GUILTY New Zealand - Dr. Lauren Dickason, 40, charged w/killing her 3 young daughters, Timaru, 16 Sep 2021

[silvercrown]

Im not blaming Graham at all. At all. But if my spouse had PPD, anxiety, was in a depressive state, suffered periods of psychosis, and most critically had voiced 3 times that they had thought about harming and killing our children, they are no longer a safe adult/caretaker. Lauren should not have been considered a safe parent.
There is never any excuse to murder small children (or anybody) but I struggle to see how anybody thought that she was fit/safe to parent. She needed more help than a warm bath had to offer.
I don’t empathise with her for her actions, but I definitely empathise for her that her cries for help went seemingly appropriately unanswered.

 

[Sararara]

Im not blaming Graham at all. At all. But if my spouse had PPD, anxiety, was in a depressive state, suffered periods of psychosis, and most critically had voiced 3 times that they had thought about harming and killing our children, they are no longer a safe adult/caretaker. Lauren should not have been considered a safe parent.
There is never any excuse to murder small children (or anybody) but I struggle to see how anybody thought that she was fit/safe to parent. She needed more help than a warm bath had to offer.
I don’t empathise with her for her actions, but I definitely empathise for her that her cries for help went seemingly appropriately unanswered.

It could be that she was very manipulative and dramatic and said these kinds of things strategically - ie, to punish Graham or the kids, or to get them to pay attention to her.
Just like covert narcissistic moms who “don’t know how long they have left” when they have a stomachache at 65, just to make you come back after they’ve treated you despicably.
Graham was probably emotionally abused and disoriented.

 

[silvercrown]

It could be that she was very manipulative and dramatic and said these kinds of things strategically - ie, to punish Graham or the kids, or to get them to pay attention to her.
Just like covert narcissistic moms who “don’t know how long they have left” when they have a stomachache at 65, just to make you come back after they’ve treated you despicably.
Graham was probably emotionally abused and disoriented.

Maybe. But with respect, regardless of the reason why she said it, nobody who says they have thoughts of killing their children should ever be entrusted as their caretaker. Parent or not. Ymmv.
I wonder if much more insight into their relationship will be brought up. MOO but usually in these kinds of cases they’re not happy ones.

 

[Sarahlou]

The whole situation is tragic. It's a great shame her cries for help were pretty much ignored/brushed aside. This situation could have turned out very differently if they weren't.
She really should have been admitted to a facility and the kids definitely shouldn't have been in her care until she was better.

 

[annpats]

And I have a question about the medicine. I would like to know how long she was on it. Because if we have all of these text messages going back to 2016 in which she talks about wanting to harm her children and feeling depressed and anxious, then it doesn’t sound like the meds were even working. So, for me, knowing that she went off of her meds recently but was still writing about hurting her kids, feeling anxious, etc, I can’t blame this on a sudden withdrawal of medicine.

I believe cipramil, which is what she was taking for a while, is for mild depression or for those who are 'feeling a bit down', certainly nowhere near strong enough for this level of illness.
Also, I think she had psychosis and severe mental illness, not just a bit of depression.

Anyone talking about harming their children and cutting their arteries needs to be sectioned (an enforced in-patient mental health hospital stay) for their own good.

I also wonder how much she was actually telling her own doctor, or even if she may have been prescribing herself or her husband was?

 

[Charlot123]

There are very clear signs of narcissism here to the extent that we can exclude other conditions.
LD shows signs of:
Viewing her children as an extension of herself- they cannot live if she does not live

Resentment at the children’s growing independence (complaining that they have no ears etc)

Jealousy and competition with her children (feels they liked Graham better than her, angry that Graham was loving towards them)

Anger when the children did not comply with her wishes (for normal parents this is frustrating, for narcissists this produces rage)

Interpreting normal childish behaviour as a deliberate attack on her (she killed Karla first because she had been “mean” to her- a 2 year old; in a text message she said her kids were “abusing” her)

Self-centredness and self-absorption, to the point that she openly explains her reasons for killing the children in the video almost as if she thinks PEOPLE WILL UNDERSTAND AND EMPATHISE. No Lauren, we do not think like you do, and we cannot relate.

The killing was triggered by narcissistic injuries (feeling shame because the house/town they had moved to were disgusting and unkempt, she could not have her nice grand things anymore- supposedly they had the nicest house on the estate in SA, and then the kids not listening to her)

Dumping all of her negative emotions and thoughts on friends all the time (probably why they didn’t take it seriously- she’s a drama Queen)

Ultimately, LD knew what she was doing. She is manipulating everyone now to make it look like she is a victim, and way too many people are falling for it. Mothers can be depressed, psychotic, and overwhelmed. They can also be evil. And they SUFFER for it. Narcissism is a horrible disorder. It’s miserable for the narcissist. They are often perfectionists, depressed, always trying to be and look good enough, and taking it out on everyone else when they don’t. But that doesn’t make her insane.

Just like Chris Watts, LD has deluded herself into thinking that people will believe her story. I hope we don’t. I hope we see the proverbial sheet flying away from the crime scene (which is what gave CW away in the end). It’s right there in her texts and police interview.

In my childhood, I knew a girl whose mother had committed suicide immediately after giving birth to the girl, her first child in a very dramatic, unpredictable way. I don’t know what of LD’s behavior was narcissism and what, psychosis.

 

[Cedars]

It could be that she was very manipulative and dramatic and said these kinds of things strategically - ie, to punish Graham or the kids, or to get them to pay attention to her.
Just like covert narcissistic moms who “don’t know how long they have left” when they have a stomachache at 65, just to make you come back after they’ve treated you despicably.
Graham was probably emotionally abused and disoriented.

I agree that there appears to be narcissism at play here, but I see it in the reports about the words/behaviour of the other adults around her as well. IMO, often a narcissist will marry another narcissist, everyone else falls below their standards of plastic perfection.

ETA: Or perhaps, more subtly, it is mutual admiration that feeds the partnership, not support for getting through hard times. Because there's not supposed to be hard times and it's intolerable to suggest there might be.

JMO

 

[Catmommy]

The hardest thing about people with mental issues and illnesses is that nobody but nobody can make them continue taking the meds that may stabilize their conditions.

 

[annpats]

In my childhood, I knew a girl whose mother had committed suicide immediately after giving birth to the girl, her first child in a very dramatic, unpredictable way. I don’t know what of LD’s behavior was narcissism and what, psychosis.

But she didn't harm her baby though, did she?

 

[annpats]

The hardest thing about people with mental issues and illnesses is that nobody but nobody can make them continue taking the meds that may stabilize their conditions.

They can if they are in an enforced in-patient mental health hospital stay.

And it really sounds like Lauren needed to be....

 

[Catmommy]

They can if they are in an enforced in-patient mental health hospital stay.

And it really sounds like Lauren needed to be....

But only for the duration of the stay and those are not indefinite. So very many people stop once they're out and feeling better. It is a recognized problem with treatment. People stabilize because of the meds and feel like they don't need the meds anymore.

 

[Cedars]

They can if they are in an enforced in-patient mental health hospital stay.

And it really sounds like Lauren needed to be....

I think many people would rather die than be committed to hospital or commit a family member. There is profound shame around mental health problems...(except after something like this happens and it becomes a legal defense).

It's a very mixed up area of modern life, IMO

JMO

 

[Charlot123]

But she didn't harm her baby though, did she?

Well. A different country. The babies were kept separately from moms. She jumped out of the 3d floor maternity hospital window. I don’t know what would have happened if she were breastfeeding. I didn’t know the woman but apparently, it all developed rapidly. Everyone knowing her used to say she was absolutely normal before the delivery.

 

[Charlot123]

There are very clear signs of narcissism here to the extent that we can exclude other conditions.
LD shows signs of:
Viewing her children as an extension of herself- they cannot live if she does not live

Resentment at the children’s growing independence (complaining that they have no ears etc)

Jealousy and competition with her children (feels they liked Graham better than her, angry that Graham was loving towards them)

Anger when the children did not comply with her wishes (for normal parents this is frustrating, for narcissists this produces rage)

Interpreting normal childish behaviour as a deliberate attack on her (she killed Karla first because she had been “mean” to her- a 2 year old; in a text message she said her kids were “abusing” her)

Self-centredness and self-absorption, to the point that she openly explains her reasons for killing the children in the video almost as if she thinks PEOPLE WILL UNDERSTAND AND EMPATHISE. No Lauren, we do not think like you do, and we cannot relate.

The killing was triggered by narcissistic injuries (feeling shame because the house/town they had moved to were disgusting and unkempt, she could not have her nice grand things anymore- supposedly they had the nicest house on the estate in SA, and then the kids not listening to her)

Dumping all of her negative emotions and thoughts on friends all the time (probably why they didn’t take it seriously- she’s a drama Queen)

Ultimately, LD knew what she was doing. She is manipulating everyone now to make it look like she is a victim, and way too many people are falling for it. Mothers can be depressed, psychotic, and overwhelmed. They can also be evil. And they SUFFER for it. Narcissism is a horrible disorder. It’s miserable for the narcissist. They are often perfectionists, depressed, always trying to be and look good enough, and taking it out on everyone else when they don’t. But that doesn’t make her insane.

Just like Chris Watts, LD has deluded herself into thinking that people will believe her story. I hope we don’t. I hope we see the proverbial sheet flying away from the crime scene (which is what gave CW away in the end). It’s right there in her texts and police interview.

Chris Watts killed for a hedonistic with to be with another woman. His delusion was that it would be eternal romance. I seriously think that had he pulled it with SW and the girls, his love with NK would be very short-lived, till her pregnancy and kids. CW was totally detached from reality.

JMO - here, the situation is very different.
- I don't believe there was anyone else in Lauren's life;
- I do feel that Lauren was, and probably still is, seriously mentally ill
- I do not think her illness renders her detached from reality; it affects emotions, not thinking
- this being said, and it is only my feeling, Lauren was very angry with her husband, and his words about Lauren killing the girls to punish him might have been true
- I also think that own life was not, and is not, of much value to Lauren. But there is some complex connection with G and this is why she stays alive.

 

[HinterlandObserver]

But only for the duration of the stay and those are not indefinite. So very many people stop once they're out and feeling better. It is a recognized problem with treatment. People stabilize because of the meds and feel like they don't need the meds anymore.

In Australia we have section 51 of the mental health act 2007

A Community Treatment Order (CTO) is a legal order made by the Mental Health Review Tribunal or by a Magistrate. It sets out the terms under which a person must accept medication and therapy, counselling, management, rehabilitation and other services while living in the community. It is implemented by a mental health facility that has developed an appropriate treatment plan for the individual person.

Mental Health Review Tribunal - Community Treatment Orders

www.mhrt.nsw.gov.au

 

[JerseyGirl]

How Lauren Dickason was portrayed in murder trial's second week

www.newshub.co.nz

 

[iamshadow21]

How Lauren Dickason was portrayed in murder trial's second week

www.newshub.co.nz

If anything, the less abridged version of the killing of Karla is even more damning.

"The first twin [Karla] was being really, really, really horrible to me lately. She's been biting me and hitting me and scratching me and throwing tantrums 24 hours a day and I just don't know how to manage that. That's why I did her first," Lauren told the detective the day after the killings.

She didn't even use her name. Just called her 'the first twin'. And frankly said that she didn't know how to 'manage' her behaviour and that's why she killed her first. Unbelievable. Were these kids even human in her eyes?

MOO

 

[Cedars]

If anything, the less abridged version of the killing of Karla is even more damning.

...Were these kids even human in her eyes?

She certainly didn't understand they were small children! Kids that young are incapable of the kind of deliberate, sustained malevolence she describes. They're just responding in the moment.

But see what she did there, trying to explain, trying to be 'rational' in a totally self-serving way: she projected her own deliberate, sustained malevolence onto a toddler. Rather than recognize she was the one who wanted to hurt and be horrible (possibly to important adults in her life, as well as to the children) she invented that it was coming from K. Narcissists always focus obsessively on one particular scapegoat, though it explains nothing about why she then killed the others.

JMO

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Hatters-Friedman concluded that Lauren thought she was removing her children from an unsafe environment that she saw through her own depressed psychotic state.

“She perceived that she and the children would go to heaven together, believing that she did not perceive that what she was doing was morally wrong," Hatters-Friedman said.

IMO I disagree with this psychiatrist for the defense. The psychiatrist says, "she did not perceive that what she was doing was morally wrong," but then why were her first words to her husband that it was "too late?" If she thought what she did was morally okay?

When being interviewed, she talked about things her children did that she couldn't handle, not about safety and heaven.

IMO/JMO.

 

[Charlot123]

If anything, the less abridged version of the killing of Karla is even more damning.

"The first twin [Karla] was being really, really, really horrible to me lately. She's been biting me and hitting me and scratching me and throwing tantrums 24 hours a day and I just don't know how to manage that. That's why I did her first," Lauren told the detective the day after the killings.

She didn't even use her name. Just called her 'the first twin'. And frankly said that she didn't know how to 'manage' her behaviour and that's why she killed her first. Unbelievable. Were these kids even human in her eyes?

MOO

Only her mother can tell. IMHO, someone in the family should be a decent observer. What I want to see is, how much Lauren’s fantasy of motherhood differed from the reality. Everyone talks about the joy of motherhood, but once in my childhood, I heard a woman say, honestly, “a child means, sleepless nights…”.

It might be so that Lauren was so obsessed with having a kid, that in her mind, it was “giving birth to a kid = happily ever after”, not “here my journey begins”. To add, twins are very taxing on any parent. Maybe, just maybe, the attitude of everyone around was, “You got your dream kids, good luck”. Not blaming anyone, just thinking that in the eyes of the community, she was a well-off woman who could financially afford the help, so what’s the big deal? That even financially stable people might crumble after lack of sleep is realized way post factum.

I would like this saddening case to include the issues related to pregnancy, delivery, postpartum period, community support vs lack thereof, how much responsibility still rests with the mother. If this case was preventable? If there is some learning experience to gather, what is most critical? Missed mental component, too many IVFs, PTSD, the tendency to push all care on women, something else?

And maybe dad could lend a voice. Since his kids are lost in the worst possible manner, he could, eventually, after some healing, help providing father’s perspective in prevention. We can see very well what he wanted - to have a family and provide safety to the family. Ended up with nothing, sheer emptiness. Maybe one day he can help others, or at least this is my hope.