody well said. 👏🏼👏🏼

We see you Dean Freeman.

Why was he allowed to swan off to Spain and leave her to do all the work?

Because that's what we expect mothers to do. They don't love their children enough if they complain or can't cope. Love is meant to be enough for mothers.

I hate the dailymail so much that at some point I must have done something to make it not open - I can't see the story! . But I remember seeing this in the press originally and thinking, "There's more to this story. And if the father is so devastated and loved his son so much, where the fuck was he and why isn't he rushing back for the funeral."

There was never any doubt in my mind that there was more to this than met the eye.

But then, on every thread where the man has been having an affair, or has been abusing his wife or whatever, it's always him that fucks off "to clear my head" while she's left trying to deal with the emotional fall out while simultaneously caring for the children. Every single time.

Why was he allowed to swan off to Spain and leave her to do all the work?

Who was going to stop him? And how? Poor bloody woman, she was obviously at her wits end. And now she’s got to live with this for the rest of her life.

I think what this tragic case shows is that human beings are meant to function as a society. We are meant to communicate with others.

Obviously this woman had underlying mental health vulnerabilities, which made her less able to cope than others might have been, and it’s possible that she’d have had a psychotic episode at some point anyway, whatever the circumstances .

But the issue here is that due to the draconian government lockdown laws , the lack of state funding, and the climate of Covid terror (meaning that nothing else mattered apart from avoiding other people), this poor family were cut off from society. Had he been attending his day centres etc, then either she wouldn’t have had a breakdown, or her mental state would have been noticed, and he could have been saved.

We are all shut away in our houses, for everyone’s “safety”, when in fact this simply conceals other dangers. And that is why lockdown and isolating people is fundamentally wrong.

There are no words, a real tragedy which serves to remind us about the heavy weight the world gives women to bear. RIP.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tania-clarence-trial-her-children-lay-dead-their-beds-toys-arranged-lovingly-around-them-9862448.html

Doesn't need a pandemic, I knew someone who knew this woman. Absolute desperation.

@Anne1958 Such a kind, thought provoking post.

Well at least Dylan’s father can give himself a pat on the back for giving 20% of his profits for the sale of his pictures to the National Autistic Society in memory of his son.

Shame he couldn’t give 20% of his time so his mother had some respite.

www.itsnicethat.com/news/dean-freeman-photography-291020

I find that pretty sickening. That article is from 2 months after Dylan’s death.

@Triffid1 "But I remember seeing this in the press originally and thinking, "There's more to this story. And if the father is so devastated and loved his son so much, where the fuck was he and why isn't he rushing back for the funeral.""

I scolded myself after this thought for being judgemental. But one of my first thoughts was why, if he is a professional photographer, is the only photo of the mother and child an extremely poor quality one snapped in a pub?

I think lots of more severely effected autistic people have very happy lives. This child is described as enjoying travel/art/piano lessons. He was smothered by a sponge tied in his mouth. I have no way of knowing if his mother could stop herself but I think to assume she couldn’t and that he died peacefully as some sort of escape from an unliveable life is too much of a presumption. It really upsets me that so many people assume these things and use it to explain her actions.

The father’s comments re his lovely son made me so cross. Where was he? Bloody well abroad, doing fuck all for his child.

@5zeds

I think lots of more severely effected autistic people have very happy lives. This child is described as enjoying travel/art/piano lessons. He was smothered by a sponge tied in his mouth. I have no way of knowing if his mother could stop herself but I think to assume she couldn’t and that he died peacefully as some sort of escape from an unliveable life is too much of a presumption. It really upsets me that so many people assume these things and use it to explain her actions.

People are “assuming” that she couldn’t control herself because she was suffering from psychosis and had declared herself to be the “second Jesus”. She became mentally ill probably partly because of disposition and partly because she was as doing hard 24/7 caring alone and was severely sleep deprived.

Nobody is saying she inevitably killed her son because of the nature of his disabilities. If this thread is triggering you, step away for your own sake.

I think lots of more severely effected autistic people have very happy lives.

I think you’re misunderstanding this thread and can see why you’d be so upset if so. I don’t think anyone is suggesting the boy is better off dead at all. They’re saying the mother isn’t culpable (fully) for her actions because of her mental illness.

Is it possible to leave an older child someplace (hospital?) and simply walk away? If someone is on the verge of homicide or suicide then surely social services would have been forced to take over if he were found alive but abandoned. The story is heartbreaking because the mother may only have needed a few weeks of sleep and psychiatric treatment that she was never given a remote chance of having.

My experience is nowhere comparable as I have a NT (albeit slightly high needs) baby, now toddler. Had moderate PND/A with a fairly absent DH and felt complete despair at points. The sleep deprivation meant I couldn't think clearly and I didn't trust my own judgement anymore. Sometimes when I was driving alone I had the urge to just keep on going on the highway and never come back (or rather just check into a motel somewhere and sleep for days).

The disgusting thing is that I don't think any men have ever been pushed to this point, whereas so many women no matter what their backgrounds, level of education, MH status before kids, can probably relate.

@Soontobe60 yes exactly!

I feel heartbroken for her and her son. But I loathe and despise the men who do this

Me too. I know of quite a few situations where a couple have split and the "father" swans off to another country rarely to be seen again, usually setting up home with a replacement family and ultimately abandoning their existing DC. It's loathsome. The fact this poor child had such complex needs and he just left the mother to cope with it all alone makes him morally bankrupt in my eyes.

It's very hard to get your head around a mother killing her child but I think most of us are capable of horrific deeds if under enough mental and physical pressure. My former next door neighbours had a son with severe autism. There were two of them and they still struggled to cope. I once caught the dad sobbing in the alleyway between our two houses. He was a former soldier, a stoic and outwardly strong man, yet he was reduced to tears. I can completely understand why, it was utterly relentless. The screaming, the destruction, the lack of sleep. Even as an outside observer it seemed like utter torture with no end in sight. It was my biggest fear when pregnant that I would end up in a similar situation as I knew I would never be able to cope with their lives.

More really needs to be done to support children with additional needs and their families.

I think possibly you are misunderstanding my concern. I’m sure we are all well aware that people do have mental illness to the point of not being responsible for their actions. When a mother kills her nt child or baby in similar situations we don’t EVER suggest it might have been a kindness as their life was probably awful.

I suffer from breakthrough psychotic symptoms as part of my illness despite being on the top dose of my anti psychotics.
The only 'help' I get from the mental health team is a three monthly half hour appointment with my psychiatrist & I'm able to phone the duty cpn for a chat which often leaves me feeling as if I'm bothering them.

Perhaps it was the same for this lady??
With little support from a mental health team psychosis can become a real problem. We don't know what she was thinking & feeling.
I think the murder she committed was terrible & she should have tried to put her poor son into care instead BUT she clearly was not thinking like a rational person.

OK then, how about you just summarise why experiencing psychotic symptoms is not the same as having psychosis according to the DSM? Or at lwast what you believe to be the distinction?

Basically, if the psychiatrist was convinced she had experienced psychosis, then they would have diagnosed her with one of the psychotic disorders not a mood disorder- which is what depression with psychotic symptoms is.

It means you have one or more symptoms of psychosis, but not enough of them to meet the diagnostic criteria for actual psychosis which you’d need to be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. The DSM states “a patient can no longer meet Criterion A for psychosis with a single bizarre delusion, but must have a minimum of two symptoms—one of which must be one of the core psychotic symptoms of “delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized thinking.” “

Olga was reported as “receiving messages in her head” which would, if not intrusive thoughts, but actual hearing voices be symptoms of psychosis, but apparently did not meet threshold for actual psychosis, and therefore no diagnosis of any psychotic disorder was made but a diagnosis of a mood disorder.

It similar to being diagnosed as having “borderline traits” but not borderline personality disorder. To have BPD, you need 5 out of 9 symptoms. If you have less than 5, you are diagnosed as having “borderline traits”.

That poor woman. I can’t even imagine how hard her life must have been in the run up to her killing him.

I can’t feel any more than desperate sympathy for her.

Is it possible to leave an older child someplace (hospital?) and simply walk away? If someone is on the verge of homicide or suicide then surely social services would have been forced to take over if he were found alive but abandoned. The story is heartbreaking because the mother may only have needed a few weeks of sleep and psychiatric treatment that she was never given a remote chance of having.

If she'd cared as little as his father, presumably that's what she would have done - left him in a social services office and fucked off to Spain.

If she'd been well at the time of his death, and not clearly mentally unwell, almost certainly exacerbated by lack of sleep and self-care as a result of providing 24-hour care, she would also possibly have done that.

If this child's absolute hypocrite of a so-called father had even compromised his clearly glittering, perfect, celeb-filled lifestyle even to the extent of basing himself in London instead of Spain so that he could at least share some of the burden of caring for his own son, this wouldn't have happened.

If social services had provided at least some respite care or followed up on her requests for help, this wouldn't have happened.

If there is a review of policy or an enquiry into how she fell through the cracks, then there should also be an investigation into the father's conduct and he should be charged with wilful neglect.

To not even choose to live in the same country as your severely disabled, 24-hour care needing child? There is just no way on earth you can dress that up in any other way than - he didn't give a shit, and he didn't want the burden of the relentless caring that is having a child with high needs. He wanted the photo-ops, though. The galleries. The tattoo.

Yes we do see you, Dean Freeman.