"We need to talk about dad"

[SardineQueen]

I just saw a trailer for this on C4. Don't know if I will watch it but the topic is obviously going to be DV and I thought that some on here might be interested to see how it is all approached.

"Psychiatric reports suggested that Nick had undergone a temporary psychotic episode triggered by the recent death of his father, whom he held responsible for his sister's suicide many years before. "

"He still grapples with whether his dad's attack was pre-meditated, or a momentary mental aberration."

I don't think anyone expect the husband really knows what happened, from that. Maybe the program will reveal more.

She wanted to keep her family together? He destroyed it when he picked up that axe. I would have refused to live with them anymore and gone to court about it, had I been 16. I'd have been too afraid to be the next target of his next psychotic episode. If I were younger, I'd probably have run away.

I wonder if people on here know more about this than me? I had only seen teh trailer and just now read that article.

If poeple don't know more than me I would be really interested in understanding why people are immediately assuming it was a personality change caused by a brain injury (ie not really his fault) and also the idea that "of course" he has "truly apologised".

Are people saying these things from a position of knowledge, or assuming them? If people are assuming them - why? Rather than assuming any of the alternatives?

Connections but also common sense. 'Truly apologized'? Apologized as much as you or I would do for something that you have no idea why you did it, and to the one you love, over and over again. The reason the program has been made is because it's so bizarre and off the wall and the implication is it could happen to you, me, anyone. Like many psychiatric episodes, non-sensicle and inexplicable. Work in psychiatry and experience of aquired brain injury.

The headlines about this are a little bit deceptive - yes, she took him back, but it only lasted 6 months. They aren't together now.

Have you seen the program fewcloudy, or do you know the people involved?

What I took away from the trailer was that the program was about how a family cope in the aftermath of an event that changes everything.

I have seen may people where an event has occured that they cannot explain and medicine has never really got to the bottom of. No trauma to the head etc but one day do something out of the blue that does not fit with any particular. This example is extreme, affects others etc. but there are many others that are not so news worthy or interesting/shocking to make a tv programme about.

any particular diagnoses I meant to say.

How do you know that is what happened to this man?

Why do you assume that he is innocent, as it was a brain malfunction, rather than he just felt like whacking his wife around the head with an axe?

Well ... his brain did malfunction, didn't it? It didn't prevent him from hitting his wife on the head with an axe. He obviously had the thought and the normal brain functioning that helps us control our inappropriate impulses didn't work on that occasion. In other words, the fact that he did it is more or less proof of a brain malfunction. I think.

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.

But by that logic no-one is guilty of violent crime, bibbity.

I mean of course there is an argument that anyone who commits a murder is by definition mentally ill or has a malfunctioning brain. But in our society and law system we do not go with that way of thinking IYSWIM.

"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. "

But what makes you think he had a breakdown or episode? Rather than just he felt like walloping his wife?

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!

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

I'm not sure my posts are very clear.

i guess I'm thinking that in court cases etc it seems there is sometimes a reluctance to believe that an "ordinary man" could do somethign like this. And that it must be an abberation / psychotic episode or whatever. Judges saying that people are upstanding and therefore they aren't sending them to prison after they have done awful things. And it seems that those thoughts are kind of coming out on this thread.

"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 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.

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

Its this case I think.

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

As Bue has already linked to

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.

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.

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