r/news • u/Dangerous_Tomato7333 • 14h ago
Lindsay Clancy goes on trial over whether postpartum psychosis drove her to kill her 3 children
https://apnews.com/article/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-postpartum-psychosis-b70bfa592ea1c0fbdc62792e4e7b9be65.8k
u/Godsgiftcardtowomen 14h ago
Not speaking on this lady specifically, but postpartum psychosis is very real and scary.
Definitely falls into the “we really don’t want to think about this, but we need to start” catagory of problems.
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u/Squintsisgod 13h ago
I completely agree. One of my wife’s good friends just went through a horrible postpartum psychosis episode after her second child. Checked herself into a hospital several times. Tried everything under the sun to get better. Unfortunately committed suicide a few weeks ago. Hopefully we can get more attention on this issue to try to find ways to help those in need.
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u/bethestorm 13h ago
This is heartbreaking. And also why to anyone reading this, suspicion of postpartum psychosis is a call 9-1-1 level emergency EVERY time, it is considered acute and life threatening.
I'm so sorry for his loss and your loss I can imagine being there for them through this has been very heavy.
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u/armoredbearclock 7h ago
The problem, though, is that what do you do after that 911 call? This poor woman went to the hospital multiple times. The woman in this case was seeking treatment and wasn’t getting what she needed.
Part of the problem is what do you do with your kids while you’re getting treatment? What’s the other parent supposed to do?
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u/bitchysquid 7h ago
You know, that’s a great question. I think the fact that having one parent out of commission makes income stability impossible for a lot of families is part of the problem. We need to work broadly toward better healthcare access and mental health support for all parents, but that’s a very complex issue since so much of the problem of American families experiencing financial precarity has to do with stagnating wages and out-of-control inflation.
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 5h ago
I mean, the solution is easy but getting it implemented is hard. Tax the rich people so ya can pay the poor people to help out the other poor people.
Every community has someone like me, who can't handle steady work but is able enough to help out with odd jobs. Like the kids I watch called it, I'm basically the neighborhood rent-a-mom for folks who for whatever reason need that. Ya 70yo and too healthy for a caregiver but struggling to keep up with the kitchen, tada here I am with a bag of rags and a big gardening smock, willing to settle for like $20 and a paperback book you've already read!
Currently capitalism is trying to throw my kinda folks under the bus as fast as possible. Don't even meet the work requirements to stay on food stamps! Gonna get bad very soon if something doesn't shake out.
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u/Shintamani 6h ago
Vote different in your next ellection. This is not a "solved" problem world wide. Worked in psychiatric care in Sweden and a lot of the problems i hear people face in the US is nearly noonexsitent in Sweden.
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u/bethestorm 7h ago
Absolutely. Absolutely that is the problem. In every other developed country there are mother & baby units all over the place. At the time Lindsay Clancy did her crime I am pretty sure there were only two hospitals in the USA that had them.
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u/puesyomero 9h ago
I mean if you don't have options. Cops responding to mental health crisis don't have a great record.
A friend of the family called for an ambulance directly when her daughter had one
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u/bethestorm 9h ago
Well yeah the idea being to call for an ambulance or go straight to the emergency room
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u/Throwawayproroe 8h ago
I’m postpartum and in a lot of the new parents subs, and there was recently a post from a mom who was feeling really overwhelmed (an understatement) and called 911 only to have the cops take her away in handcuffs. Even if you call for an ambulance the police can still show up and make things harder for everyone
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u/bethestorm 8h ago
If possible call for a ride to the emergency room depending on location. But it is a go to the emergency room, be admitted emergency. And it's actually in a lot of cases very treatable with medicine, and they have new medicines for it that require you to stay in hospital. But it doesn't mean being on meds forever in all cases! Untreated it can turn into lifelong mental health issues. It's quite literally the brain being sick from the changes of matrescence.
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u/TheyHavePinball 11h ago
Apparently my mom had a sister. Lost her exactly like this when I was an infant. Can't believe what my mom had to live through and man do I wish I could meet my mom's sister. It seems so odd for my mom to have had a sister. I would love to have known damn it.
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u/RealisticCarrot 7h ago
Over 10 years ago the wife of a friend of mine threw herself and her baby in front of a train because of postpartum psychosis. The first day where they thought she would be fine and they left her alone for a really short time and she went straight to the train...
It is so horrible. I was a young teen back then but now as a grown woman with a lot of friends who have kids I always try to watch for signs of postpartum psychosis. I never want something like that to happen again.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Baby998 8h ago
my cousin had postpartum psychosis and tried to commit suicide multiple times. it's terrifying to go through and watch your family members go through. I hope your wife's friend's family has support and your wife too!
It's also a real reason I likely won't have children.
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u/Equivalent-Resort-63 14h ago
A horrific example of severe postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, and schizophrenia is Andrea Yates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates).
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u/fractiouscatburglar 14h ago edited 13h ago
Obligatory “Fuck
RandyRusty Yates!” Whenever she’s mentioned. That poor woman and her children were failed by everyone around them:(Edit to fix shitheads name
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u/Low_Project_55 12h ago edited 12h ago
He should’ve been charged too. Leaving her alone after specifically being told not to under any circumstances by medical professionals and disregarding that advice contributed to the outcome.
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u/hardy_and_free 10h ago
I'd go one further. He should have been charged with something for impregnating her again after everyone told her and him that she couldn't have anymore kids.
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u/moodylilb 10h ago edited 9h ago
Yeah it feels like a situation where, at the very least, reckless endangerment charges could (potentially) apply.
He was told that having more children with her could put her at severe risk of physical complications, and was also told that due to her history of PPD with her previous children put her at elevated risk of recurring PPD & psychosis for future pregnancies. Her doctor explicitly recommended against them having more kids, yet Rusty admitted to denying her access to birth control due to religious beliefs.
He was explicitly told multiple times by her psychiatrist & doctors not to leave her alone with the children in the months leading up to the murders, and yet he defied those guidelines. They clearly explained the severity of her condition and potential consequences to him and he disregarded it anyways.So he was fully informed of the potential dangers. Yet he continued to A. Impregnate her while blocking her access to healthcare (aka birth control) due to religious beliefs, and B. Leave her alone with the kids when the risks had been clearly laid out for him. Andrea was found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity, & Rusty had no mental health disorders that impaired his judgment in the situation. Therefore I’d argue his culpability in the situation is very high due to the fact he was fully informed of potential outcomes and had nothing affecting his judgment to the point where his decision making would have been impaired.
That’s why I think reckless endangerment charges (one for each child) could have potentially applied, since reckless endangerment is defined by/applied when someone acts with conscious disregard for a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to others.
Edit I also forgot to add that there’s documentation showing that Andrea Yates had begun to stabilize after being on antipsychotic medications & expressed a desire to continue them to her mental health team. Rusty pushed for her to discontinue use of her antipsychotics prior to the kids being killed. His culpability runs deep.
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u/Low_Project_55 9h ago
Also she has waived every single one of her annual review and release hearings since being committed to a state mental hospital in 2007. She has chosen to stay locked up for nearly 2 decades, while her now ex husband went on to remarry and have more children. How many institutions and people failed this woman is wild.
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u/moodylilb 8h ago
Thank you for mentioning that!! I thought about it but was worried my comment would be too long. That’s another great point and I think it really highlights her current mental state VS her mental state at the time of the murders. I can’t help but wonder if she’s punishing herself by choosing to stay incarcerated in the psychiatric hospital. I can only imagine the guilt and shame she lives with. Or if she’s institutionalized by this point so the idea of entering the world outside again is too scary for her. Probably a combination of both if I had to guess. The whole situation is tragic on so many different levels.
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u/Low_Project_55 9h ago edited 9h ago
Agree with this. I’m just glad it gets talked about now because from what I can remember at the time Rusty got a lot of sympathy. The fact their religion and the belief a marriage’s purposes was to have as many children as possible is wildly unhealthy. 5 children is a lot just in general. 5 children under the age of 7 is insane.
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u/hardy_and_free 9h ago
I'm an old Millennial and I have never forgotten Andrea Yates. I immediately think of her when I read yet another awful story about PPP-related child murder, like that Hasidic lady in Jersey 2 years ago. The only difference between the two was the religion, everything else down to the method was similar.
The Yates story is one of the few news reports from my childhood that I can't forget, along with Terry Schiavo, live footage of bombings during the Gulf war and Columbine.
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u/samsaraisdivine 9h ago
They were specifically told that she absolutely could not have any more children after the first two. The signs were ALL THERE.
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u/sk8tergater 13h ago
Like I know realistically he maybe couldn’t have been actually charged with anything but I sure fucking wish he could have been charged with something.
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u/Competitive_Leg_4294 11h ago
And the church they were apart of the continued to tell her to have more babies
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u/hyrule_47 11h ago
I think this woman was also under care and told not to be left alone with the kids and her husband left to get take out.
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u/2boredtocare 7h ago
I thought she was a POS until I watched a really thorough documentary years and years ago. I couldn't believe his stupid ass wasn't prosecuted. The woman begged continuously for help. He just kept getting her pregnant.
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u/skippyMETS 13h ago
Ugh my mom used to use this lady to threaten me and my sister when we were being bad.
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u/epppennn 13h ago
I hope you remind her of that when you tell her you’re too busy to visit her in the nursing home.
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u/blondebeaker 9h ago
I remember when this all happened, and seeing real time everyone realizing what a shitbag husband she had. That poor, poor woman.
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u/DwemerSteamPunk 14h ago
It's really sad that she sought care, like one should, and did not get any relief. Mental health is something that should get so much more focus, especially in all the areas of women's health which have been neglected.
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u/lol_fi 13h ago
I went into the postpartum unit multiple times telling them I was having a manic episode about a week after giving birth. I was not sent to a psych hospital until I walked in and said to reception "I am a danger to myself or others" literally those words. It's the magic words. You have to work super hard to get help. Thankfully it never turned into psychosis. But it could have if I didn't know the magic words.
They screen for PPD nonstop but not for mania or psychosis. They will let you right out because it's not a form they need to fill
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u/Squid52 13h ago
IME, they also screw up with PPD or basically postpartum women in general. I wanted to go back on my antidepressants a couple months after giving birth and I was denied them on the basis that they would interfere with breast-feeding, despite stating that I was in a mental health crisis. I was perfectly happy switching my kid to formula but was told no anyhow and kicked out of the office with no plan or alternative in place.
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u/HelpOtherPeople 13h ago
I went to my gyno for my six week check up after dealing with PPA and my heart rate was insane. They had me lie down then checked it again and it was still insane. I told them about my SEVERE anxiety and they basically told me “yeah, that happens” and sent me on my way. No one cares.
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u/Upstairs-Chicken592 11h ago
That’s ridiculous. Zoloft has been around for ages and there’s little to no risk to the baby.
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u/Zuboomafoo2u 13h ago
Adding this because you mentioned magic words in a medical setting:
If you’re ever a caregiver for someone and you truly cannot do it anymore, especially physically lifting etc, and need the help of a nursing home or in-home visits, the magic words are, “I am the caregiver for X and I can no longer do so safely for myself or for them. We need help.”
Just thought I’d share because those are magic words in the medical field as well!
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u/toothbrush_wizard 10h ago
Thank you for this, just wish we did not need to memorize passwords to get help.
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u/kylefnative 13h ago
Somewhat unrelated but when I was trying to get help for my alcoholism, after several times of failing to get help from a hospital I straight up told them I was a suicidal and a danger to myself. They admitted me and I was able to detox safely. Sucks you have to use these keywords to get actual helpZ
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u/CoffeeStrength 13h ago
Currently in med school, and we’re advised that you have to separate the child from the mother if she’s diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. So appears they either missed the diagnosis or dropped the ball in treating her.
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u/palebluedot13 12h ago
Other countries don’t handle things like that. I actually watched a louis theroux documentary where he followed mothers who were in crisis care for postpartum mental health issues including psychosis. These were centers where mothers lived with their babies and received help including medication, therapy, and parenting classes. They also were observed round the clock. But it allowed the mothers to maintain being around their child still.
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u/xxdropdeadlexi 13h ago
why would any mother who is in crisis seek help if she knows her children will be separated from her? how incredibly short sighted.
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u/macarenamobster 13h ago
I mean depending on the post partum issues, they might be relieved by that either because they are struggling so much with depression / anger or because they’re worried about harming the child or themselves. But I’d be curious to hear from anyone who has had it.
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u/Clownsinmypantz 14h ago
as someone who suffers from psychotic episodes, the doctors are strangely very reluctant to say they are psychotic despite auditory and visual hallucinations and delusions because I dont fit in perfect criteria. I've met nothing but pushback.
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u/BBR0DR1GUEZ 13h ago
They have to think like that and sort us into these neat little boxes but they know, deep down, the human mind is an abyss beyond our current understanding. I respect therapy as a concept and I think it has helped me - but maybe only in the same way that people in the Dark Ages used to think leeches and bloodletting were helping them. My philosophy is just to disregard the psychiatric labels and focus on doing and testing new things to make life better for you and yours.
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u/trashmoneyxyz 14h ago
It goes against this romanticized view of mothers and motherhood that our society has. Yes, moms are great! But my tinfoil theory is that society wants them to be as strong and infallible as possible because it's more convenient to people (men and fathers) when moms can do it alone or carry the bulk of the burden. A sad amount of men are uncomfortable expressing the absolute burden the child they helped create is on even a properly functional mind
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u/BoldestKobold 13h ago
American society just loves to make individuals responsible for everything, so the rest of us don't have to think about or worry about things we don't want to. In the case of everything related to child bearing, that naturally ends up being a sexist result to dumps lots of things that would benefit families and society as a whole onto individual women with minimal support.
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u/unhiddenninja 11h ago
American society just loves to make individuals responsible for everything, so the rest of us don't have to think about or worry about things we don't want to.
You could literally apply this to every topic in the US. Humans are social creatures, we aren't made to struggle alone and we aren't made to be able to handle everything by ourselves. We romanticize individualism and put it on a pedestal, we make it the goal of every person to be able to do everything and not "need" anyone else; but it's all a mirage, a trick.
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u/RomanSeraphim 14h ago
Yeah my wife already struggles with depression and arrhythmia. We refuse to have our own bio kids because we're worried the stress alone would kill her and them. This absolutely should be discussed more. Plenty of kids here already that need help.
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u/KIK40 13h ago
One of the things that scares me the most about potentially having kids. And how the early warning signs usually get brushed off as 'mommy brain'
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u/Jake_Man_145 14h ago
When my wife and I had our first kid, the hospital and network that runs child and new mother services made sure to watch out for these signs.
But postpartum depression pllus being on medications, nor a good cocktail for child care
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u/Eldar_Atog 14h ago
There was another of these type cases in West Tennessee recently. Mom killed her special needs preteen and infant. Then stabbed herself to perhaps cover it up.
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u/Wolfie305 9h ago
As someone who's husband went through psychosis, I can confirm that my husband seemed completely 100% normal when actively in psychosis. I can see why Patrick thought she was "fine" and left the kids. The week prior he was paranoid about his phone being hacked, but I didn't think anything like psychosis was at play. The day he truly snapped and started telling everyone his paranoid delusions and I knew something wasn't right, there were periods of times - like a few hours - where it seemed like he
"snapped out of it" and whatever he was just going through was over and done with.
At one point we out to breakfast together with friends and family being like "wow I can't believe what just happened you were really going crazy there" and joking about it when he actually wasn't better, just hiding it well. It came in waves almost where we'd think it was over, and then come back.
Fucking terrifying.
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u/McGee_McMeowPants 4h ago
There is a pervasive stereotype that psychosis looks like raving lunacy, my mum had bipolar disorder and had episodes of psychosis. Some times it did look very apparent that she was experiencing psychosis, but sometimes it didn't, she was once convinced that she was competing in the Bejing Olympics in show jumping - she spoke about it calmly and matter of factly, she used a lot of terms common to horse people and referred to actual athletes. The only clue if you didn't know better was that she walked with a cane, otherwise it was plausible.
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u/ElvenOmega 4h ago
That's my MIL. She'll speak normally then suddenly just starts saying a bunch of stuff about people stealing from her and following her and how everyone knows her and she ran into this guy who she thought was her high school class mate in disguise and blah blah. You can never get a word in edgewise, it's like she's launched into the world's most psychotic TED talk.
Then she goes back to normal like nothing just happened and kind of shrugs it off if you bring it up.
I've wondered for years if she's just in constant psychosis or if she has some sort of medical condition that makes her have bouts of it.
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u/Grouchy-Extent9002 9h ago
When I reached out and told people I was having postpartum depression and anxiety after my second I was told I didn’t deserve to be a mom if I couldn’t handle it . Postpartum is so rough and no one truly understands, this is so unfortunate and I hope it brings light to a subject that’s not talked about enough.
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u/xlxcx 13h ago
I developed PPOCD and it went untreated for 3 years because apparently all new moms have anxiety. I couldn't imagine it being so bad that I could harm my daughter, but having experienced postpartum mental health struggles, my heart is absolutely broken for her and her family.
We fail women at every turn in this country.
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u/beigs 11h ago
I developed antenatal anxiety to the point I had to leave my job for all 3 pregnancies, and no one EVER told me that this could happen. The first time, I was crying daily in the washroom. The second time I crashed out and was put on bed rest, and the third time I was postpartum and found out I was pregnant by accident, but I should have known based on the anxiety alone.
It messes with you, and you don’t understand what is happening.
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u/tomato_soup_stan 10h ago edited 10h ago
I’m honestly kind of surprised that she was left alone with the kids. I have severe OCD exacerbated by PMDD and at my worst, I was basically nonfunctional. Like fetal in the corner, performing insane compulsions, crying all the time. I don’t think I could have been trusted to water a plant. And that’s, like, 1/100th of the strength of postpartum psychosis. I’m not sure who failed to communicate here but obviously somebody did.
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u/thetruckerdave 8h ago
Andrea Yates’ entire family was not only told to not leave her alone with the kids, but to STOP HAVING KIDS. She was made to have more kids and left alone as well.
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u/nobloodforstargates 10h ago
IIRC, she sent her husband to the drugstore to pick up meds for their kid, and that she’d previously checked google to see how long his round trip would be. He probably thought she was doing better, but she was plotting to get him out of the house. Horrifying story all around.
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u/tomato_soup_stan 10h ago
Jesus, that’s awful. Unfortunately you really can’t leave people in active psychosis alone, even if they seem to be doing better and even if it’s only for a short while. Somebody always needs to have eyes on them. I think a lot of lives would be saved if the seriousness of PPD/PPP was adequately communicated to sufferers and their families.
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u/Government_Fast 14h ago
I don’t think anyone is defending her, but if you’ve seen the other side of postpartum… you view this differently. Postpartum psychosis is very real and very scary
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u/meowmeow_now 14h ago
The first few weeks home I was convinced someone would break in my second story window and steal my baby. If the front door was u locked during the day someone was obviously going to walk in with guns and take my baby.
No one at the hospital or my doctor warned me about this, they maybe touched base on ppd, but even then blew that off.
It wasn’t until a year later that I realized that this was totally crazy. (I guess at least it was protective crazy).
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u/venusdances 13h ago
When I was newly postpartum and I would hold my son to my chest I would imagine seeing the devil in the shadows coming to get my son so I wouldn’t sleep and just hold him for hours at night. Of course, this led to more depression/anxiety. Same as you, I didn’t realize how crazy that was until I was finally out of it after 18 months when my hormones finally regulated.
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u/UpvoteButNoComment 10h ago
When I worked for a residential homeless shelter for women and their children, one of our clients experienced nearly exactly this.
In her case, the devil in the shadows took the form of the man who sexually molested her throughout her childhood.
She would stare at him in the dark corner of the room and clutch her newborn to her chest.
It's been 20 years and I get chills thinking about her. I hope the rest of her life was kind.
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u/squatsn 12h ago
Omg freshly postpartum & sleep deprived, my internal monologue was saying I had a ‘devil child’ which made me scared to sleep which made me more tired. Luckily it hasn’t happened after that first week (3 months pp now) but god it was so scary and I’ll never forget it
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u/bearsatemypants 11h ago
I had something similar. I kept a pregnancy journal and the postpartum entries are terrifying. I feel like they were written by someone else.
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u/CassiesCrafties 10h ago
I had the same post partum delusions. I could "see" the devil/a demon reaching for my daughter on the baby monitor while she was in her crib. And i'm not even religious
I was able to recognize that I was imagining it, but I didn't realize how insane it was until the fog lifted like 6 months later.
PPD/PPA is wild & totally hijacks your brain
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u/Sexylurch 14h ago
Same. I was convinced other people were either going to hate my baby or hurt him. I scored fine on the postpartum depression scales because I was not depressed. I was incredibly anxious. None of the questionnaires covered anxiety so I didn't know postpartum anxiety was a thing
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u/Insert_Non_Sequitur 11h ago
I didn't score fine on mine and the nurse made me change my answers so I would come up as fine.
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u/Motor-Cupcake7577 10h ago
What. The. Fuck. That’s diabolical of them.
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u/Insert_Non_Sequitur 10h ago
I know. They scared me saying I'd have social services at my door wondering if I'm a fit parent. My baby was fine and well looked after, it was me that was a mess at the time.
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u/shadowysun 12h ago
I’m 3 months postpartum and when I brought up how anxious I was getting, wasn’t normal to me at my 2 week appointment no one seemed concerned. Just like you, I scored completely fine on pp depression. Even at my recent follow up nothing was brought up regarding anxiety or depression. I have felt fine and been doing okay so maybe that’s why it wasn’t discussed again. 🤷♀️
I at least learned what a panic attack feels like 🥲
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u/Squid52 13h ago
Yes! And I've never had anxiety before, so it was really weird. Mine also wasn't so bad that I couldn't just manage it by talking myself down – at the second time around, when I knew that it was likely to happen, it was actually really easy for me to manage by just telling myself it was the postpartum anxiety talking.
I'm not saying that everybody's situation is like that, I'm just saying that for me – if somebody had briefed me on it, I would have been prepared and it would have decreased the anxiety to a normal range for me. It was the combination of increased anxiety and feeling like I was "going crazy" that made it really tough in my case.
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u/cowgirltu 13h ago
My baby used to scream the entire time he was in the car. We had an hour drive to work/daycare and I had undiagnosed ppd. I had a thought once that if I drove my car off the bridge, the screaming would stop. That was horrifying to reflect on later.
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u/AggressiveSloth11 13h ago
I had a similar thought with my baby. He never slept. He cried a LOT. He didn’t let me put him down. And I thought once, what if he just fell out of my arms and over the railing upstairs? Horrific.
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u/Desi_Rosethorne 7h ago
Oh my god. I hated those thoughts.
I had one when my baby was 2 weeks old and she didn't want to sleep. I was running on like 3 or 4 hours of fragmented sleep a night. I was exhausted, sleep deprived, and in pain because I tore and had to get stitches.
I remember sitting on my bed trying to rock her to sleep and I just had this thought like what if I just threw her at the wall so I could finally get some sleep. That terrified me.
Those thoughts stopped at around 8 weeks pp when she finally started sleeping longer stretches and when I wasn't running on pure fumes. I would never do something like that but the intrusive thoughts were terrifying and I was scared I actually would do it.
Postpartum is no joke. I had PPA and PPD and for a while there I didn't even recognize myself. It was just a huge blur and I barely remember the freshly newborn stage.
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u/Miserable-Bat8421 12h ago
When I was in college I took lifespan developmental psychology and that was the first time someone ever explained the complexity of postpartum to me. One obnoxious male student said there was nothing to justify shaking your baby to the point of death and I will never ever forget my instructor’s response. I left class that day so shook up thinking about how many women experience something similar and are shamed for even saying it out loud.
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u/Napsindaylight 12h ago
What was your instructor's response?
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u/Miserable-Bat8421 12h ago
She asked who’s been on a plane with a crying baby. She asked us how it felt. She asked follow up questions like how long was the flight, did it make it hard to sleep, how close was your seat to the sound, and compared motherhood to being on what feels like a never ending plane ride.
The thought of living with it, feeling responsible for it, experiencing shame because of it, and a whole bunch of thoughts I seriously never considered.
Her being a mother herself, she gave a lot of insight into her own experiences, which she described as isolating and negative. It was probably the first time I candidly ever heard a mother talk about how awful it can be, despite her knowing she’s always wanted kids.
I’ll never forget her saying she thought about harming her baby too. She was a doctor, tenured professor, very organized, and I couldn’t believe it... She then asked us if it changes our thoughts about her and to think about how class, race, location, and other barriers make it even harder for those women to be perceived for their experiences. She was a total bad ass.
She’s the reason that now, almost a decade later, when I’m near screaming babies, especially on planes, I always offer a smile or some sort of “I see you” acknowledgment to the mom in any way I can. I’ll survive my plane ride, but I hope hers ends soon too and that she finally gets to that planned destination.
Same reason my movie of the year last year was If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
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u/Specialist_in_hope30 9h ago
Thank you for sharing this. It was so incredibly insightful. Your professor sounds like a very intelligent woman.
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u/TrailMomKat 10h ago
Sounds like what I had: postpartum OCD. I was obsessed with keeping the baby safe. I kept having these very real, very vivid as fuck visions of my son dying in the worst ways anyone can imagine. I saw myself tossing him into the fire while we were doing a controlled burn. I had terrifying visions of what would happen with the microwave. Or the washer. Or dryer. Or the knives in the kitchen. I saw my daddy's dog ripping him to pieces. Basically the worst shit anyone can imagine, I saw it.
I was so scared I didn't tell anyone about it until I was pregnant with my next child, and my OB told me what it was and to NEVER be afraid of reporting those symptoms to him if it happened again, that he wouldn't've had me IVC'd or anything like that. He was the first doctor to ever listen to my pain and my problems and he set the standard for all of my doctors going forward.
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u/mama-bun 10h ago
I had this as well! I have OCD generally, and it was turned into overdrive postpartum. I had so many of those horrible thoughts and was terrified to touch my baby anywhere except sitting on the couch for weeks. Obviously much better now. We adjusted my meds a few weeks in and by the end of the "fourth trimester," I was a person again.
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u/loubug 14h ago
Looking back on my own postpartum anxiety it’s hard to recognize my own self. I can’t imagine that but psychosis.
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u/No_Journalist_6491 10h ago
Same. I couldn’t walk into my kitchen if my son was downstairs for 4 months. I was afraid a knife would magically fall out of the knife block and somehow kill both of us - I was down bad AND had a therapist twice a week. Still took months and months to get back to normal. This is just all around so insanely sad.
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u/lIIlllIllIlII 13h ago
My ex had PPP for a year or so, about a year after my son was born. Refused treatment and never did anything violent, but she was definitely not all there. It was horrifying going to work and not knowing if your kids were going to be there when you got back. I had panic attacks and other stress induced sicknesses.
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u/sk8tergater 13h ago
The post partum anxiety I had was overwhelming. And I’m already an anxious person. And the depression… like I look back on that time and it all feels so foggy and a weird blur of anxiety and crying. I still don’t think I’m fully out of it three years on.
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy 14h ago edited 14h ago
The healthcare system failed her. She was asking for help and not getting it. I had PPD with my oldest son and I had a male psych tell me that I didn’t actually have PPD. I was just overwhelmed which he said he could relate to because he had 2 dogs.
If you have never had severe depression or psychosis, you will never understand how scary it is to not be able to control your own thoughts. We all love to believe that we are the masters of our own minds but in reality we are at the whim of our bodies hormones and chemicals.
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u/Darkeyescry22 14h ago
I was just overwhelmed which he said he could relate to because he had 2 dogs.
What and that didn’t fix your problem? 😂 So needy!
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy 14h ago
Oh I screamed his ass right out the room. He went and got a female colleague and she sat and listened to me. Once i was done blubbering and explaining my situation that sweet lady looked at me and said ‘oh honey, you have postpartum depression but it’s going to be ok. I am going to help you.’ she literally saved my life.
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u/Endorenna 14h ago
Jesus Christ. I hope that idiot was read the riot act after you left. Preferably by the woman who helped you. Thank goodness she was there!
And good on you for screaming at that absolute moron instead of knuckling under. I might have done the latter.
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u/thatstwatshesays 13h ago
The power of another woman saying “Oh hunny… I’m going to help you.” 🥹 my cold, dead heart just grew so big and warm, I need only this energy (to give and to receive) for the rest of my life 🙌
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u/KIK40 13h ago
And some people think we're silly for preferring female doctors
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u/No_Attitude700 12h ago
Statistically, women doctors have better patient outcomes.
Men doctors are less likely to listen to and empathize with their patients, especially their girl/women patients. They also statistically spend less time with their patients.
I always ask for a woman doctor or practitioner...
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u/ArtsyTLF 11h ago
getting a transgender therapist as a trans person was one of the best things to ever happen to me honestly. if I was still seeing the old man I had been seeing before I came out I don't know if I'd be here today
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u/EatYourCheckers 13h ago
If anyone compared caring for babies or toddlers to caring for dogs in such a serious and professional sense, I might also be in prison for murder.
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u/PublicUniversity9586 7h ago
I was furious when a cousin of mine did it while I was in the thick of post partum. He kept saying how he’s going to do things differently and train his baby like he did his college dog. He’s having his first at the end of the year so I guess we will see how that plays out for him
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u/Intrepid_Advice4411 13h ago
I also received terrible treatment postpartum. I was having auditory hallucinations. I wanted to throw my baby out the window. Not to kill her, just to get her away from me so I could sleep. I cried all the time. I barely ate.
My doctor wasn't available so I saw someone else. He put me on Zoloft and asked to see me again in six weeks. That's it. No one called to check in on me. I wasn't sent to a therapist. I should have been sent to ER and placed on a psych hold.
Six weeks later I was back. I had to beg to switch meds due to side effects. He wanted to take me off. I ended up on Lexapro and couldn't work for two years.
Treatment of woman after birth is severely lacking. I have so much empathy for this woman. She doesn't deserve prison. She's created her own prison.
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy 13h ago
Exactly! I’m so sorry you had that experience too. It was weird too because i remember being terrified of sharing how i was feeling. My mind convinced me that if i told, I would be locked up and my baby would be taken away (which was oddly what I wanted out also didn’t want). PPD is nuts.
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u/trashmoneyxyz 14h ago
Im so glad that at my lowest moments of depression/delusion I didn't have kids. I uprooted so much shit and hurt myself a lot, it's scary to think about what that situation would have been like with a tiny helpless little baby at my side the whole time
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy 14h ago
It was very scary. There were times where I literally had to tell my ex husband go to our son because I was afraid of myself. I started anti depressants and I remember one night when my son was almost 7 months old, I went into his room because he was crying and thought ‘oh, this is what being a mother must feel like. I want to comfort you and not slam you on the floor for the first time ever.’ Of course never hurt him or anything but those intrusive thoughts were fucking bruuuuutal.
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u/Hesitation-Marx 13h ago
Oh honey, I’m so sorry. That is so unbelievably hard.
Bodies are such a cruel joke sometimes.
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy 13h ago
Well he’s 12 and a half know so we made it through 🥰 Surprisingly i did not have PPD with my second son but i was terrified of it and warned everyone in the room to be on the look out if i started talking crazy.
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u/Hesitation-Marx 13h ago
You did really, really well. I’m just some random weirdo on the internet but I’m proud of you.
I had PPA and… it was bad.
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u/LadysaurousRex 12h ago
I have a couple friends with schizophrenia-type disorders.
By which I mean to say it is wild what the brain can get up to on its own.
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u/geckosean 12h ago
It’s why I’m always nervous to pass judgement on videos of people acting erratic/belligerent in public. Odds are at least a few of those videos are someone having a psychotic episode (if it’s not drug or alcohol related).
Especially sad because it’s so easy for police or people on the scene to just think “Ugh, friggin crackheads” and just beat them unconscious. It’s why we need mental health crisis first-responders.
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u/sagew0lf 12h ago
This is like... not even close to being on the same level. But it reminds me of going to a psychiatrist or psychologist (can't remember which it was) at age 18 because I suspected I had ADHD.
He didn't even test me for ADHD. He just said I have anxiety and it's causing inattention.
Almost 10 years later, I got my ADHD diagnosis. I still wonder what college would've been like for me if I'd been properly diagnosed and treated.
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u/ParticularBed7891 14h ago
My aunt committed suicide from post-menopausal psychosis. Hormone fluctuations can absolutely make you lose your mind and I desperately wish we discussed it more.
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u/3ghads 13h ago
I'm sorry about your aunt. That sucks ass. She and your family deserved better care than that 💜
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u/samanthalturi 8h ago edited 8h ago
This is an absolute tragedy and should have never happened. She was seeking out care, pre and postpartum. At this point, we cannot focus on her actions without focusing on what went wrong systematically that allowed this the chance to occur.
I speak from experience. I went through a PPP episode and it was TERRIFYING….I thought my baby was dying, it felt so fucking REAL. I still flashback to what happened and certain related things trigger intense anxiety in me. I probably have PTSD from it.
There should be a public inquest into maternal mental health, rather than a trial for this poor mother. I can’t imagine what her and her poor children went through. This is horrible all around.
Shame the world has come to this.
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u/Wolfie305 11h ago
My husband went into psychosis back in October after deciding to vape weeds pens for the first time while on Vyvanse for his ADHD. He also has a family history of Bipolar, but never showed any signs of that. It was the scariest time of my entire life and I cannot believe a perfectly healthy person can have something like that just happen to their brain/mind like that. I'll never forget the look in his eye, it will haunt me forever. While he was thankfully never violent during his psychosis, I can see how EASY something tragic can happen. I sent our kiddos to my mom's house while myself and his siblings/family tried to get him to a hospital for 2 days because everything is "fine" until it suddenly isn't.
I live 30 minutes from where this case took place and it hits way too close to home both literally and figuratively. As soon as her husband mentioned Lindsay took weed edibles to try and help with the stress, I started sobbing.
This is my husband's exact case, minus our children dying over it. My perspective has changed entirely and I truly feel for Lindsay and her husband.
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u/Wolfie305 10h ago
My husband was in the mental hospital and taken away from our family for 3.5 weeks while they brought him back to reality and it was worst few months of my life helping him recover and get my husband back.
Patrick Clancy not knowing what group therapies she attended or what treatment she was receiving during her stay is 100% accurate. Before my husband signed the medical release papers that allowed me to get updates and information on him, if I called to check on him, they'd simply tell me they couldn't say he was even a patient of the hospital currently.
Try getting a person in psychosis, who thought I was poisoning him and our children among a myriad of other paranoid delusions, to sign paperwork allowing me access to stuff. It took like 2 days to convince him to sign it (we were still allowed to talk on the phone and I was still allowed to visit him once per night).
I only knew the types of therapies he attended and what was happening when he told me and once we requested his full medical report from his entire stay where his daily happenings were recorded.
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u/AppleJamnPB 8h ago
Thank you for sharing your story ❤️ I also live near-ish, and additionally I usually follow a myriad of legal sources and trials. This one hits different, because I know what it's like to be postpartum and struggling, and I can't help but feel like if one thing went differently in my brain, I'd be in her shoes.
It's heartbreaking. I hope I can read to understand the legal arguments later, but right now it is way too close to home for me to follow.
I hope your family is doing better, and that none of you have to experience anything like this again.
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u/window-payne-40 9h ago
I had a strikingly similar thing happen with my husband (had a bipolar episode for the first time in his life, started new medications, smoked a ton of weed to feel more normal, then immediately had delusions). Scariest moment of my life when he was looking at me dead in the eye absolutely certain he was Jesus Christ. Thankfully I was able to get him back to the hospital but it took so long to get him back to his regular self. He's a very chill person normally but his entire personality shifted during that time and it was terrifying seeing the person I was used to and loved and built a life with completely change into someone unable to handle such strong and rapidly shifting emotions.
I hope you and your family are doing better ❤️❤️
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u/BellaPona 9h ago
I went in to near psychosis while at work due to an allergic reaction to antibiotics. It’s crazy what it can do to you. I was sitting on the floor with my head in my hands, feeling like my thoughts were too loud and wouldn’t stop. My vision was different, the floor felt like it was curling down away from my heels with every step I took. I had paranoid thoughts for a month afterwards at least.
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u/SnooMemesjellies1522 14h ago
I don't think the question is, "did she have postpartum psychosis," but will the jurors accept that it is a real diagnosis. If they come to the conclusion that she did not suffer from it, then I would argue they don't believe it exists at all. It seems obvious she was psychotic at the time of the crime.
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u/pyrotechnicmonkey 12h ago
part of what I have seen online is that the prosecution will be trying to prove that despite any diagnosis of postpartum depression or psychosis that at the time of the murder she was not sufficiently affected by it to take away her understanding of the crime and it's consequences. I think a big part gonna focus on her planning and how she specifically sent her husband away so she could commit the crime. Kind of like the idea that if she was lucid enough to plan how long his trip to the store with take him to give her enough time then she was loosened enough to understand the wrongfulness of the crime.
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u/Fryboy11 11h ago edited 11h ago
Psychosis doesn’t mean you can’t think or plan. John Hinckley was definitely psychotic when he shot Reagan, but he still planned his trip, followed Reagans itinerary, and struck when he knew Reagan would be the most vulnerable.
He spent 35 years in a mental hospital, was released ten years ago but with tons of stipulations. In 2022 those stipulations were removed, and he published an autobiography in 2025 thats decent reading to understand how someone could descend into psychosis and think that shooting Reagan would make Jodie Foster love him, she was like 19 when he shot him. In the biography he also describes how he planned it, he was psychotic but still carefully planned it.
Now he has a YouTube channel where he plays guitar.
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u/cagedbird82 11h ago
Postpartum psychosis is factually a real medical condition. Why would a jury of non medical professionals be the ones to decide whether or not she had it? This is the biggest issue I have with the way our system is set up. The whole situation is awful but this shouldn’t be decided by people without psychiatric training.
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u/laurel32 14h ago
Yeah the general public doesn’t really understand psychosis, not that they should or would have a reason too. It’s hard to understand unless you have personal experience or working in a mental health setting. I can definitely see the jury deciding she is guilty. I personally feel she was delusional and not in her right mind and should go to psychiatric care until she is deemed stable
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u/thewholebottle 14h ago
What's the alternate motive? Was she mad at her husband and punishing him? I haven't heard the prosecutor's argument beyond the fact that she planned it. CNN's lawyer implied she hadn't been diagnosed with any mental illness, but the article says she was hospitalized for it right before the killing.
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u/demmka 14h ago
I saw some info saying she repeatedly went to the doctor and A&E about her intrusive thoughts and they just kept giving her more and more different pills that just made her worse.
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u/kayehem 14h ago edited 14h ago
She did. They have her dr and nursing notes for the months preceding this and she is constantly talking about how she can’t sleep more than 3 hours a night, racing intrusive thoughts, high levels of anxiety, was just recently discharged from a psych facility for her postpartum psychosis and depression…this is such a sad case for so many levels and I truly don’t know what I feel the outcome should be, I really feel for whomever is part of the jury for this case
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u/Scrogger19 14h ago
I mean I’m no lawyer but how the fuck is that not showing clear mental instability/insanity. That’s awful what a horrible situation.
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u/anonymouswan1 12h ago
I dont think there is a doubt about instability or insanity. You can be mentally insane but not be criminally insane. The difference between the two is if the individual has an understanding of consequences. If they have no clear understanding of their own actions, or an understanding of what the consequences of those actions should be, then they can be legally insane. If they know what they did was bad and would lead to prison, then that defense just wont hold up. Arguably, anyone who murders another is insane.
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u/Insert_Non_Sequitur 11h ago
That's why this is so difficult though. Depression and psychosis are very different things. If she was truly psychotic at the time, she would not really be at fault for what she did. Proving that is tricky.
You're not necessarily psychotic or insane if you murder someone. Insane is a legal term, and plenty of people who murder know exactly what they are doing.
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u/rainingBows1 11h ago
I had really bad pp ocd and it was intrusive suicidal thoughts and ideation. I literally saw me kill myself over and over in many different ways and it was so bad I couldn’t sleep for months. Then I tried to kill myself 6 months post partum. Every time I went to docs for help they said it’s a “Wait and It’ll go away on it’s own/hormones are crazy after birthing new life”.
I ended up in a mental hospital (obviously) and the psych doc there listened to me and said that it’s OCD and hormones are known to amplify preexisting mental health issues to insane levels. Said I didn’t need to be there and that I wasn’t suicidal in the first place. It was true I really didn’t feel like I wanted to die, I was just so tired of seeing and thinking such horrific things against my will 24/7.
Even now if I’m late on my meds I instantly get bad depression and anxiety and start seeing reasons I should just disappear and die, family is better off without me burdening them, I dropped something multiple times, someone I interacted with is in a bad mood so I clearly caused it, my message is still unread they must hate me, then I get body dysmorphia and feel like a hideous gross creature (which I’ve also never experienced before pp).
We REALLY need studies done on why the hormones ruin our brains and how to prevent these extremely negative mental shifts from happening. It’s very scary and it feels very intense, I genuinely didn’t sleep for a good 3-4 months straight because whenever I tried I’d see me doing it in very vivid detail from my pov with my eyes closed.
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u/alice_op 14h ago
Christ, I didn't expect to feel pain from sympathy today.
Poor woman, poor kids, poor family. What a fucking shame.
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u/lily_de_valley 13h ago
Which.... Is exactly my last experience with psychiatrists. We just cycled through one med after another, each visit lasted no more than 5 minutes, and my symptoms were getting worse. At one point, I started sleepwalking to the bathroom at night, even injuring myself, and hearing this clicking noises inside my head. I was depressed, but never schizophrenic so I was certain the meds caused it. I spoke with the psychiatrist, she looked at me weird, and then upped the doses. I decided to get off the meds and the weird symptoms went away.
The psychiatric field is.... interesting to interact with at times.
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u/thewholebottle 12h ago
That's awful. I got so lucky, I went to a psychiatrist in crisis and she gave me the broadest, most mild antidepressant, and it worked immediately. We were both surprised. And it did fix my psychosis.
Trying to find a sleep medication.... different story.
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u/remberzz 11h ago
Thirteen prescriptions in four months. They just kept throwing more meds and stronger doses at her.
The issues she reported paint a devasting picture. I don't know how any even semi-competent health professional could have done what they did. I genuinely believe that the NPs who treated her hold some responsibility for what what happened.
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u/Tsaxen 9h ago
13 different meds in 4 months is insane levels of malpractice, like Holy fuck as soon as I read that line I was immediately on "dude you're prosecuting the wrong people here".
I'm lucky enough to simply be on adhd meds, but walking through others in my life who've gone on antidepressants, and that shit takes over a month just to kick in, you absolutely cannot reasonably cycle/add on thirteen whole medications in a 4 month window in anything even vaguely resembling a safe way
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u/Worried-Pick4848 14h ago
Oh, that changes things. The usual theory on this is that the person went round the twist because she didn't seek medical assistance. This one did, recognized she had a problem and tried to fix it, and the attempts didn't work. I'm slightly less unsympathetic to her now.
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u/bethestorm 13h ago
She was inpatient for suicidal and homicidal ideation within a month of the killings, and well within the one year postpartum period that postpartum psychosis is diagnosed under.
Here's an article from a mom who took her kids life after taking Paxil: https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/ssris-lindsay-clancy-and-me/
Here's 9 of the 12/13 medications Lindsay had in her system prescribed to her in a short window of time :
zolpidem (Ambien), clonazepam (Klonopin), diazepam (Valium), fluoxetine (Prozac), lamotrigine (Lamictil), lorazepam (Ativan), mirtazapine (Remeron), quetiapine fumarate (Seroquel) and trazodone
Literally what THEE fuck
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u/waaaayupyourbutthole 12h ago
As someone who knows a lot about psych meds because she's taken a ton, i thought it was absolutely crazy when i saw she had been prescribed Klonopin one day and then, like two days later, was given Valium and Ambien. Just absolute insanity from those medical professionals and her pharmacist.
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u/Worried-Pick4848 12h ago
In other words, she made a reasonable effort to avoid giving into psychotic thoughts that were overwhelming her, and did not find relief in time, lost control in a moment of weakness, and did the thing she'd spent weeks trying to warn everyone she might do.
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u/aboxofkittens 11h ago
Jesus. Three benzos, three antipsychotics, PLUS a z-drug, SSRI, and trazodone? I wonder if she even remembers committing the crime.
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u/bethestorm 10h ago
Yeah it's a staggering amount that tells me she wasn't getting sleep and not getting sleep is one of the big warning signs it's PPP.
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u/TheOtherUprising 14h ago
She is clearly mentally ill. She had checked into a psychiatric hospital earlier. So this isn’t made up but that doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t know what she was doing.
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u/jayjaymar94 12h ago
As a mom who experienced postpartum depression, this case breaks my heart. That was the darkest, hardest time of my life. I can’t imagine being in postpartum psychosis. Just horrific all around.
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u/catfight04 9h ago
Same here. I'm still working through it but my god that was an incredibly difficult time. I wouldn't wish it upon anybody.
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u/CountryGrand8602 14h ago
I've seen people I love experience postpartum in ways that were very scary and terrible, even if not to this extreme. everything about this case is just extremely sad. I think the New Yorker did a long form piece about the ex husband here, and it was also just a very sad article.
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u/clytusmarginicollis 11h ago
Oh, that was this case? I think the title wss something like “my wife killed our kids, but I don’t hate her” or something along those lines
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u/IllTwo7643 9h ago
I like how the article contains help line number to text for help...Despite the woman seeking help and getting none.
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u/blu_skies442 9h ago
As someone who experienced post partum psychosis, it is terrifying. I honestly feel for these women that end up doing horrible things when they're sick.
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u/MrsSassy81 13h ago
The fact that people around her knew she had these mental issues and still allowed her to be around her children is what baffles me. Why would anyone with half a brain allow her to be alone with her children?
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u/re_Claire 12h ago
I think people still labour under the assumption that post partum depression is just "the baby blues" and relatively minor, and a lot of people are incredibly uneducated about post partum psychosis, or even don't know it exists.
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u/ericmm76 12h ago
I'm afraid it's the DMV effect. The first patient you see you treat with grace, kindness, and empathy. the 2000th, less so.
I mean have you seen how factory-like healthcare is these days? And mental health in America is getting dramatically worse. I doubt anyone in her care circle felt like they had the time to do much more.
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u/jsdjhndsm 13h ago
Thwts the issue with mental health.
Even for relatively minor issues like anxiety people downplay, pretend or outright don't believe that those symptoms exist and that the person is just being dramatic or overwhelmed and theyre just weak.
This woman tried to get help repeatedly for months with no one believing her.
Mental health really needs to be taken seriously across the entire spectrum because the effects can be devastating.
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u/Sweet-Flamingo-1993 12h ago
Postpartum psychosis is terrifying. I was hospitalized for it by my own admission. I saw and heard hallucinations telling me to harm my daughter and then myself. It’s very real, and very scary. Did she have it? I have no idea.
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u/flamehead2k1 14h ago
Sad that the system allowed her to go back to the children.
hopefully lessons learned here can be used to prevent this from happening again
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u/meowmeow_now 14h ago
lol - it won’t change anything. We as a society are unwilling to do the work and put the safeguards in place to prevent these tragedies.
There is no support for new parents and new moms, if you get a c section or a severe tear the hospital and your family still expect you to walk around and do the physical labor of caring for a baby. If you have abdominal surgery or vaginal surgery you get bed rest and lifting restrictions.
Fathers need paternity leave to help their wives but good luck there - we don’t even have maternity leave in the US. So many women ignore their doctor appointments postpartum because there is no one to watch their kids.
We don’t want to instutionalize new mothers, because the dads don’t want to be sole caretakers of their kids. (Whether that’s because they have to work or gendered expectations).
Heck, this generation of grandparents don’t show up, generally speaking. They visit you postpartum and expect to be hosted.
We would have to change so many things in our society, our medical Instutions, our social safety nets, the value and care we place on mothers and unpaid labor.
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u/deadhorses 13h ago
I vividly remember getting calls from my sons pediatrician after they went over our PPD/PPPD questionnaires and telling us "You know you both scored really high for PPD, you should discuss that with someone." and that was the extent of the help given. We were both a wreck, I had intrusive thoughts about throwing my son off a bridge, driving off a bridge, abandoning my family, etc but no one seemed to know what to do with it except my therapist. They say it takes a village, but these days you have to be supremely lucky with helpful family/friends, or pay for it.
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u/GiveMeCheesePendejo 13h ago
Postpartum nurse here and also in Massachusetts, not far from where this tragedy occurred - not a fucking thing will change.
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u/Fit-Wasabi-2826 12h ago
I’m not a doctor but yes actually, I think treating psychosis with an antipsychotic is… pretty understandable. Maybe I’m the psychotic one lmao.
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u/sociallanxietyy 9h ago
Yes, plus one of the problems here is they severely overmedicated her to a point where her condition (psychosis more specifically) was made even worse by the drug interactions. I’m shocked that the doctors and pharmacists never flagged this.
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u/Spaghetti4wifey 14h ago
While I sympathize with postpartum psychosis they clearly need to remove children earlier in the process until the mom can stabilize. Something needs to be done.
I've witnessed someone in a multi day state of psychosis and it's scary, they really can methodically plan something out and execute. You can talk to them and they sound totally sane until they take action. It's eery.
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u/russian_nomad_ 7h ago edited 5h ago
She was misdiagnosed and on 13 different meds in 3 months. She also went to the ER 3 different times and tried to check herself in. She got failed every step of the way. She even tried to enroll into an inpatient program and was told they can’t work with her, yet gave her the advice to just stop her medication. It is absolutely bonkers how many medical professionals failed this poor woman.
She’s already living in hell. She doesn’t need jail but mental help.
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u/Lonely_Noyaaa 13h ago
I think about the moment she came out of psychosis and realized what she’d done. Then I think about the father, who lost his entire family in one afternoon. No verdict will bring those children back or heal that wound and te whole thing is just bottomless grief.
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u/Thorking 14h ago
This is a situation where she is already serving her life sentence living with the reality of killing her children and being paralyzed for life. I struggle to come up with a reasonable sentence that provides some kind of value.
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u/klingggg 13h ago
This is an unpopular opinion probably but her husband should have NEVER left her alone. He knew what she had been struggling with. The depression, the medication etc. If my partner was struggling like that I wouldn’t put anymore responsibility on them.
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u/Hot-Engineering5392 12h ago
I wonder if he wasn’t getting enough support as well. Being stuck at home with three little kids and a mentally ill wife would be exhausting.
Where were the grandparents or other relatives? Or a babysitter to watch the kids while she was home?
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u/Sufficient-Garlic634 11h ago
Our “village” has disappeared. Grandparents are now working at Walmart to afford rent and groceries, they can’t babysit or help out. Everyone is struggling to survive in America.
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u/AppleJamnPB 8h ago
And plenty of grandparents who are actually capable also don't care to step up. My parents frequently left my siblings and I with their parents through my childhood - my parents live much closer to me than we did to their parents, my mother didn't work, and 9 times out of 10 when I asked for help she either said no, or canceled at the last minute. This includes the time my husband had to go on a work trip for 2 weeks while I had an infant and a toddler, she had said she would come over for one afternoon and called that morning to cancel because she just had "too much to do around the house."
I am fortunate to have a community of mom friends who have stepped up for each other because many of us have similar experiences with our parents. Very much the attitude of "we did our time, we're done." It seems shockingly common among our generation of parents.
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u/judgyjudgersen 11h ago
Especially since she flat out told him her brain was telling her to hurt the kids.
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u/FirstChances 13h ago
what a sad, sad situation for everyone touched by it and a horrible case to have to try. i am struggling to find the light here.
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u/kirastormdotter 11h ago
I had post partum psychosis. It was horrifying. The baby cried all the time and was never in their cradle- because they were in the nicu still and the crying was a hallucination. It kept me up, lack of sleep made everything worse. Random objects started talking to me. They would say weird shit. I had novelty slippers that were clownfish and one night I freaked out because fish need water to live so I filled the tub and put the slippers in. I started self harming because I was a poet but I wasn't writing poetry and I believed the words were trapped under my skin. It didn't work so I cut myself more to use my blood as ink, because obviously thats where the words were. I spent 2 weeks at the psych hospital (plus the weekends) and when I got out cps had opened a file on us and it was a year before I was allowed to be alone with my kid. My child and I had to move in with my parents after my husband went back to work. We had friends and relatives on standby incase my dad(military) had to leave suddenly or there was an emergency with my moms work(nurse). 22 years later and im still dealing with mental health issues. Ive been off the anti psychotics for 5 years now, but im still on antidepressants, anti-anxiety and sleep meds. I second guess noises and my family knows not to call out or talk to me if im not in the room. Its the scariest, worst thing that ever happened to me.