"She was/is more than PPD"
Psychotic Post Partum Depression. I researched it a bit when this tragedy first came to our attention. I was MOST interested, based on my personal, scary experience. I wanted to understand. My experience was 23 years ago, long before I had the resources of the internet at my disposal. I might mention that I have three children. I suffered not a whisper of PPD with my daughter or my younger son, just with my middle child. A bewildering illness.
What I experienced was considered "severe", but NOWHERE the magnitude of what she suffered with. Combine this extreme PPD with other mental illness, and anyone tuned into her SHOULD have heard the ticking of the time bomb, waiting to explode.
Of course she, herself, is responsible for what happened. Five beautiful, precious lives were senselessly lost. I should never have happened. My personal desire would be for lifetime incarceration for her. She took five lives, afterall. I just want her imprisoned where she can actually get mental health care.
I will be watching the news for the rest of my life, hoping NOT to read a blurb on some back page that she has been released as "cured". Mental illness as severe as I have read she suffers from, is usually a lifetime thing.
pattyjo
If it's any comfort, most mental hospitals have forensics units for the criminally insane. I have personally yet to see a murderer be released as 'cured'. I've said it before, the mentally ill are in a version of hell that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Post Partum Depression was something that I did not know anything about twenty-five years ago, and then my daughter had her second child, who had to have a complete blood exchange at birth, because my daughter had negative blood, and her husband had positive.
The new baby girl had to stay in the hospital for a good while, and my daughter drove many miles each day to give her mothers' milk, because she wanted her child to have the best chance at life. But after a few weeks, my daughter just fell asleep, and she slept most of the time, and her 4 year old was even feeding that new tiny baby. No one knew what had happened to my daughter, and her husband could not explain it either.
But the doctor diagnosed my daughter as having post partum depression, and another said she had schizophrenia. Her husband decided to divorce her, and take the children from her. I hired a lawyer and I asked that the children be allowed to stay with me during the summer months and returned to the father in the fall. I lost my case, and I never saw my grand daughter again, and my grandson came to see me in another state when he graduated from high school.
My daughter lived with me after her husband divorced her, and I faced many trials, and I cried and prayed a lot. My daughter wanted to wear see through dresses at times, and she "saw" some people whose heads did not match their bodies. I saw many doctors and tried all kinds of medicines. Some of the medicines made her much worse. We decided to stop all medicines and just to go it alone.
My daughter decided that she wanted to raise pure bred dogs, and she had Maltese and Chihuahuas, and she gave them exceptional love and care. She was truly commendable. It was against my wishes that some of the dogs lived in the house in her room Everywhere my daughter goes, they go, and if she is in the bathroom, they are outside of the door, and if she is downstairs, the dogs all lay by the door leading to the downstairs. I have really seen a lot of love and devotion. Dogs may show more love and devotion toward a person than some humans. Today, I consider my daughter to be doing very well, and I give these little dogs a lot of credit for the love and devotion that they have shown, and I owe a lot to them. I never want to forget to thank God for seeing me through this time of great trial.
My daughter's older son was told by his father to leave the home when he was 19, and my grandson tried drugs and died on the spot. I still have not seen my grand daughter and she is 27 now, and was given up for adoption by her own father. She now has thoughts of coming to visit.
My pain after learning about Post Partum Depression has not ended. It is real pain and so many of us stand helpless in the face of mental illness, and all of the help that some of you have imagined is just not real. My grandson is dead and will never return, and nothing I can do can bring back the lost years that I might have had with my grandchildren.