Cycles That Kill

Taylor Parker didn’t just fake a pregnancy, she manufactured a false identity, and when that identity began to collapse, Reagan Simmons-Hancock and her unborn daughter, Braxlynn Sage, paid the price. In this episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia examines the case featured in Netflix’s Maternal Instinct through the lens of identity disturbance, emotional dysregulation, compulsive deception, and maternal emotional unavailability. This isn't just a story about fetal abduction, it’s a story about a woman whose real self never felt like enough, a mother who watched her daughter’s lies grow, and the deadly consequences of a cycle no one interrupted.

Thirty years ago, 43-year-old Delois Anderson was abducted from her Memphis home, taken to a cemetery, and buried alive alongside her son and his teenage friend. While public attention has focused on the men connected to the crime, almost nobody has stopped to ask about Delois herself. In this episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia uses her clinical framework, Origin Mapping, to explore the intergenerational beliefs, survival strategies, and family dynamics that may have shaped Delois’ life. This is not just a story about a triple murder, it's a story about a working mother, the loyalty she may have inherited from the women before her, and the deadly consequences of family rules that go unexamined.

Netflix’s coverage of the Mackenzie Shirilla case, The Crash, left viewers with a big, unanswered question: What the f#@k is wrong with this family? In the premiere episode of Cycles That Kill, Dr. Dylesia examines exactly that, exploring the family dynamics that conditioned Mackenzie Shirilla to commit vehicular homicide, taking the lives of her long-term boyfriend, Dominic Russo and friend, Davion Flanagan. This episode explores how entitlement, enmeshment, image protection, relational aggression, and a lifetime without meaningful accountability created a murderer. It's not a story about one bad moment, it’s a story about a problematic family system, a daughter who was never truly corrected, and the deadly consequences of a cycle no one stopped.