We don’t even know if it was psychosis, that’s pure speculation and annoys me as plenty of people have murdered their own children for various reasons. So the whole ‘poor mother’ angle irks me when we have zero context.
Reasons the psychosis theory seems off to me:
- The baby was 10 months old. NHS website states “Symptoms usually start suddenly within the first 2 weeks after giving birth - often within hours or days of giving birth. More rarely, they can develop several weeks after the baby is born.”
- Witnesses said she presented as normal. I don’t think anyone with that severity of psychosis would be able to hide it. Depression is different but with psychosis there are more likely to be signs such as delusional thinking or just seeming a bit ‘off’ to other people. This lady was able to go about her life but suddenly is so unwell she kills her kids? Until we hear the full story I’m treating it as any other murder.
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I very much know that PPP is a real condition but don’t believe it should be a get out clause for murdering your kids. I think it takes a certain type of person to murder regardless of what mental illness they have. Plenty of people suffering with psychosis who don’t kill. If murder was a side effect of psychosis it would be a much more common occurrence.
I don’t sympathise with anyone who murders a child. I can acknowledge that there are serious mental health failings in this country without feeling sad for the mother who killed her children. She’s still a murderer and deserves punishment.
She should be sent to a mental health hospital for treatment and then transferred back to a prison. I’d have more sympathy if she’d killed herself too/instead. It just pisses me off to see people victimising the mother when she’s caused so much devastation. Poor kids.
Granted, we have no real information on this particular mother. However, there is a lot of information available on women who suffered postpartum psychosis.
I would assume that the most well known is Andrea Yates and off the top of my head, I remember Felicia Boots.
I mean, this is only my opinion but you seem steadfast to disregard PPP only because the NHS has a blurb dismissing it after two weeks when posters on this very thread have shared their experiences and numerous cases in the public domain prove otherwise.
Presenting yourself as normal to your neighbours or parents on the school run isn’t exactly evidence that the mother wasn’t suffering. No one sympathises with anyone who has committed murder but the purpose of this thread goes beyond simply blaming the criminals and their crimes, sometimes we want to know why. And a mother who seemingly was devoted, had raised a four and seven year old without attracting the attention of school, social services or police until this very month, basically implies this isn’t your run of the mill child murder case.
TRIGGER WARNING 
