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

[FanciedanewnameAnne]

I cried reading this.
So sad.
The disabled and their carers are forgotten.
Walk a day in their shoes.

[unmarkedbythat]

Poor child. Poor little boy :(

Also, yes, poor woman.

How many families let down like this? I'm a social worker in mental health, my colleagues in CP are terrified about all that is not being seen during the pandemic.

[SoupDragon]

the father should be charged with neglect.

All the professional services who were asked for help and refused are the ones who were neglectful.

[corythatwas]

@corythatwas - very good post. Maybe the journalist couldn't find anyone who knew Dylan well enough?

Yes, in a single instance it is easy to agree with you.

But the journalist also knows that this is how these stories are normally written. And even with very little information (when did that stop the Mail?), it would have been possible to try to imagine things from Dylan's perspective. The "howling like an animal" phrase is one that is often used- they didn't have to quote the neighbour verbatim at that point. That kind of languages dehumanises autistic people.

Is it likely that the journalist would have quoted that phrase if they had been talking about an adult woman making the same sound when crying out from physical pain (and keeping her carer awake)? Would they even have quoted it if referring to a previously NT person suffering from dementia?

Language matters. Journalists know that.

[Arobase]

@YourWurstNightmare

Two adults were responsible for caring for this child. Both of them should be charged.

To be fair, rather more than two. Although councils' duties were modified by law, they were not removed completely and this family was exactly within the category which should have been prioritised for help. Ealing certainly has to explain exactly what it did to help and exactly why it ignored the mother's requests for assistance.

[namitynamechange]

@corythatwas

I feel sorry for her but I also feel rather worried about the way that a mother killing a disabled child, is always framed as to be about the sufferings of the mother.

The personhood of the child is eroded and he is only presented in this story as a series of noises and troublesome behaviours that tipped his mother over the edge and as then object of her attention. We don't learn anything about Dylan, there is no sense of loss that he is gone from the world.

It's not just this story, it's also the fact that the journalist chooses to situate the telling in a common narrative that is all about the NT person and not at all about the SN person. Every time you join that line, you are feeding into a perception that SN lives don't matter at all.

Yes, I feel sorry for the mother. But it would have been possible to write the story differently while still showing sympathy for her plight. "This is who Dylan was, sadly his mother killed him during a psychotic episode brought on/exacerbated by stress and lack of support during lockdown".

I do see your point, I think also in the past it has been framed as "the poor child was disabled so they were doing it as a kindness/a mercy killing" etc. Obviously that was very very wrong - disabled childrens lives are of just as much value as any other children. Also when you look at those deaths it is normally very clear that the parents are mentally unwell, (or in a few cases just psychopaths) rather than motivated for concern for the child.

However, the risk of mental health in parents increases with the level of stress they are under. It is an (unfortunate) fact that parenting a child with disabilites can be extremely stressful. A lot of this is down to the level of support given to them - you only have to look at a few threads on mumsnet to see how parents often end up completely isolated from friends, often have to battle with the council for any help whatsoever and have to deal with daily discrimintation when out and about. We need to talk about the impact this can have, and what it can lead to (in very extreme cases) because it needs to change. And it needs to change now.

[HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee]

There will be a serious case review regarding Dylan he was a child
The dad was not in uk so obviously can’t be subject to legal proceedings
LA Ealing will undertake an investigation about the case

[DimidDavilby]

Freeman even has a tattoo of his son's name next to a blue feather on his forearm

Oh well then, if he had his name tattooed

I feel so awfully sorry for her. The father should bear as much responsibility for abandoning his child. As should the government and council who have left parents in unlivable situations.

[luxxlisbon]

I cannot believe how many people are placing more blame on the father.

If a child had been murdered by their father I don't think a single comment would blame the ex partner mother.

This is an awful story on all sides. There is blame with the authorities for how little support was available for him, however this is only based on a DM article.

My people are in stressful and awful situations up and down the country, it doesn't absolve responsibility if the parent murders their child though.

[x2boys]

No I feel desperately sad for the child ,I have a severly autistic non verbal child too ,so I know how hard it is and there has been zero support for the past 12 months ,but she stuffed a sponge down his throat ,can you imagine how terrified that child would have been ? My child relays on me for everything it breaks my heart someone could do this .

[ChesterDraws4Sale]

I feel terribly sad for both her and her child. Dad skips off into sunshine leaving her to cope alone with a disabled child. All support withdrawn due to COVID. I can easily see how you could get drawn into a downward spiral from which you couldn’t get out.

[namitynamechange]

I also think it should be possible to charge men who abdicate all responsibility for their child with neglect. Maybe in extreme cases such as this, the consequences of his action will be more punishment than the state could provide (if he has any sense of morality) but in the many many cases without this tragic outcome the men should be punished in the same way any single mother would be if they decided to just up sticks and leave the children they were the sole carers for.

[MrsMercedes]

Sad sad story

Do we know was the dad even allowed to see his kid though? Sometimes it’s not as straightforward as ‘he fucked off to Spain’

Not sure what the answer would have been to prevent this, SEN provision would struggle to remain covid safe for Dylan’s school employees I imagine.

[unmarkedbythat]

The mother was ill, why anybody is criticising her for one moment is beyond me.

I honestly think it comes from fear. The fear that in the same situation, faced with the same unbearable stressors and the same lack of help or hope, they too would break and do the unimaginable. If we paint the people who do these things as evil, the problem is sited in them and we do not have to fear that we too might do something terrible in terrible circumstances. And neither do we have to do the hard work of insisting society recognises what it does to its most vulnerable and how for all the nice words and shiny posters, people with additional needs and their carers are appallingly ill served.

[TheSockMonster]

Well, maybe the father walked away because he didn’t trust himself not to snap and potentially do the same thing

Well, maybe the mother was trying to walk away.

She had appealed to Dylan’s father, her friend and the local authority. Clearly she was aware she was not coping.

His condition was such that she could not simply walk away and leave him home alone.

[HopeMumsnet]

Hi there,
We have deleted some of the more extreme opinions on this thread, for reasons we hope you'd understand.
We also just wanted to leave a message for anyone who is struggling right now, with a link to our Mental Health resources.
You can also go to the Samaritans website, or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.
Peace and love to all. x

[x2boys]

Typical Mumsnet luxxlisbon ,mother murders child and yet somehow it's the father's fault .

[MrsMercedes]

And yes, let’s remember this is the Daily Mail!!

[EvilPea]

All the SEN schools near me closed last lockdown as they didn’t have the staff.

[Arobase]

@AlternativePerspective

Well, maybe the father walked away because he didn’t trust himself not to snap and potentially do the same thing.

Every time people defend a murderer like this they are yet again diminishing the worth of a disabled child. The poor mother driven to the edge until she snapped and murdered the child who was causing her so many problems and so much stress.

What does that say about the value we place on the lives of the disabled that the able-bodied should be pitied for murdering them?

It says we place absolute value on the worth of those children's lives, because we believe that their parents should have enough support and help to be able to look after them without being driven to that edge. This wasn't a case of a mother just having "problems" and "stress", it's a case of her being driven into utter desperation. Remember, a young, fit carer who only looked after him for a few hours gave up because they couldn't cope. His mother had to try to cope for days, weeks and months on end despite having no sleep. I can't imagine the sheer living hell that meant for her.

[namitynamechange]

@TheSockMonster exactly, if she had walked away before she reached crisis point her child would presumably have starved to death/died from thirst. Whereas fathers are not being irresponsible (sarcasm) because when they skip away to live their best lives they know there is someone who will prevent that happen.

[Angel2702]

Yet these families who have all support services withdrawn in lockdown are still not even eligible to form a support bubble. It is disgusting the way disabled have been abandoned.

We have been at breaking point and my two don’t even have as severe autism as this child. With lockdowns and being kept away from families looking to be going on for most of this year there needs to be much more noise about support for disabled children who are over the magic age of 5. No other families should have to get to this level of desperation.

[TheSockMonster]

I completely agree @unmarkedbythat

A belief in ‘evil’ is a lot less scary than the knowledge that good people are capable of doing bad things.

[BrumBoo]

@x2boys

Typical Mumsnet luxxlisbon ,mother murders child and yet somehow it's the father's fault .

You have zero understanding of what happened to her and what lead to her killing the child. The father abandoned them, local services abandoned them. How is she to blame for having a mental breakdown? The actions, or in this case the non-actions of everyone else involved in the care of the child AND his mother lead to Dylan's death. How can you think the father and local authority is not in anyway culpable here?

[namitynamechange]

Also once, during a period of extreme insomnia (pre-children) I stayed up for three nights/days without sleep. I started hearing wierd, crackly voices that werent there (like hearing something through a badly tuned radio). It was terrifying. I have never suffered from psychosis before or since but it is a fact that sleep deprivation will drive you completely mad in time. Depression (which I have had) you can think your way through to an extent, psychosis you cannot. No-one here can guarantee what they would do if kept awake for an indefinate period of time. But you would at a certain point stop being you.