I am continually seeing posts written in defense of Lauren Dickason, the South African mother who killed her three children shortly after immigrating to Timaru, New Zealand. Despite trying to strangle her children with cable ties, and, when that didn’t work, smothering them to death with towels, Dickason has a bizarre string of compliments to her name. Apparently, Dickason was a “loving mother”. She was, in fact, “a good mother who was always organized and provided her children with everything they needed and wanted.” She also “had the prettiest home” and was very “quiet and humble.”
Lauren Dickason’s defence team has argued that the killings were out of character. They maintain that she was insane at the time of the killings, and, more specifically, that her mind was disturbed due to the effects of childbirth. These kinds of defences have been used by other mothers who killed their children, notably Andrea Yates. On reading about these cases, however, a very different picture emerges- one that makes Dickason look very much like a murderer.
Andrea Yates was hospitalized at least three times in the months before she killed her five children. She chewed on her fingers, stopped feeding her baby, became obsessed with the Bible, waved knives around, repeatedly mutilated herself, and made a number of suicide attempts. Yates was diagnosed with schizophrenia and postpartum psychosis, and warned after her fourth child not to have any more children for fear of bringing on another psychotic episode. Sadly, she and her husband did not take this advice.
For schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders to be diagnosed, there must be a break with reality to the point that the sufferer cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not real. Patients often experience hallucinations, where they see or hear things that aren’t there, and delusions, where they hold beliefs that cannot be true.
A few cases in New Zealand history help demonstrate what this looks like. Evelyn Sen, who killed her 4 year old daughter Maggie in 2015, believed that there were demons in her house who were possessing both herself and Maggie. Sen gave Maggie an overdose of antidepressant medication before overdosing herself, fearing that if she and Maggie were found alive, the demons would take them. She also believed that police were following her and that her home was under surveillance from a satellite dish.
Meanwhile, Maree McCrae killed her daughter Molly after believing that she and her family had started a world-wide whooping cough epidemic and infected millions of people. Maree felt she was responsible for causing brain damage to babies around the world, and killed Molly because she thought people were coming to “punish” Molly and the rest of their family for what they had done. This is a clear example of a delusional belief.
Both Sen and McCrae were found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. Although she was initially convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, Andrea Yates was also found to be insane in a retrial in 2005.
When it comes to Lauren Dickason, however, we don’t see any of these signs of insanity- or of postpartum psychosis, which would be the key to a defence of infanticide. Major depressive disorder is simply not enough to explain how she managed to kill her three children. Her depression is unlikely, even, to meet the criteria for postpartum depression because Dickason had had depressive episodes as early as age 15, and any depressive symptoms that emerged around the birth of her twins Karla and Maya had remitted before the killings took place.
Her defense team are trying to drum up evidence of “delusions”, but all they can find are comments about the people of Timaru being “unkempt” and the housing “disgusting.” Even the man she believed was taking pictures of the girls while they played at the park on the afternoon of the killings was not connected to the girls’ deaths in any way.
As a side note, this is not an uncommon occurrence- I too have been at a park in New Zealand and seen unknown men taking photos, sometimes of children. This is probably not pedophilia, but rather reflects cultural norms in some Asian countries around taking pictures of foreign children having fun in a paradisical setting, like New Zealand. There is no reason to believe that Dickason’s observations of this man were somehow warped or delusional. Understandably, many mothers find this kind of thing alarming.
On the morning of the killings, Dickason did her daughters’ hair, packed their lunchboxes, and sent them off for their first day of school. She described feeling sad and depressed during the day, and worried that she and Graham had made a mistake in bringing their family to New Zealand, but these are reasonable concerns- no hallucinations, no delusions.
When the girls returned, Dickason cooked them dinner, but they didn’t like the food. Her husband Graham left the house to attend a dinner with colleagues at his new job, and the girls started jumping around on the couch and acting wild. This is when she, according to the prosecution, snapped and killed them, gathering them in a bedroom to “make necklaces” with cable ties, and then, when that didn’t work, smothering them with towels. Throughout the process, she checked the girls’ vital signs and made sure they were dead. Afterwards, she said she was sweating and shaking.
One of these stories is not like the others. And as much as we would all rather sympathize with Dickason and brush her case off as just another one of those crazy postpartum depression incidents, something much darker seems to be at play. When insanity defences have been used in cases like these, the mental disturbance is clear and, crucially, points to a break with reality. With Dickason, we see something else. Something nobody wants to believe could really exist- and especially not in a mother. Malice. Resentment. Murder. Narcissism. The ultimate Devouring Mother.
The Devouring Mother is an archetype first identified by psychoanalyst Carl Jung. It is not a diagnostic category, but shares features with a number of recognizable pathologies, including narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. The Devouring Mother has been described by writer Caroline Myss, who said “The Devouring Mother “consumes” her children psychologically and emotionally and often instills in them feelings of guilt at leaving her or becoming independent.” Her love is selfish, over-protective, and stifling. According to Myss, “the devouring mother acts in a loving manner only when her children do what she wants. When they do not she punishes them by acting in a hateful, cruel and, at it’s most extreme, even homicidal manner.”
The Devouring Mother is an archetype, not a diagnostic category. And yet, it seems to apply in this case. Considering the following statements, all made by Lauren Dickason in the months preceding her children’s deaths:
“My kids prefer my husband.”
“I feel ignored and unappreciated.”
“My kids don’t like me”
“I struggled to bond”
“I want to divorce my kids”
“My kids don’t appreciate me”
“My kids abuse me” (at age 2)
“My kids hit me and throw food at me”
“Karla, the first twin, was being really really horrible to me lately, that’s why I did (killed) her first”
“I feel like a bad mother”
“I am going to strangle her”
“She moans all the fucking time”
And this one, made after the girls’ deaths: “Ever since they were born, mums always feel this instantaneous love for their children and I never really experienced it with my kids, like I don’t know what people are talking about… and then I think there was something wrong with me for not feeling that and I did my best that I could… they definitely preferred their dad over me.”
In these statements, we can see that Dickason makes ordinary childish behavior about her, referring to it as abuse and being mean. Obviously, two year olds do not act out with the intention of upsetting or hurting their mothers, but she doesn’t seem to have enough empathy to understand this. Instead, Dickason is angry and resentful, and focused on her own hardships as a mother. In addition to a lack of empathy, this demonstrates some considerable narcissism.
Dickason also describes a lack of attachment to her daughters, saying she struggled to bond with them and did not feel the “instantaneous love” that other mothers report feeling when their children are first born. In her police interview, she talks about how the children always wanted their father, and would not sleep without Graham. This is quite profound, because Lauren was the primary caregiver and we would expect that, if normal attachment had occurred, the girls would have sought her out at night, not Graham. In other accounts, we hear that the twins were prone to hugging strangers- a sign of attachment disturbance, and that Karla threw a tantrum when she was picked up from preschool. It was her first day in a new school and yet she did not want to go home.
The attachment process between mothers and children is extremely robust. For it to go this wrong, there must have been significant disturbance on Lauren’s part- just not the kind of disturbance she needs to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Instead, we’re left wondering about other scenarios. Could the fact that she used donor eggs to conceive the girls after 17 rounds of IVF have played a part? Are shared genetics more powerful, more protective, than we like to think? Was she incapable of forming genuine bonds with others- possibly because of narcissism or psychopathy?
A narcissistic mother views her children as an extension of herself. They are, in some sense, her property, and they exist to fulfill her needs and bring her happiness, joy, and meaning. She is not able to accept her children as independent beings, or to empathize and adapt to their needs. Instead, a narcissistic mother holds the rigid belief that her children must be molded (i.e., bullied or abused) into the image that she has created in her mind.
This kind of personality is exemplified in the character of Mother Gothel in the movie Tangled, which is based on the fairytale Rapunzel. In this story, a narcissistic witch tricks the Queen and King into handing over their baby daughter, Rapunzel, whose hair has healing powers and can grant eternal youth. The witch raises the princess as her own inside a locked tower, ensuring access to her hair and teaching her that the outside world is far too dangerous for her to ever venture out. Mother Gothel claims to love Rapunzel, and treats her well enough as long as she complies, but as soon as Rapunzel disobeys her orders and leaves the tower, her true nature surfaces and she shows that she is willing to hurt Rapunzel.
Not all narcissists act out their narcissistic fantasies in a grandiose or obvious way. Some of them are more vulnerable- frequently presenting with signs of anxiety and depression because they are fixated on themselves and how they appear to others. Dickason showed several signs of this kind of vulnerable narcissism in the way she described the girls’ behaviour, the way she competed with them for Graham’s attention and affection, and the judgmental comments she made about the people and houses in Timaru. “Disgusting,” she said of the houses- and the people were “unkempt”. “This isn’t going to work for me,” she texted a friend.
Dickason also showed signs of being perfectionistic, obsessive, and overly controlling. Her house in South Africa was described as “the prettiest house on the estate.” Her family members said she was “paranoid” about selecting the safest car seats for the girls, and she has been repeatedly described as a “perfect mother” because she was so organized. What many people don’t know, though, is that these behaviors are signs of a devouring, narcissistic mother- consumed by protecting, controlling, and safeguarding her prize possession: her daughters.
Liane, Karla, and Maya, were never allowed to be separate individuals. They were a part of Lauren, forcibly created to fulfill their mother’s dreams, to bring her love and happiness, and to make sure Graham Dickason never left her side. When they failed to deliver on this, putting a wedge in their parents’ marriage, and daring to pursue a bit of independence, they paid the ultimate price. When Lauren wanted to die, they had to die too, because Lauren “couldn’t bear the thought” of them being raised by another woman. Although they were never biologically her daughters, they belonged to and existed through her.
The devastating last words that Liane said to her mother- that she’s the “best mum” and she loves her, show that Liane had some practice at assuaging her mother’s narcissistic rage. She used a strategy that is common to the children of narcissistic mothers- flattery and appeasement- helping her mother conceal her ugly “true self” and restore her “false self”: the “Good Mother” that she presents to the world. It’s horrible to think about what she and her sisters went through- not only in their final moments, but throughout their short lives.
We owe it to these beautiful girls to acknowledge something. Acknowledge that mothers can be evil- even the smart ones, who qualify as doctors and know how to choose a safe car-seat. Acknowledge that mothers can be selfish, greedy, and malicious, even though they thought they wanted children so badly that they went through IVF 17 times. Acknowledge that mothers can want to hurt their children, sometimes for things that aren’t their fault. Even the ones who can pretend to be good mothers as long as it suits them- right up until they “snap”.
Evil is not black and white, and abusers can be vulnerable, remorseful, miserable, torn apart by anxiety, stress, depression, and their own disastrous choices. They are not always cold, although Dickason was pretty cold. They are not always hedonistic, not always callous. Sometimes, abusers are just mothers who didn’t get what they wanted, and don’t know what to do about it. Their feelings of resentment, frustration, jealousy, and control build and build- and then they kill.
Is Lauren Dickason a loving mother? Is that what we would tell her girls- had they somehow survived her attempt on their lives? Or should we acknowledge their pain, their confusion, and their deep sense of betrayal, not just the night their mother decided to take their lives, but maybe every single day they lived? The signs are there, even though we don’t want to see them. For the sake of Liane, Karla, and Maya, maybe we should.
