In your Buddhism Journal thread, you shared: “My mother was fond of suffocation and drowning. I practiced free diving breathing techniques to survive this. I was scared of dying in this violent way“- when I read these two sentences  yesterday morning, it was news to me and I was very surprised that I failed to read it earlier. At first, when I read this, I  “heard” myself  asking you incredulously: did it REALLY happen? I was surprised that you didn’t share such a severe traumatic detail in an original post on your first or second thread.

Not that it doesn’t happen that mothers drown their children. Very recent news, 5 minutes ago, Friday Sept 16, 2022, abc 7, ny. com: “The mother accused of drowning her three children off a Coney Island beach was arraigned on murder charges Friday from her hospital bed at NYU Langone, where she is receiving psychiatric attention. Erin Merdy, 30, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and three counts each of second-degree murder, both with depraved indifference to human life and murder with victim under 11 years old, in connection with the deaths of 7-year-old Zachery Merdy, 4-year-old Liliana Stephens-Merdy, and 3-month-old Oliver Bondarev. According to the criminal complaint, Merdy was caught on surveillance camera walking toward the ocean with the children just before 1 a.m. Monday. About two hours later, police observed a ‘barefoot and wet’ Merdy on the boardwalk by the beach. At about 4:20 a.m., police found Zachary Merdy and Liliana Stephens-Merdy ‘lying on the shoreline unresponsive, wet and with sand on their bodies’”.

From the news yesterday “Merdy had at least two reports of neglect filed against her with the city Administration for Children’s Services for failing to bring the kids to school… (one of the children’s fathers) told the New York Times his son was often dirty and hungry when he showed up for mandated custody visits. He told the outlet he reported the mom to ‘child protective services’ and attempted to get full custody of their son, to no avail. It’s not clear to which agency the father reported the mother.”

And of course, there is the infamous Andrea Yates from Huston, Texas who drowned her five children in the bathtub of their home back in June 2001.