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friend committed murder-suicide

Started by garbed_attic, August 09, 2018, 10:25:39 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

alan nagsworth

Quote from: BlodwynPig on August 09, 2018, 11:31:53 PM
That's some nasty supposition there.

Don't call me nasty, you're the one being a prick. Unsurprisingly, but it still needs mentioning because clearly no other fucker will.

Wow I love new pages

Replies From View

Or maybe maintaining this particular energy in this thread isn't doing anyone any favours.


garbed_attic

Quote from: Replies From View on August 10, 2018, 04:33:26 PM
Or maybe maintaining this particular energy in this thread isn't doing anyone any favours.

Yeh - while I was a bit miffed by Blodder's comments, we're pals and we've talked it out via PM. CaB is a place where one can expect gallows humour and inappropriate comments mixed in with the emotional support and plain talking. And while I wouldn't say I'm in the mood for jokes about this, I've been around CaB well enough to know that even the most serious of threads will involve rough humour and made the thread already knowing that.

---

Right now I'm thinking about their gorgeous cat and hoping that he's being looked after by someone.

Icehaven

Let's just say someone (not even necessarily you) had seriously thought something like this would happen and said something, to the police, or the couple, or anyone, the response would not likely have led to a different outcome, as the police would hardly take a hunch from a friend as a reason to do anything, and short of going to their flat and refusing to leave what could you have done? In some ways it could have been even worse if you'd seriously suspected something as there'd still have been virtually nothing you could have done to stop it, but you'd feel even more as if you should have.

tookish

Oh friend, I'm so sorry to read this. I don't know what use I'd be but if you want to throw vents into my PMs then please do.

Your friend was a prick for saying what she did about you spotting it. Fucksake, what a thing to say to someone with an illness like yours. I know you'll have been turning it over and over in your head so let me tell you this, very firmly -

You could not have known and it was not your responsibility to know.
You are not built in a way that makes you innately able and obliged to predict shocking upcoming deaths.

This is traumatic enough without entertaining feelings of responsibility. You need to get yourself urgently referred for counselling of some description. I cannot emphasise enough how necessary I think that is.


Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteRight now I'm thinking about their gorgeous cat

I bet you are you dirty old bollocks, I fucking bet you are

St_Eddie

Quote from: tookish on August 14, 2018, 11:38:41 PM
Oh friend, I'm so sorry to read this. I don't know what use I'd be but if you want to throw vents into my PMs then please do.

Your friend was a prick for saying what she did about you spotting it. Fucksake, what a thing to say to someone with an illness like yours. I know you'll have been turning it over and over in your head so let me tell you this, very firmly -

You could not have known and it was not your responsibility to know.
You are not built in a way that makes you innately able and obliged to predict shocking upcoming deaths.

This is traumatic enough without entertaining feelings of responsibility. You need to get yourself urgently referred for counselling of some description. I cannot emphasise enough how necessary I think that is.

I fully endorse this wonderful post.

Pdine

Quote from: Buelligan on August 10, 2018, 09:07:13 AM
That's not OCD, it's the way almost everyone reacts. 

This is true I think. When I was at school a friend was murdered by his dad with a shotgun (the guy killed the whole family then himself). I know I kept picturing the specifics and the location for years afterwards, at first almost exclusively, and talking to the other kids I wasn't alone. I'm no expert but speaking for myself I think it played a part in somehow mentally digesting the terrifying, jagged fact and making it part of my memory, as it needed to be. 

Twed


mothman

Just remembered an incident last Christmas Eve. Teen Moth's best friend was texting/FaceTiming her, scared because her mother was out for the evening and her father was drunk (on his own) and raging around the house, scaring her and her other siblings. Teen Moth wanted to go get her, but we said, what could we do? We have no authority as parents to go remove another child from her parents. We could call the police, sure, but neither girl liked that idea. So we left it, and it blew over. That story could have had a much nastier ending, which might have been avoided by me and MrsMoth bring arrested instead for child abduction, sure, but I doubt I'd have been left feeling with any certainty that at least we'd prevented a murder.

(Plus, a few months later a domineering bullying member of their friendship group decided to exclude Teen Moth from the clique because she could. And the best friend in question decided to meekly go along with it to stay with the in crowd. So she can go to hell anyway.)

Thomas

Very sorry to hear such a thing, Gouty.

Tookish's post is eminently sensible, and you oughtn't let your 'blunt and nihilistic' best friend make you feel guilty - whether for not predicting the unpredictable, for experiencing normal, complicated, conflicted feelings of compassion/sympathy for both your friend and his wife, or for anything else relating to this.

garbed_attic

Quote from: Thomas on August 15, 2018, 10:35:55 AM
Very sorry to hear such a thing, Gouty.

Tookish's post is eminently sensible, and you oughtn't let your 'blunt and nihilistic' best friend make you feel guilty - whether for not predicting the unpredictable, for experiencing normal, complicated, conflicted feelings of compassion/sympathy for both your friend and his wife, or for anything else relating to this.

Tookish often has many sage things to say. You're an ever-good-egg, Took :) Thank you.

"complicated, conflicted feelings of compassion/sympathy for both your friend and his wife" - thanks Thomas. This is a good description of how I feel. I've been reminded of this powerful article (possibly by Alain de Botton) on The Philosopher's Mail:
http://thephilosophersmail.com/tragedy/sophocles-in-melbourne/

QuoteThe challenge is to resist easy moralism, and to see that there are in fact connections, far more than one might wish, between oneself and the most apparently alien figures the news introduces us to. None of us is a stranger to extreme states of mind, it's just that most of us have had the good fortune not to be pressed too hard by life in those areas where we are most vulnerable.

There are, sadly perhaps, in the end no monsters or weirdoes. There are only humans, all of them dreadfully fragile and prone to destroying what they love.

I'm worried the last line seems crass here, but I genuinely think that Katie would endorse it.

Glebe

Just want to belatedly add my sympathies, Gouty, utterly shocking and I hope you're starting to come down a bit from it all. Love and hugs and such, in abundance.

Btw, also sad to hear your stories too, Buellers and Pdine. I guess it's a blessing to get through life unscathed by such nastiness.

garbed_attic

Thanks Glebe *hugs*

I started to have another little cry today when walking come from uni near where they lived, but I stopped when I became self-aware...

A colleague/ old school friend today made an frustratingly glib reference to "there already being too many mass murderers around here", but I felt it best to leave it. While I understand anger and even disgust at Tom, he seemed to get bullied a fair amount at work (as gathered from conversations with him and a conversation I have since had with his best friend) and it is frustrating that some of those who bullied him then (not thinking specifically of my old school friend) now say that they knew he was weird/ off/ unstable etc. as though to retrospectively justify their bullying. It's something I've seen before in comments sections online in the aftermath of crimes, such as in the wake of the Gemma Barker case, in which one of her fellow students posted something almost along the lines of "I knew she was a freak and I was right to treat her as such at school!"

I'm not saying that Tom's experiences at work led him to do what he seemingly did, nor do they excuse him, but some kindness and less snide remarks from his colleagues could only have helped, I feel (or, at the very least, not made things any worse).

Twed

Do you ever feel like leaving Ipswich gouty? It's a difficult town to live in, lots of mental illness and unpleasant stuff happening. Five years of that place aged me 15.

garbed_attic

Quote from: Twed on August 16, 2018, 07:44:22 PM
Do you ever feel like leaving Ipswich gouty? It's a difficult town to live in, lots of mental illness and unpleasant stuff happening. Five years of that place aged me 15.

Yee. It's become much worse the last five years or so. It feels like ever escalating stabbings and suicides.

The inquest has been going on this week. The tabloids are mostly focusing on the fact that Tom was apparently obsessed/ paranoid about the size of his genitals, rather than (of course) the bullying he received about it at work:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-who-stabbed-wife-death-14276522

I'd like to see these kind of facts/ allegations reported more broadly...
QuoteTriage nurse Maria Tabar said she assessed Mr Kemp as high risk and told the mental health crisis team, which is based elsewhere on the hospital site, in a phone call.

Mental health nurse Indardaye Ramroop-Dip, who answered the call, said she was not told Mr Kemp was high risk and a decision was taken to discharge him.

Ms Tabar said she later saw some staff from the crisis team in A&E and claimed they "were laughing at the manhood of Mr Kemp". The crisis team deny this happened.

Twit 2

GP, do you fancy coming to the Cambridge meet? Not too far from Ipswich. Sounds like you could do with a laugh (can't guarantee we can provide that, but it's worth a shot). I hope you've got some good people around you and some ways to unwind. Whilst I haven't been unlucky enough to be in your situation, I share many of your anxieties about life, the climate etc. It's really important to do some trivial things to take your mind off 24/7 existential horror. Look after yourself, dude.

garbed_attic

Quote from: Twit 2 on April 12, 2019, 11:55:44 AM
GP, do you fancy coming to the Cambridge meet? Not too far from Ipswich. Sounds like you could do with a laugh (can't guarantee we can provide that, but it's worth a shot). I hope you've got some good people around you and some ways to unwind. Whilst I haven't been unlucky enough to be in your situation, I share many of your anxieties about life, the climate etc. It's really important to do some trivial things to take your mind off 24/7 existential horror. Look after yourself, dude.

Yee - could you kindly remind me of the date please? :)



garbed_attic

I realised I never posted the final outcome of the inquest/ findings. I am thankful to nurse Tabar for her honesty about the events and how Tom and Kat were treated at the hospital:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/17/ipswich-hospital-turned-away-man-killed-himself-wife-inquest-told

QuoteThe Suffolk area coroner, Jacqueline Devonish, said the failure to consider alternatives to discharge from hospital was a "missed opportunity to have done something effective to prevent these deaths".
Recording narrative conclusions, she said Kemp stabbed his wife to death during a psychotic episode when she tried to prevent him from harming himself.
The coroner said the deaths were contributed to by Thomas Kemp's "non-compliance with prescribed medication" and the "failure of the crisis response team to see [Katherine Kemp] and her husband and undertake an assessment".
Devonish added: "Thomas loved Katherine and wouldn't have knowingly hurt her."
Mandy Mckenzie, an A&E receptionist, previously told the hearing that when the Kemps arrived at the department Katherine Kemp had said: "Please can you help, he has knives and is going to harm himself."
"Mrs Kemp was very distressed and tearful and kept asking for help," she said. "Mr Kemp made no eye contact and kept looking at the desk. Mrs Kemp kept holding on to his arm."
Maria Tabar, a triage nurse, said she had assessed Thomas Kemp as high risk and informed the crisis team. She said during her evidence that the crisis team had told her the episode was related to his anxiety relating to his penis, saying: "You know the problem? Suicidal thoughts are not the problem, it was his manhood."
Devonish said: "Her evidence was they were just laughing about Thomas. She was surprised and couldn't understand."
The coroner said she found Tabar to be a "credible, hard-working and sympathetic professional".

Twit 2

The crisis team dismissing him like that is surely grounds for gross misconduct or at the very least shows a complete lack of understanding of mental health/suicide triggers, which is entirely their job to know about and prevent. What a waste.


madhair60

So it was his cock, his small cock. My god, it could have been any one of us.

madhair60


madhair60


Twed

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 10, 2019, 07:25:52 PM
The crisis team dismissing him like that is surely grounds for gross misconduct or at the very least shows a complete lack of understanding of mental health/suicide triggers, which is entirely their job to know about and prevent. What a waste.
I can't believe that there are incompetent mental health services in Ipswich, a town that personally gave me the hits "well you don't LOOK depressed" and the teenage years classic: "how many pairs of underwear have you got? Are they clean? What do they smell like? What colour are they?" (from a sexy woman no less)

Cuellar

Fuck me that makes for grim reading, I'm sorry to say.

garbed_attic

Quote from: Cuellar on October 11, 2019, 12:55:18 PM
Fuck me that makes for grim reading, I'm sorry to say.

"Forget it Jake, it's Ipswich"

But, yeah, it it's a horrible and sad thing. Suffolk's one of the worst counties for mental health provision. Still angers me that SureStart was cut.