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

You only have to read the countless posts of stress and despair on here of parents struggling to homeschool their NT DC during lockdown. Those poster might say "I'd never kill my child" but she had twenty times the problems of those posters, plus isolation, lack of support and no light at the end of the tunnel.
I have huge sympathy for her and did when it happened.
Yes, the father said he loved his son. That must have been easy from a distance of 1,000km while sitting in a cafe in the sunshine drinking sangria.

Such a sad case. I feel very sorry for her and obviously the poor boy.
Absolutely the father should have been present considerably more and caring for his own son. The mother was obviously struggling and becoming more and more ill with the strain.

@PlanDeRaccordement

All those blaming the father hundreds of miles away, you’d probably heap blame on this poor mother who was mere steps away from her children but taking a shower when her husband snapped and slit their throats during lockdown. www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/news/crime/hospital-order-for-dad-who-killed-children-6662994

This blaming the father IN SPAIN for what his ex wife did IN UK is even more ridiculous.

Those are not even remotely comparable scenarios. Unless she had been in the shower for months and did her parenting from a distance whilst her husband survived on almost zero sleep.

We read that a carer had to give up taking this dear and much-cherished young man to the park because the carer couldn't cope with the behaviour. He was sorry not to have been able to do more.

Not aimed at you @Diverseopinions, but it's a interesting point that, despite a professional carer being unable to cope for a couple of hours, the mum was expected to cope 24/7 on her own. It is hard to fathom.

people keep saying they feel sorry for the Mother and Dylan as though Dylan's death was an after thought

For most of us, feeling sorry for Dylan doesn't need emphasis because we take it for granted that we feel sorry for him and that everyone else feels sorry for him already. People are explcitly talking about feeling sorry for his mother because we can't take it for granted that other people will feel sorry for her.

I can't honestly say I wouldn't have snapped under that pressure. She would have seen no end to the situation. So so sad. Poor Dylan and poor Olga who will have to live with that on her conscience.

@x2boys

Was Dylan miserable and distressed all the time ,I know the article says he howled like an animal ,my son screams a lot ,most of the time it's a happy shout ,yes of course he gets distressed ,he non verbal so he gets upset when I don't understand what he wants ,but he is generally happy

For what its worth, I do think I see what you are saying. Children, and adults, with autism and other LDs can have very full very happy lives. Portraying them as condemned to live lives full of despair is wrong - it dehumanises them and removes the moral imperative to provide support to children and parents since "their lives are unhappy anyway". This is very very wrong. I do always challenge these prejudices when I see them.

However, I dont get the impression this is what most of the posters on here are saying. Children with autism and their parents CAN live very happy rich lives, but in order to do this many need support either from family, the outside community or social services. This is partly because society is not set up to cater to their needs. Unfortunately, Dylan and his mother seem to have received NONE of that support. Her family were presumably in Russia, her ex had fucked of to Spain and social services had washed their hands. As for all of us, a lot of the little things that bring joy had disappeared because of Covid. Presumably his mother was doing her best, but I think pretending that everything is fine for children and parents in the position they were in is as bad as pretending that everything is automatically bleak. Dylan absolutely had the potential to live a full, happy life. He no doubt deserved this. This was taken away from him, because tragically him and his mother were failed completely by those that should have helped - including social services and by the sounds of it his father.

Mental health issues isn't an excuse for killing your child.

It is hard to fathom, MessAllOver.

So many thoughtful posters on MN have, over the years, suggested seeking help when mothers with SN children share their pain and worry. We have had mums posting who say they are completely at the end of their tether. Often the response is to go to the GP, school, etc and to be firm and insistent in doing so. Impossible though it is to believe, sometimes the help still doesn't come.
There needs to be some sort of review of what is happening. There are care agencies operating during lock down and supplying experienced carers. I suspect funding is the issue.

@mummytolittledragons

Mental health issues isn't an excuse for killing your child.

I do find it quite sad though that unless you have a complete breakdown. A psychosis or hurt yourself/ kill somebody then you cannot get mental health care quickly in this country.

Nobody knows how they would cope in that situation. It must have been horrendous and has she had the right support from the father and relevant people/services this likely wouldn't have happened.
I do feel sorry for her as I don't imagine she ever set out to kill her own son who I'm sure she loved but sadly this was the only way she saw out. Tragic for both of them.

* Mental health issues isn't an excuse for killing your child.*

Well of course it’s not, but psychosis due to extreme tiredness and never ending stress is an explanation.

@wellthatsunusual

*PlanDeRaccordement

All those blaming the father hundreds of miles away, you’d probably heap blame on this poor mother who was mere steps away from her children but taking a shower when her husband snapped and slit their throats during lockdown.
www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/news/crime/hospital-order-for-dad-who-killed-children-6662994

This blaming the father IN SPAIN for what his ex wife did IN UK is even more ridiculous.

Those are not even remotely comparable scenarios. Unless she had been in the shower for months and did her parenting from a distance whilst her husband survived on almost zero sleep.*

Exactly @wellthatsunusual. They are not comparable. This father snapped without warning while she was out of the room for 10 minutes. Dylan's father chose to live in a different country from his severely disabled son, and to offer no help even when his ex wife was begging for it. Then he thinks he can play the broken-hearted father.

@Jobseeker19

I feel guilty for feeling sorry for her as she did kill her child. But I do feel sorry for her, sleep deprivation and lockdown combined!?

Same here. We cannot walk in someone else's shoes. I feel for both.

For most of us, feeling sorry for Dylan doesn't need emphasis because we take it for granted that we feel sorry for him and that everyone else feels sorry for him already. People are explcitly talking about feeling sorry for his mother because we can't take it for granted that other people will feel sorry for her. then I think it’s less that you “take things for granted” and more that you are blissfully ignorant as to how many view disabled people. No I CANNOT take for granted that people value a disabled persons life as much as anyone else’s. Why? Well because of things like being told our children won’t be treated at the beginning of the pandemic. That even once that little gem was resolved reading that they are 30 times more likely to die from covid than their nt peers. Things like being denied access to education, to health, even to things like cinemas and theatres.... you see you TAKE IT FOR GRANTED because you wrote from a position of privilege. You can expect empathy, compassion and to be treated fairly.

That Mail article is awful... like there's their usual bad and then there is this. As others said, the words used around the child who was killed shows a lack of heart for him from the 'journalist' who wants to wring out the glittery lifestyle.

All that focus on the fun and funds they had before Dylan -- all it made me think was where were all those resources when they could have helped? There seems to be a big jump from the expensive house and lifestyle to the divorce where she's left in a 2 bed flat and he's flying all over world for his career. There's talk of him taking Dylan on work trips, but nothing on paying for what Dylan needed to ensure his wellbeing and needs were met? I'd think that would be the focus.

Maybe it's because I'm coming from the perspective of having been a disabled child terrified of being killed and having people sympathize with those who killed me (or even worse, claim it was out of love). I do place some of my ire from my mother trying to kill me on the wider community, including my father. They knew her problems, they knew she openly discussed killing me, but it was just assumed because she's a mother, she wouldn't actually do me harm, she's just letting off steam cause the move was hard... because of that I really struggle to feel for the killer -- I see too much of my situation in that and I fully recognize that bias in that I'm glad she was convicted of manslaughter as it's a recognition too many killed disabled people are denied though I hope she can get the care she should have gotten well before it came to this, but my bias also puts a lot of ire on people - including the father - and systems that knew and failed to do enough. This could have been foreseen and prevented, while little can be done to the father, the social systems needs to be more pressure to learn from this and how preventable it was. Trying to compare to something that was neither is heartbreakingly cruel and basically hands it over to the types who think there is nothing anyone else could do - a cruel lie that supports it happening again.

@corythatwas

It is not diminishing the mother's sufferings to point out that every time an article is writing about the killing of a disabled person without framing the disabled person as the main victim, without presenting the disabled person as a person- life becomes that little bit less safe for disabled people in general.

There is already a narrative - and during the stress of the pandemic it's a growing one - that disabled lives are not valuable in the same way as NT lives. That if you have SN, the saving your life becomes less important, so maybe you shouldn't be prioritised. That a disabled person who dies isn't a loss to the world the way an NT person would be. Every little story that frames disabled people as a burden on others feeds into that narrative.

But both the mother and the child are disabled here. Mental illness is a disability, and also sits under the umbrella of neurodiversity in disability activism.

Dylan's life mattered. Of course it did.

His mother was disabled due to her severe mental illness, and the result of both their needs not being met is this horrific tragedy.

@mummytolittledragons

Mental health issues isn't an excuse for killing your child.

No, but they could be the reason/cause of that behaviour.

When these tragic, tragic cases happen they should trigger investigations into all the authorities who failed that child and their mother... and they should be asking why the father didn't put in place help for her and his son as she was the sole carer.

I know from experience (mother of a disabled child) that some, mainstream and SEN schools, and councils have used Covid and the lockdowns to withdraw from providing services to families.

I know other mothers who are now majorly medicated just to get through the day... while their school tells them (against all advice) that they don't have to take their child in.

The failure of care for disabled children and their carers is one of the great scandals of this whole situation.

@5zeds. Yes, you're right - we as a society haven't reached a point where disabled people are valued equally and given the assistance they need to live their best lives. That's the truth of it, and we shouldn't ignore it.

But Dylan Freeman wasn't killed because his mother didn't value him. All the evidence is that she did value him - she loved, cherished and fought for help for him. The quality of life he had before his death was because of the constant care and love provided by his mother. She didn't kill him because he was disabled and she thought of him as "lesser", she killed him because eventually the burden of trying to make things ok for him became too much for her and she became very mentally unwell indeed under the strain.

she killed him because eventually the burden of trying to make things ok for him became too much for her and she became very mentally unwell indeed under the strain. this is supposition fuelled by your own ideas about disability.

Some children with severe autism or other disabilities do not have a happy life despite parents trying to do everything in their power to make it so

This isnt understood by many people. Some because they just don’t know it can be the case and others such a parents who can’t bare it to be the case because it’s too painful for them to contemplate.

Also, what many people don’t understand is the amount of children at the more severe end of the spectrum who deteriorate as the get older and that it’s not uncommon for other conditions to be added to their original diagnosis as they go through their teens and beyond. It’s also very common for our loved ones to develop depression as they age as well as other mental health problems.

I think what I’ve learned over decades is that there are scenarios where no amount of love and attention will make a situation better and that you can quite literally make yourself very ill trying.

That what you put into your wee boy or girl does not always set them up for their adulthood.

That a half hour interlude in a day where someone has been happy in an otherwise awful day is just that - half an hour in an otherwise painful/very difficult day for our loved ones. It should never lull us into a false sense of relief and blind us to our loved ones/other people’s reality.

she killed him because eventually the burden of trying to make things ok for him became too much for her and she became very mentally unwell indeed under the strain. this is supposition fuelled by your own ideas about disability.

Not really...it's an inference based on the clear evidence that she was desperate, sleep-deprived and wasn't coping. Also, that her manslaughter due to diminished responsibility plea has been accepted after extensive investigations by the police. Many people have said she wasn't coping. No one has said she didn't love or value her son.

I think everything the father said about the child was designed to make us see the person behind the diagnosis and everything else said rather the opposite. Voices piping up to suggest some people have miserable lives and so their death is not necessarily a tragedy are exactly what I find abhorrent. This is a murdered child and he should have been alive today.

A brave post Anne1958 and for very hard for some to stomach... but a truth for some nonetheless.