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[-] foggy@lemmy.world 93 points 1 year ago

It's weird to me the level of deranged guilt her diary entries show.

We are responsible for our actions. I just wonder wtf was going on in her head that allowed her to keep doing it. She hated herself for it. Like a lot.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 49 points 1 year ago

That's the sort of evil I understand and can cope with. There is something wrong with her we don't have the capacity to understand. Some chemical imbalance or growth pushing on her brain in a certain area.

It's the people with nothing wrong with them but allow evil to happen like the hospital administrators that gets me.

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

A lot of time there is nothing visibly wrong with them and their background doesn't explain it

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sadly, we don't understand the brain yet. Otherwise perhaps certain things could be visible. I know that there is some research how activity patterns in brains of "psychopaths" difffer from other people. But it is all still on shaky grounds.

[-] PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is a mental health issue, do they have free mental health care in the uk?

[-] Urbanfox@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago

Yes, but it's difficult to access. You need to want to get the care and actively campaign to be referred.

And that's the "easy" things like anxiety or garden variety depression.

As soon as it gets complicated it's a whole other story.

If she never tried to seek it out, then it doesn't even matter as it appears she didn't give off any "I murder babies" vibes to the extent that the investigation was delayed beyond a reasonable length of time because she was not suspected of such a thing.

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

Not to mention, if she was diagnosed with something severe, she would probably lose her job if not her entire career. A lot of people avoid seeking help for that reason.

[-] 30mag@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Well, it turns out that you will also lose your job if you are caught murdering babies.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Ok, but she shouldn't have had her job.

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Easy to say from where we sit. Harder when that job is what's keeping a roof over your head and food on your table.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Right, but she was compulsively murdering babies in the hospital. Can we all agree that she shouldn't have had a job as a nurse in a NICU? That doesn't feel like a statement with room for debate.

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But... The comment is about why the murderer perhaps didn't seek mental health. Because she didn't want to lose her job. Who is saying that this was a good job for her to have?!

[-] floatingcloudsoverdawnskies@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The other dumb fucks pushing the issue for whatever reason. I'm trying to figure out why it's so important for them for everyone else to submit to their opinion that the murderer was mentally ill. What difference would it even make? She'd be a threat to the community regardless and so her imprisonment or execution would be justified whether she was mentally ill or not, so what's the deal, I wonder?

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

The point is that if she had had help before she started killing babies, we wouldn't even be here.

But she didn't. We may never know why in her case, but in other cases, fear of losing your job and having no way to afford food, housing, or other needs is one reason.

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[-] vilebinchickens@endlesstalk.org 3 points 1 year ago

Funniest joke we heard all day

[-] fabulousflamingos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

So a baby murderer should have been allowed to keep her job and continue to put innocent lives in danger because you 1) baselessly think she's mentally ill, and 2) think that a condition as extreme as you're implying shouldn't be regarded with consequence.

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I never said that she should be allowed to keep her job.

[-] fabulousflamingos@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

You wouldn't say the quiet part out loud.

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[-] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

So weird that private medical info is only like sorta private except if they wanna use it

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

I mean, on the one hand I agree.

On the other hand, if you dream of murdering babies or crashing planes, perhaps the hospital or airline you work for should be informed.

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Real talk though, you can't punish thought crimes.

Who TF dreams of crashing planes that does not fly planes? The incidence of plane-crash-dreamers is most certainly highly concentrated amongst pilots.

As are those who dream of killing babies concentrated around those who spend time around them.

Most of us use our brains to filter out things that we don't want to come to actualization. But the bad thoughts are in there. 94% of us will experience intrusive thoughts at some point in our lives. All to jail?

[-] egressesatdawn 4 points 1 year ago

And yet you think people should have their guns taken away for their thoughts or their words, so what makes you think you're any better?

But the bad thoughts are in there. 94% of us will experience intrusive thoughts at some point in our lives. All to jail?

Imagine treating intrusive thoughts and killing babies as somehow equivalent. And that psychologists aren't trained to know the difference and who to flag, and who not to. At least that's what you'd say when pushing for red flag laws.

[-] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

Or like get it solved before it becomes a problem? And have a professional medical opinion reccomend if you should work somewhere to not based on a risk assessment, not just a blanket statement

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[-] itsyourmom@artemis.camp 4 points 1 year ago

Every mental health professional I have seen over the years is a mandatory reporter (in the US). Meaning they stated to me, upfront… if you have thoughts of hurting others OR yourself that WILL be reported. I didn’t have those thoughts so I probably put that out of my mind rather quickly.

But after reading these comments, and the articles I can see both sides of the argument. Those suffering from these thoughts may well feel scared to admit them knowing they would have consequences for their jobs/ or legal trouble from admitting them. I’ve no idea who they would be “reporting” it to. I assume the mental health worker would attempt to send the individual to a psychiatric hospital so they can get help .

[-] DrPop@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

Isn't there protections for that though? That may fall under some medical status protection. Also when diagnosed you also get medicine which may help your brain balance.

[-] themajesticdodo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Not the right time. Not the right place.

This woman murdered a lot of babies. Your comment is wildly inappropriate.

[-] PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

It's so hard, because those families have it so amazingly awful but I can't imagine her being a sane person and doing what she did. She shouldn't be on the street and she needed help a long time ago.

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[-] themajesticdodo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

There's a big fucking difference between "i hate myself and want to die" and "might murder a half dozen babies this month".

I think you might be asking a bit much of public mental health care, yeah?

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[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

She might think she didn't have a problem and rationalized her actions

[-] agedbeef@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I read the article and didn’t see any diary stuff. Do you have a link to it?

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You'd have to look at what she got out of it emotionally. Other hospital killers did it for a combination of "They were a burden", "I was putting them out of their misery" and a sense of godlike power of life and death. Some started doing it for seeming mercy reasons but got so comfortable with doing it that they started killing patients because they annoyed them.

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I think you're perhaps ignoring what I said about the content of her entries.

She suffered from her actions, emotionally. A lot. It's quite clear she got nothing positive emotionally from it:

"I am evil I did this”.

The note added: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.

“I am a horrible person.

“I hate myself. There are no words. I am an awful person. I pay every day for that.”

“I panic I’ll never have children. I don’t deserve mum and dad. The world is better off without me. I did this, why me.”

“No one will ever know what happened and why . . . I’m a failure.”

“I am a problem to those who do know me . . . it would be much better for everyone if I just went away. I just want to be happy.”

“Kill me” and “Help me” along with the names of some the babies she murdered.

In one, Letby scrawled: “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this.

“No one will ever understand or appreciate what’s like.”

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

She got something out of it though. No one was forcing her to do it so regardless of her entries at the moment of choice she wanted to do it. She may have felt regret or self-hate after the fact but it is clear that those feelings eventually passed.

[-] pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Regret or self-hate can just as well turn into driving factors to continue doing harm to others. When you are mentally ill, logic starts completely bending and finally making a 180 degrees turn from normal

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

There's a whole lot of mental health issues in there.

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't think it's possible to really understand a person that is that level of abnormal. Or rather, when you have empathy in a somewhat normal range, I think it's really hard to understand how not having empathy works.

this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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