I imagine that it isn’t a big leap to make; if you are immersed in a particular culture that has a mythology containing demonic forces, when you start hearing voices in your head ordering you to do bad stuff, to assume that the mythology is in fact true.
My mother was diagnosed with post partum psychosis. Whatever the cause, she was howing-at-the-moon crazy and saw the devil in the living room curtains. Not a trivial disorder.
It doesnt do much good to warn that there is disturbing shit in the post when the damn title is disturbing enough. I considered avoiding this, but title alone provided enough visual imagery.
No biggie, but could you folks be a little more careful next time?
“Mom kills kid, then things get REALLY bad” woulda been enough.
Quite possibly. Bear in mind that the cases mentioned in the article were explicitly chosen for their similarity to the present one. I don’t have a cite handy, but I remember reading of mothers killing their children while under the delusion that they were aliens, or that a nuclear war was imminent, among others.
It also seems like post-partum depression is probably not the cause of the nasty. Post-partum depression might be a trigger for the batshit insane that’s lurking in there, but trying to say that it’s post-partum depression causing these things is pretty fucking disingenuous.
One thing to consider is there are way, way more Christians than conspiracy theorists. If there are 99 Jesus fans for every moon landing denier, you’re not likely to get a lot of the second category murdering their children considering that only a handful of cases has made the media.
To me, brain-eating mom appears, at first glance at least, to be a textbook case of post-partum psychosis: of course an actual professional diagnosis will follow, as she will undoubtedly be tested for her competency hearing (or whatever the procedure is called in her state).
An additional horrible aspect to this tragedy (if any were needed) is that, from what I can gather, post-partum psychosis is not permanent. Imagine ‘waking up sane’ to discover you did this. Truly, from my perspective at least death or permanent insanity would be better (if it were me and that was my child).
These incidents always make me flash to Elaine’s obnoxious pregnant girlfriend on Seinfeld who had a C-section scheduled because, she said, her doctor told her that going into labor might cause her to become psychotic.
Waneta Hoyt didn’t want anything, not even their children, taking her husband’s attention away from her. So she killed the kids. This was drawn out over six years so nobody knew it was happening at the time, they thought she just had post-partum depression and that the kids were victims of what is now considered SIDS.
One of my aunts had very bad post-partum psychosis after the birth of her fourth child. She was fairly cut off from reality in many ways, but fortunately wasn’t violent. She’s recovered now, but has no recollection of that period of her life.
Hopefully, this other woman will also forget what she did . . . and I hope she never finds out about the details. I don’t know how she could live with that memory.
