Recently I had a fight with one of my very closest friends. It was a public fight that took place on Twitter for all the world to see. I argued with her and I argued with other friends, I even argued with strangers. But some strangers supported me and many people I knew took my side, others contacted me privately and told me their point of view. It was a very public fight about a very public story – that of Greg Hutchings who took his daughter’s life before taking his own.
I cannot condone such a hideous act and never would but that does not mean I can’t have compassion for a man who is at such a desperate place that he takes his child’s life and then his own.
There was so much anger expended against this man because… well for one he killed his daughter I guess, but I think they felt anger because they assumed it was an act of revenge or malice. The man had no history of mental illness, he wasn’t being treated for psychosis or depression or bipolar disorder.
Earlier this week I was shattered, as was everyone around me, to hear the story of a man who took his son’s life at a cricket match and was then shot by police during a stand off. But the reaction to this horrific death was different to the reaction to the Hutchings deaths. Why? Because the mother of the child was compassionate and graceful and beautifully explained her ex-husband’s mental illness. He had a long history of mental illness and was known to police.
Sure there is anger at the death of a young boy who didn’t deserve to die at the hands of someone who he loved and who, according to the boy’s mother, loved him very much. But there is no understanding mental illness and so we ration our anger and we feel sadness instead. Overwhelming sadness.
In the same way I feel sadness for Greg Hutchings. I believe his mental state at the time he killed his daughter could not have been healthy. Even if it wasn’t diagnosed and treated by a doctor. And that’s where I feel the most anger. Was he able to get help? Was he scared of getting help for his mental state lest it deter his chances of getting part time custody of his daughter? You don’t have to get diagnosed by a doctor to have a mental illness…
I have written before about the state of the mental health system in Australia – there is no long term for care for people with mental illness in this country.
My brother-in-law is schizophrenic. If his illness were physical he would be in a hospital, he’d have 24 hour care and people would flood his room with love, flowers and good wishes. But his illness is mental. So he is alone and scared And he is not in a hospital.
Because he has a terrible and incurable mental illness he can act at time irrationally or inappropriately. He is never violent and has never shown any violent tendencies but he is sick and no one can really predict what mental illness and psychosis can do to you.
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“My brother-in-law is sick, he doesn’t have friends and he cannot hold down a job. His days are a nightmare of medication induced sleep and loud and menacing voices that only he can hear. He is a man you would see in the street and dismiss as being a homeless addict but he is my husband’s brother. He is a son, an uncle and a very kind and generous soul. He used to be an energetic and charismatic person but his disease has taken his personality and whipped it into a scared (and sometimes scary) person.
The toll that the disease has taken on him is as clear as the mess it has left in its wake. My husband and his family are in a state of perpetual worry. They agonise about the man they love and they don’t know how to help him.
Mental health will check on him when they have the time or the resources but most of the time he wont let them in the door so they leave. Sometimes, if he’s lucky, he’ll get arrested and spend a couple of days in a psych ward and then another tortured soul will need the bed and he’ll be back home with no plan for the future, no follow up and seemingly no care. If his family try to intervene he gets angry (or at least he displays his fear as anger).
I watch my husband filled with despair about his brother and my heart goes out to him. I see the pain and concern in his eyes and I want to tell him that he’ll be okay, that we’ll look after him. But it wont be okay and we cannot look after him because he is too sick and he needs psychiatric care.
I wonder what goes on in my brother-in-law’s head. But, when I see him listening intently to sounds that aren’t there or when he starts to tell stories that have no basis in reality I can’t bear to think of it anymore and I can switch off. He can’t. He lives this nightmare each and every day.”
Since I wrote that nothing has changed. My brother-in-law is still sick, just as sick but maybe sadder.
People with mental illness deserve compassion. They deserve care – they deserve diagnosis and treatment. They deserve long term treatment. They don’t deserve stigma, they don’t deserve derision or fear. Just treatment and compassion and long-term help because ultimately nobody deserves to die. Certainly not the children of the mentally ill.
RIP Luke Batty and your father Greg
RIP Eeva Dorendahl-Hutchings and your father Greg
Thank you, my beautiful friend, for teaching me something about compassion. I thought I knew what I believed. You made me question it, and I am grateful. x
Big love xx
My feeling is that you can’t have “selective empathy”… what’s the point in feeling empathy only for “good” people, or for people we feel sorry for… we need to feel empathy for the broken people in our society – people who might not be pleasant or likeable – and we need to feel empathy even for people who do awful things, because if we don’t, how will we ever learn why some people are driven to acts of despicable desperation…
Could not have put that better myself!
Thank you Lana. For always speaking out about what you believe in, for always keeping it real, for your empathy and compassion and just being you.
As Kerri said so beautifully, “Thank you for teaching me something about compassion”. xx
Thank YOU Alison xxx
Beautifully written and compassionately composed. My thoughts are your thoughts. Does a completely mentally well person take their own child’s life? No.
100% No. Even if there has been no past diagnosis or history – at the point that somebody takes the life of someone they love they are not mentally healthy. Thank you so much for your comment xx
Beautifully written Lana. I think John James raises a great point. It is very easy to have compassion for ‘good’ people.
Thanks Kellie! I agree with you about the John James point – way to easy to dismiss bad people as being “bad”/ xx
Lana, there are few things you say that I disagree with ever! I think you’re so right about all of this. I don’t think I can live with thinking that anyone in their right mind would kill their child. And the mental health support systems in this country are disgraceful. There was a very interesting piece on the 7.30 Report last night where an ex-soldier said he wishes some of the resources being poured in to the Anzac Day commemorations over the next 4 years could be directed to helping soldiers who are returning from war situations now and suffering greatly, not the least of which is mental illnesses. There needs to be some serious changes in the way that health is prioritised in this country, mental health included.
Cat,
Can I just say “here here!” or is it “hear hear”? (Both work the same in my mind).
The amount of money spent on the “latest studies” disturbs me. Commemorations and ceremonies are important – I get that – but I fear we waste far too much money as a society on sport, tourism, marketing of political campaigns etc and nowhere near enough on the things that REALLY will help those who need it most. Just sayin’…
PS Lana rocks – glad you think so too! 🙂
Thank you Cat – fair and good point made by that ex-soldier. I cannot even begin to imagine the damage to your mental health that seeing people die around you must inflict.
Beautifully written. Thank you for highlighting this tragic gap in our health care system that leaves the leaves the mentally ill in an often desolate place, without the support and care they need. There are so many suffering alone, living on the fringes and shunned by society.
Beautifully said Lana. Such tragic stories
I do see what you’re saying about empathy, but I don’t agree that he had to have had a mental illness. Not everyone that does something bad or wrong is unwell, sometimes people just do horrible things: not everyone who has committed a murder has or had a mental illness. And not everyone who has committed suicide has a mental illness (some are sociopaths. Some are just people that do horrible things -Simon Gittany?). The man that killed his daughter and himself may have been mentally ill, but he also may not have been – we may never know. But maybe it isn’t possible to feel empathy for him without thinking he was unwell? If he did in fact do what he did out of anger or spite, that is much harder to empathise with – even though this still means he was quite a troubled man who could have used some help and support to deal with what he was feeling.
Sorry – the sociopath comment was meant to be in relation to murderers, not those who commit suicide.
Thanks for your comments Anon, I understand what you are saying but I think if someone is troubled enough to take their child’s life – to feel that level of anger or spite clouds the mind and makes it unwell.
From all that I had read of the father of the young girl he was not an evil or “bad” person, unlike someone like Simon Gittany who had a long history of abuse if not physical than emotional and verbal, this man acted – to my mind – as someone who was not handling his life, he may have been under severe emotional and mental strain battling through a custody case, he may have been deeply depressed or he may have felt that his daughter could not live without him – but maybe he didn’t make any decisions, maybe his state of mind made the decisions for him. As you say – we will never know.
I just think he must have felt very very very lonely and desolate at that time. No excuses for his actions, but compassion for his state of mind.
Thank you for writing this – very timely, and very important!
This is a story that breaks my heart. I have two much older schizophrenic brothers. It is a chronic debilitating illness that overshadowed my childhood and ruined my brothers lives.
One of them spent have of last year bombarding me and the internet with death threats for my dad and I. He was full of white hot fury and I have to say it frightened and upset me.
Luckily I live in another state and the finances to come find me are minimal due to his pot addiction so I feel relatively safe. I could not get him help though. despite 25 sexually graphic and blood thirsty threats a day. For all the crazy on social media, for ringing and threatening radio stations. I would call his psych who would tell me to call the police who would tell me to call the hospital.
Apparently I had to wait until he does something before they will act.
People who have a history of violence( my brother had been jailed for assaulting a police officer in the past- along with many other convictions for crime) or threaten violence and have mental health issues should be forced into treatment and offered comprehensive support.
My other brother who was schizophrenic decades longer had spent most of his adult life in supported housing- it was brilliant – think Uni college accomodation with food cooked, cleaning done and entertainment provided. Heeven had a “job” in some supported work environment that gave him a sense of accomplishment. He was stable, happy and ther other residents like family.
They closed it down 4 years ago and kicked him into housing commison. Hence problems, depression, hospitalisation. People dosed up to the eye balls on Clozapine and clonazepam do not have the cognitive abilities or energy to manage cleaning, cooking shopping etc. And loneliness is a cruel blow to put on anyone.
More supported housing is essential and all this bollocks about independence is fantasy. People want to be safe, they want to have a home, they want company and all those things help mental health ontop of the medication.
Wow thank you Amanda Rose for sharing your story. Sadly it is all too familiar – cannot tell you how many times we have been told to “wait till he does something” before anything can happen. I think what you say at the end is all important – I know my brother-in-law just wants to feel safe, to have a home that is safe and non threatening and to have company that understands him. That is all he needs – well that, medication and of course compassion.
Beautiful writing. No more needs to be said
So true and so often unsaid, Lana. x
I didn’t make it clear in my above comment but- I love your compassion and lack of smug hatred that an article I read on another site had.
Reigning down judgement on people is not helpful. I wonder if people act like that as it scares them that these things can happen to anyone- so they box people up as a neat package of evil. It makes the world easier to understand when we have goodies and baddies.
I also think we are more compassionate with things close to our hearts that out life experiences have touched on- we understand the shades of gray a little easier and that builds compassion. It is hard when something is so far from your reality.
My mother has bipolar and she is obviously one of the lucky ones, with lots of on going support and follow up. Both times she has been admitted to hospital she has recieved great care, she also sees a psychiatrist twice a month who is her savior. We keep on top of her taking her medication and so far so good, she was diagnosed 12 years ago. What I find is the lack of support for the family who is caring for someone with a mental illness, there isn’t much out there! It is extremely difficult at times to know what to do or what to say to someone who is mentally ill. It is a daily battle.
I know what you mean – it is really hard for the family. Especially when the behaviour of the sick person can so often be self destructive. Your mother is lucky to have such a beautifully compassionate daughter – hope there is someone giving you some respite and love in return xxx
I’ve dealt with the public mental health system for nearly 12 years. I have had some awesome care in that time, but more often than not I have had shockingly bad care. The mental health system is stretched to capacity and many people (myself included) end up in prison after doing something in desperation. The prison system is not equipped to deal with the mentally ill. Their first and foremost thought is punishment, this is how they deal with mental illness and the way it manifests. I spent many nights laying on a canvas mattress in the middle of winter with no blankets and only a gown on as punishment for self harming behaviour. We were strip searched multiple times a day, no allowances were made so as not to give the impression of the officers favouring people. The only upside to being incarcerated was that I saw a psychiatrist more often that I did when I was outside.
The trouble with mental health care in this country is that there is a high burn out rate because the funding is low. Case managers are taking on double the recommended case load and the beds are decreasing instead of increasing. The good workers become jaded, frustrated with a system that doesn’t work.
Thanks for your very insightful comment and so glad to see how you far you have come even working with such an inadequate system
As the mother of a mentally ill daughter I thank you for expressing what we all should know. The pain and torment of those afflicted with delusions, paranoia, cruel hallucinatory voices, fears and panic attacks stemming from psychosis may lead them to act in a way that is totally contrary to their true nature. The brain is an organ that can fail, just like the heart, lungs or kidneys. Why should these people suffer, untreated until they become a danger to themselves or others, and then be blamed for the consequences. My daughter said to me, after recovering from one episode, ” Mum, it’s like waking up from a bad dream, only instead of a sigh of relief, you realise that you really did all those things!” The shame, guilt and depression arising from this is debilitating. The lack of insight that is symptomatic of a severely mentally ill person does not allow them to seek help.
Biggest strength and warmth to your daughter. Thank you for reading here and sharing your own pain. xxxx
Beautifully said, Lana, but you know I agree with you. As someone who has worked in the health system for thirty years and pretty much seen it all, it’s always the schizophrenic patients who make me the saddest, precisely because there is not enough support or understanding for their illness, an illnesss every bit as biological as cancer or diabetes.
Great piece, Lana. Whenever I read these horror stories in the press, I am always aware of the story that probably lies behind them such as child abuse, domestic violence, depression or mental illness of some sort. I truly do not believe that people are born ‘bad’, yet, the majority of public opinion differs. In a discussion in my educated group of book club ladies the other day, the subject of ADHD came up as a result of the series Kids On Speed and I was told that we should just smack these kids into submission!
I don’t know that I wouldn’t have wanted to smack those “educated” book club ladies. I can only imagine that your son’s ADHD is harder for him and for you than anyone else who has to deal with it. There truly is really always a real story behind every horror story xx