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

[Charlot123]

My problem is those can be things people just say to be expressive or let off steam

I remember my own mother saying once or twice she could of killed me for something I did but she never meant it literally.
My uncles mother said if he survived his car accident from speeding she was gonna kill him. He did and yet she made no attempts on his life!

The husband seems to be saying that's what it was:

Lauren Dickason trial: Harrowing fertility journey outlined by husband

Lauren Anne Dickason has admitted killing 6yo Liané and 2yo twins Maya and Karla.

www.nzherald.co.nz

People say stuff, this is why we have metaphors, figures of speech, exaggerations, comparisons.

This story has totally ruined so many lives. I feel so sorry for all of them.

Perhaps we could be honest and instead of the "joy of motherhood" called it what it was, "the sleepless nights of motherhood", it would help.

And - I know that people shouldn't make money on the crime - but when Lauren feels better, she could honestly tell how her strife, expectations and life have failed her (I believe they all did), maybe her story will be worth listening to.

 

[investikater]

The problem is, she made that statement I quoted within hours of having actually murdered her children, to police. It wasn't a lighthearted letting off of steam at a time when the kids were fine, it was while she was walking them through how she did the crime.

MOO

Hmm

That is different

Did the defence have an explanation?


How did she attempt to kill herself? She can't have been very successful if she was talking to the police hours later

 

[iamshadow21]

Hmm

That is different

Did the defence have an explanation?


How did she attempt to kill herself? She can't have been very successful if she was talking to the police hours later

She says she did. She's a proper doctor and only managed to take enough meds to make herself slightly loopy. She was conscious when her husband returned home, and told him, "it's too late", which led to his discovery of the children. Then she walked to the ambulance that arrived under her own steam.

If anyone knows how to properly punch their own clock using meds, it's those with medical degrees.

I think the supposed OD was a smokescreen to disguise deliberate, premeditated child murder.

MOO

 

[investikater]

Wow

And yet the husband defended her?

 

[iamshadow21]

Wow

And yet the husband defended her?

He did, but he also moved permanently back to South Africa in pretty short order, so it's not like he's visiting her weekly and pressing his hand to the other side of the wired glass, or anything. I think he's still processing his grief and denial, which I daresay he will be doing for the rest of his life.

MOO

 

[Charlot123]

He did, but he also moved permanently back to South Africa in pretty short order, so it's not like he's visiting her weekly and pressing his hand to the other side of the wired glass, or anything. I think he's still processing his grief and denial, which I daresay he will be doing for the rest of his life.

MOO

He is escaping his memories. But, I think he’ll eventually recover and have a family.

I am far from blaming him, yet when Lauren told Graham that she had homicidal urges, he yelled at her. He was ill equipped to handle the situation from the get go .

'My world was falling apart': Lauren Dickason gives most detailed account of killing children

Crown expert says no basis for infanticide defence.

www.nzherald.co.nz

MOO - I think that the whole family, hers and his, should have taken more proactive steps regarding her treatment, but it is in hindsight. LD comes across as an obsessively strong person, who could success at many of things, yet all her life turned into the journey to have the kids, for herself and Graham. And then she writes that parenthood took nothing away from his life, he still has a job and friends, and she was alone. I believe her.

Here she writes how “some make it so easy”, about motherhood, but she struggles.

Chilling texts from mother who murdered her three children

New Zealand woman Lauren Anne Dickason, 42, who is on trial for the alleged murder of her three children, sent a series of disturbing messages about them to family and friends, a court has heard.

www.dailymail.co.uk

I am thinking that an orthopedic surgeon is on top in medicine, and when LD, also a doctor, married Graham, she seemed to have it all. If they merely had a couple of kids, easily, and then, as high-paid professionals, hired nannies, so that they both could come home in the evening to parent the kids, things would have been OK. Instead, it turned into a grueling struggle, with 17 IVFs. I am thinking of how hard it is on the relationship, how much stripped of privacy LD must have felt. And that early delivery of own dead baby, Sarah, how much it mush have killed in herself.

Nowadays, women hold the reins, working and bearing the children. Yet for LD, it turned into a very old situation. First, struggling to have these kids, then, to raise them, all while her husband had a career and a life. I think had LD merely went to work after the childbirths and just hired two or three nannies, things would have been better. But constantly being with three young kids broke her. MOO - I wonder if she was prone to “masking”, without realizing it, but three babies at the home and potentially, her own sensory issues became too much. Lauren was a professional. Yet I see this expectation of her to be repository for the babies and then, the happy at-home-mom. So for years she must have felt as having failed childbirth and then, the motherhood. I think after these two weeks of being couped in one room, overwhelmed with the noise, she was finally out, and there was a tiny moment of silence, and then the kids came back, and Graham went to an evening event. He was tired, too, but he had a place to escape. She didn’t.

 

[Countem]

Sentencing date set for mum who murdered three young daughters in Timaru

The South African doctor convicted of murdering her three young daughters will be sentenced in June - almost a year after her high-profile trial....

www.odt.co.nz

Justice CM confirmed a final sentencing date of June 26.

 

[alexwood]

She says she did. She's a proper doctor and only managed to take enough meds to make herself slightly loopy. She was conscious when her husband returned home, and told him, "it's too late", which led to his discovery of the children. Then she walked to the ambulance that arrived under her own steam.

If anyone knows how to properly punch their own clock using meds, it's those with medical degrees.

I think the supposed OD was a smokescreen to disguise deliberate, premeditated child murder.

MOO

I can't help but feel that she did it to punish her husband. She resented that he was able to move to New Zealand, continue to practice, and carry on with a collegial social life. While she was "stuck" (my words) at home with seemingly the three disobedient and ungrateful children that were only spawned by her own heroics. It wasn't an immaculate conception.

 

[Cedars]

three disobedient and ungrateful children that were only spawned by her own heroics.

RSBM

This is something I hadn't considered before, but could well be true.

Could a mother have a different attitude towards children who she believed were entirely the results of her own efforts, bought and paid for using techology? Basically the opposite of 'a gift of nature/God", but rather: I made them, so I'm entitled to destroy them?

I also don't understand how the aggression against the children can be so strong, but the suicide attempt so weak. I would think that, especially after killing one's children, the self-loathing would be profound and continue even if that first suicide attempt failed. But, she didn't appear to express self-loathing and self-hatred, she's made excuses for herself.

ETA: I do agree though, that her husband didn't provide any support, isolating her terribly. My impression from other cultures/past times, is that those women don't bother expecting men to be equal partners in pregnancy, childbirth and raising small children. In traditional cultures, it seems to me, other women support each other more. Mothers, sisters or paid nurses move in to take the sole burden off the mother.

JMO

 

[Charlot123]

RSBM

This is something I hadn't considered before, but could well be true.

Could a mother have a different attitude towards children who she believed were entirely the results of her own efforts, bought and paid for using techology? Basically the opposite of 'a gift of nature/God", but rather: I made them, so I'm entitled to destroy them?

I also don't understand how the aggression against the children can be so strong, but the suicide attempt so weak. I would think that, especially after killing one's children, the self-loathing would be profound and continue even if that first suicide attempt failed. But, she didn't appear to express self-loathing and self-hatred, she's made excuses for herself.

ETA: I do agree though, that her husband didn't provide any support, isolating her terribly. My impression from other cultures/past times, is that those women don't bother expecting men to be equal partners in pregnancy, childbirth and raising small children. In traditional cultures, it seems to me, other women support each other more. Mothers, sisters or paid nurses move in to take the sole burden off the mother.

JMO

JMO. I have met many women who, after multiple failed IVFs, adopted babies. I would say, if the instinct to become a mother is strong, it doesn't matter that she didn't carry the baby, even if she is not breastfeeding, the gets attached to the baby as her own, despite the child not carrying her genes and having not been carried in her womb. About egg donor babies, all I have heard or read were thankful words to those unknown women who had donated her own...

I think several things play a role here.

1) presence of a severe mental illness. I have a feeling that it was way more than depression and was associated with very strong, perfectionistic, suffocating personality. That needed to be treated. That played the major role. She should not have stopped that medication. Worse, not sure that Citalopram was holding her well enough.

2) perhaps, all these IVFs created the hormonal milieu that exacerbated mental symptoms even more.

3) I don't know if Lauren fit the mother's role. At all. Raising a baby is anything but perfect. In fact, everything is a chronic mess. If LD was taking "happy moms" posts on SM for reality, like "it is perfection", or "I am so happy", or "just wait till your mother's instinct kicks in", she was in for bitter
disillusionment. (Other moms have perfect babies, and her baby is hungry, poopy or colicky.) I wonder if LD, who was undoubtedly smart academically, somehow did not understand that what people post on SM is not for real? That could have been the reason for blaming her kids for being less than perfect, because "see what other moms post."

4) strangely, I am not sure if Lauren truly wanted children. The way i see it, she was trying to cross some lines off her "to do" list. MOO. Become a doctor. Marry a doctor. And tbh, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon is very high on a medical totem pole, so she overachieved there. Make a beautiful house. (Everyone mentioned her wonderful house in South Africa.) Then, have a family, a big one! And it didn't work. And Lauren, with her exceptionally high expectations of herself, was pushing her body into producing these babies... I thought GD was making her go through the IVF. Now I wonder if he was afraid of saying "no" to her, because in her eyes, infertility equaled own failure.

5) I think she would have managed one child, Liane. Remember how one of her friends said, "her perfect child". But again, this obsessive idea of a perfect family, and she got twins. And I think the real crash happened when she found out that one of them was having a cleft palate. This is anything but perfect. Perhaps that's when she got angry with the donor and the baby, but I don't think it was the money. Just, "imperfection". And even when Karla was born, and her cleft palate appeared to be minimal, she could never "forgive" it to Karla, because Karla failed her, and ultimately, Lauren failed herself.

Remember, she started murders with Karla. The least perfect one.

But, I think LD absolutely wanted to kill herself. Why things didn't work? Maybe she started vomiting, maybe GD returned home soon. One thing I am almost positive about, LD could have been broken in childhood. Obsessive perfectionism is also inherited, and if one of parents was like this (put too much pressure from the outside), and LD did the same from the inside, it must have created an unbelievably strong, achievement-driven but already faulty character. I think she hates herself and blames herself now and feels like a total failure. As to why she made excuses? I think she wanted to be deemed not guilty, get out and kill herself.

I think her husband did not provide support, but I also suspect that deep inside, he was tired of his home life because of Lauren.