Childhood trauma can follow us through to adulthood, affecting not only their lives but also those around them — which can be a vicious cycle.
For one woman whose elder brother raped her when she was just a young girl, watching him move on with his life set her off.
The 29-year-old then decided to kill her family, but wanting to spare her favourite son a painful death, she administered insulin to him.
On Wednesday (5 May), the woman was sentenced to 5 years of jail.
As a young girl between 9 and 12, the woman was molested and raped by her elder brother.
He was sentenced to a boys’ home, reported Channel NewsAsia (CNA).
However, the woman harboured hatred for him. Subsequently, her relationship with her mother deteriorated when she felt she was siding him.
The woman also accused her father of raping her but investigations were unable to confirm this.
At some point, she ran away, got married and had 2 daughters and a son. Her mother later moved in with her when her father passed on.
In 2018, the brother who raped her got married and his wife got pregnant.
This angered her, feeling that he didn’t deserve to lead a normal life after what he did to her.
According to CNA, in Sep 2019, when her brother’s wife gave birth, the woman hatched a plan to kill herself, her mother, her brother and her 3 children by burning them alive with petrol.
The sole exception was her son, who was her favourite child — she wanted him to die painlessly, so she intended to use insulin injections.
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However, at the same time, her son reminded her of her brother and she began to hate him.
The woman then bought insulin pens from Malaysia and in Jan 2019, started injecting her 6-year-old son.
In total, she administered insulin to him 13 times, totalling up to about 20 to 30 units of insulin.
Soon after, the boy suffered from severe headache, nausea, vomiting, double vision, ringing in his ears, light sensitivity and numbness in fingers.
He was hospitalised multiple times for low sugar levels and a hypoglycemic seizure.
On a school trip in Jul 2019, a teacher recalled the woman insisting the boy was having a seizure and injecting him with insulin even though he seemed fine.
The hospital later found that he was not having a seizure, reported TODAY.
On 16 Jul 2019, the boy told a therapist that his mother had injected him on his arms and buttocks on multiple occasions.
Hospital staff confronted the woman, who confessed. They then made a police report.
According to psychiatric reports, the woman was found to have depression as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the sexual violence she was exposed to by her brother and father.
Besides that, she was also found to be a pathological liar where she created illness symptoms in her son out of the need for attention.
This is known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Despite her mental conditions, the judge concluded she was of sound mind at the time and knew what she was doing. She knew she would harm or kill her son.
The woman was sentenced to 5 years’ jail, reported Yahoo News Singapore.
The child displayed signs of PTSD and was brought under the care of child protection services.
This is a truly tragic case where the perpetrator herself seemingly became a victim of her traumatic.
We can only hope that the woman will receive the help she needs to truly heal and release the hold that her past continues to have on her.
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Featured image adapted from Storyblocks.
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