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

Severe sleep deprivation and extreme stress can bring on episodes of psychosis.

True. And if Olga had that she would have been diagnosed with APS or Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome by Dr Bird. But she wasn’t

Criteria for APS include symptoms of duration once/week within the last month with total symptom duration within the last year.

With an acutely unwell patient and no collateral history from another psychiatrist you have no idea of duration, do you? Therefore Dr Bird couldn’t make that diagnosis at the time.

I do not understand the relevance of her mental health . Surely if she were a paranoid schizophrenic we should be asking ourselves all the more angrily why she was left alone to cope in this situation. Where was Dylan’s father ? Did he not hear in her voice as she rang him on his glamorous shoot that she was struggling? Can we assume he is therefore a psychopath as to be so unfeeling as to leave her and Dylan to cope alone? What about his mental health? What happened to all the art appreciation day trips his son so loved? That would have given Olga some much needed respite. I will return to this thread- I am so frustrated by the comments in here but I have autistic children to care for and so I have little time to shout.

What happened was horrible but I do feel for her, left alone and struggling. We've seen first hand what the impact of isolation can do during lockdown.

What I can't understand about the father is why he didn't arrange some paid support for her and their child if he couldn't be there in person? It comes across as he lumbered her with everything.

@PlanDeRaccordement you do not have to have a psychotic disorder in order to experience psychosis, and severe depression can cause psychosis. I know this because I have experienced it and have not been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder.

I do not understand the relevance of her mental health

I agree, will stop contributing to the detail. There’s a specific poster though who seems to think that because her forensic assessment only stated “with psychotic features” and not a DSM-5 then she wasn’t really that psychotic. In spite of 3 psychiatrists finding she was sufficiently unwell to have diminished capacity.

And bearing in mind you don’t get a DSV-5 diagnosis of one of the psychotic disorders without knowledge of symptom frequency and symptom duration which is pretty hard to clarify when someone things they are the Messiah and you’ve never met them before.

Personally I think cumulative severe sleep deprivation played a part.

The newspaper reports say Dylan required 24/7 constant care. Surely that's incompatible with his mother getting sufficient sleep to survive. It will be interesting to see what's said at sentencing, but it does sound like she was driven mad by sleep deprivation.

She used to sleep during the day when he was at school, but things went to shit when the school closed.

Personally I think cumulative severe sleep deprivation played a part.

I think it played a significant part. Caring for a child with severe, complex needs is physically and mentally exhausting, imagine not being able to able to sleep. It would drive most people to the edge of their sanity.

I pity this woman and her beautiful boy. I think the local authority and Dylan’s father should hang their heads in shame for abandoning his vulnerable child and doing absolutely nothing to support a woman who was clearly desperate.

Horrendous and harrowing case. I hope this case leads to a serious review about the way some people are left to cope in absolutely unbearable and difficult circumstances. But I expect there will just be a lot of handwringing and a report which will l blame the pandemic and ‘unprecedented’ times.

It’s not just the deprivation of sleep it’s what a mother can be dealing with during the night in this situation not excluding: screaming, self harming, soiling, aggressive behaviour , repetitive noise, destruction of things, aggressive behaviour , emotional upset. This can take place throughout nights at intervals , she sleeps, she wakes , she sleeps , she wakes,- all the time dealing with this stuff and watching her only boy suffer. It’s enough to drive anyone mad isn’t it? Even a trained lawyer!

Yes it is and she got no respite from it whereas his life sounds like one long holiday

This woman had 3 separate mental health professionals deem her unwell enough to enter a plea under diminished responsibility. She’s currently in a forensic MH unit. I’m sure these people know better than some MNers who are claiming she’s clearly not “psychotic enough”. You can feel sickened at her actions and sadness for Dylan without denying the severity of her mental health.

Sunsun21
🙏🙏👋

I think it’s very easy to forget that there’s more than likely posters on this thread who are on the spectrum and that the death of Dylan is extremely painful for them as is the sympathy and understanding Olga is being shown. I imagine that to them his death is in the same realms of genetic testing for autism prior to pregnancy and all that comes with it.

@Sunsun21 thank you for your posts

Anne1958 I never ever forget those people. One of those people is my child. My children’s autism does not manifest as severely as Olga’s son’s did. As I said in my initial post I have seen shades of this severe autism in my children abs so I can well imagine . I write this with a deep scratch on either side of my neck where the son I love the very bones of, who is tiny mind an absolute gift to the world, who tells me he loves me every day, scratched me because he didn’t want to go to school. There are many shades of autism and I credit these intelligent autistic readers with the empathy abs understanding ( yes empathy) to imagine that Dylan’s autism might have been more severe than their own.

Sorry he is in my mind ( not tiny !)/ an Absolute gift to the world.

I think the wider question we should be asking as a society is how many more parents (usually mums, lets be honest) are in this pandemic in a similar situation to Olga before she broke. And how are we hearing them, really listening to them and supporting them?

I imagine Olga loved her son just as deeply. I imagine that they were in such a desperate state that she imagined this was the best thing for him and that she was ending a torturous existence. She did not end her own life- I have no doubt she was absolutely capable of that . She faced the repercussions and as a lawyer she would have understood these. Imagine she thought she was freeing him and she chose to be punished.

There are many shades of autism and I credit these intelligent autistic readers with the empathy abs understanding ( yes empathy) to imagine that Dylan’s autism might have been more severe than their own

He had Cohen syndrome as well as ASD, with the latter always associated with intellectual disability. And progressive visual impairment.

Sorry - the former! Was distracted by DC getting out of bed (night time here)

@Anne1958 I'm autistic though I was verbal and it wasnt diagnosed till I was an adult. Dylan's death is deeply painful to think about, not however because he also has autism, but because he was a small vulnerable child. Of course parents of children with special needs may well feel it more closely because it is more close to home, but I would expect most people on this thread would feel horror at the death of a child (whatever their needs) both as mothers and as human beings. If posters had been defending Dylan's mother by portraying his death as a mercy (a narrative that has existed in the past) I would be the first to criticise. However, almost everyone has understood that he died because she was suffering from psychosis not because she wanted to end his suffering. The circumstances that drove an apparently loving mother to that psychosis were completely avoidable if other adults had taken some fucking responsibility.

Thank you nolongersurprised for flagging this.

The circumstances that drove an apparently loving mother to that psychosis were completely avoidable if other adults had taken some fucking responsibility.

^This. It's all too familiar a story for me. My DB is a vulnerable adult, diagnosed as autistic and he also has MH issues (probably undiagnosed complex PTSD, which my DSis and I have been diagnosed with).

My DM is his carer, at 81. I used to support her with this, but I have too many of my own struggles, with my own mental health and also two adopted DDs of 11 and 8, DD1 having SEN. Because she steps in to help in, Social
Care do nothing.

I have been worrying about what would happen to him if my DM caught Covid (she has a history of bronchitis as well). Thankfully she's had the jab now. (For her own sake, too, obviously!)

Social Care is so lacking. We get more support because of our DDs being adopted (through Post Adoption Support) but we have to continually fight for it.

It's just exhausting, having to keep fighting. For this poor mum, on her own with no support, I'm not in the least surprised it sent her over the edge, especially with the lack of sleep on top of all of it. The judgemental comments are just so depressing.