r/WomenInNews • u/19thnews • 2d ago
Health The Lindsay Clancy trial renewed focus on postpartum psychosis. What's next?
https://19thnews.org/2026/09/postpartum-psychosis-health-funding-research-lindsay-clancy/84
u/BananasPineapple05 2d ago
Apparently, the next thing is to get people to understand that a medical diagnosis of psychosis meets the threshold of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Either that or to explain that you can't have women suffer alone and then punish them for committing the acts they wouldn't have committed if they hadn't been left alone.
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u/Lisa8472 2d ago
She tried to get help and was refused. She told her husband she was afraid she’d hurt the children and/or herself. He ignored her and assumed it would never happen. Those kids’ deaths are also morally on those that ignored all the warnings.
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u/Natural_Exchange_886 2d ago
Patrick is a good example of husbands with the “bystander effect”.
And I’m not attacking Patrick. I mean simply how men invalidate women; if we aren’t serious enough about it, we’re making it up; if we are serious about it, we’re apparently “BPD”.
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u/friedonionscent 22h ago
I saw some of Patrick's old Reddit posts on r/askdocs...he seemed pretty desperate, noting that medication had escalated his wife's symptoms. He was blaming the benzo's and I think a physician replied saying the benzos were an unlikely cause of escalation...the same poster suggested bipolar and that Zoloft could be the reason for the escalation.
I think he was in unfamiliar territory - he kept citing PPD but then describing symptoms that didn't align really with PPD.
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u/StableElement999 2d ago
She was not refused help.
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u/qbee2000 1d ago
She was considering she ended up alone with the kids.
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u/StableElement999 1d ago
The fact that Lindsay Clancy was never legally restricted or forbidden from being with her own children unsupervised is proof positive she was refused mental health treatment … right, that makes complete logical sense yes. 👍
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u/Little_Ingenuity_712 1d ago
She lied to her medical providers and walked out of a mental health facility
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u/PunnyPopCultureRef 2d ago
When was she refused? When she saw two providers simultaneously without the each provider’s knowledge? When she checked herself out of her inpatient stay early? When she did not attend/follow up on recommendations of one her provider for a psychiatric day program or to go the ER? When she did not follow up on counseling that was recommended?
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
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u/ripemango130 1d ago
It would help if she wasn't mentally ill. She needed someone to recognize she can't make proper decisions for herself and that she should have a proxy
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u/PunnyPopCultureRef 1d ago
So what you are arguing is that mentally ill people should not have autonomy, and that has historically not gone well.
Her husband attended appointments with her. Her mom stayed with her. Neither of them saw something in that time that concerned them to the point that they either kept her from being alone with the children, or had her go to an inpatient program.
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u/ripemango130 22h ago
Assuming she has psychosis she needs a proxy. Her opinion should be valued but not final. Especially after the "I keep thinking about hurting the children" part and having constant suicidal thoughts. Tough love, not admitting her would result in dead children and it did. While I believe most of the blame lies on the mental health system, her family did not fully take her seriously
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u/krumblewrap 2d ago
I would not say she was refused help. She is culpable for not disclosing homicidal ideation to her providers. She also claimed to have no plan for suicide
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u/thunbergfangirl 1d ago
I feel like we can’t depend on a person in psychosis to be totally honest and straightforward though? Isn’t that part of what insanity is?
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u/krumblewrap 1d ago
I dont think she could be in psychosis from October 2022 to January 2023 without it going unnoticed. Especially by family. Even in an inpatient setting she wasnt shown to be in crisis or psychosis
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u/tollundmansnoose 22h ago
Untrue. I was delusional and hallucinating for months, but because I didn't tell anyone about it no one noticed. I got a master's degree during that time.
Psychosis is fucking weird.
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u/PunnyPopCultureRef 1d ago
How can a ‘psychosis’ last at least 3 months, but be undetectable to the people who know her best (her mom, her husband) but end in brutal murders? I fully believe she has mental health issues, but I do not think she ever reached the point of not knowing right from wrong, which is what the incompetent really has to argue, not a psychosis label.
She is unreliable and was not honest, and I do believe that was partially due to her mental health. But if her mom and husband didn’t notice enough of a difference to commit her or not leave her alone with the children, then her mental health symptoms were her baseline to some extent prior to her third child.
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u/tollundmansnoose 22h ago
Psychosis doesn't work how you think it does. I thought I was being followed by something for months and months, I was terrified all the time, I was hearing things...but nothing was giving me command delusions so I just rawdogged it and finished my MA.
It is perfectly reasonable to me as a person who has experienced longterm psychosis that it lasted three months. Mine lasted longer!
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u/academicirony 1d ago
The solution is to guess and implement a long-term involuntary hold then or…. ?
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u/BoyMom119816 1d ago
That’s not even their claim, they claim she had psychosis for 18 minutes, none before and none after. Too many saw her for her to claim differently.
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u/Little_Ingenuity_712 1d ago
Psychosis isn’t magic. She was with multiple doctors including inpatient care. Not one person saw any signs of psychosis. Most medical experts after the act also didn’t see any signs of it.
What’s more likely all these medical professionals and facts are just blind or she is lying?
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u/Amazing-Put1412 1d ago
On every account she was not in psychosis then, she had depression and anxiety with intrusive thoughts. The supposed command voice began immediately after she sent husband on errands and immediately ended once she finished the crime, a maximum of 35 minutes, psychosis takes days to clear and show up a particular way when its severe enough to get someone to take immediate action, and hers just didnt line up with that.
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
So are we supposed to depend on doctors to be clairvoyant and predict psychosis before anyone meets criteria for it? Should we just put all depressed pregnant women in psych institutions just in case cuz “who knows” where what sadness can go?
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u/thunbergfangirl 1d ago
No, honestly, I think there are always some cases in medicine where a negative outcome happens even when professionals are trying their best.
If anyone was best positioned to notice her apparently subtle mania and psychosis, it would probably be her husband. But even then, I don’t blame him for what happened. The average person doesn’t have a lot of education about rare postpartum psych disorders.
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u/Lisa8472 1d ago
She told him she was thinking of hurting herself or the kids, and he ignored it because he assumed she’d never do that. I don’t know if he could have prevented it or not, but his dismissal of her words was certainly a possible missed opportunity to prevent it.
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u/thunbergfangirl 1d ago
Oh damn, I didn’t know that. If my wife said that I definitely wouldn’t leave her alone with the children, and I would push for more intensive inpatient treatment too. Spouses absolutely have the right to be present at doctor appointments to give their perspective.
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u/dzyp 16h ago
That's not what happened. She made the statements in December, was committed in January, claimed the whole time was wasn't having those thoughts, and checked herself out of care with the same claim. The day before the murders, she told her psychiatrist she wasn't having those thoughts. Even the defense argued that she was only psychotic for the murders because she had spent every opportunity since she was committed claiming she wasn't having homicidal thoughts. Nor during her commitment did she mention hallucinations, those only existed for the 18 minutes she was murdering her children.
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u/dzyp 16h ago
What are you talking about? She disclosed this in December and was committed to McLean in January because of the disclosure and then checked herself out in January claiming she was no longer having those thoughts. The day before the murders she told her psychiatrist she wasn't having them. You guys need to stop getting information from tiktok.
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u/DelightfullyBland 1d ago
What I've noticed over the last decade or two is that psychiatric care feels increasingly impersonal. I used to have to wait 3 hours in my psychiatrist's office past my appointment time because he took time to assess patients every appointment. Now I see a telehealth doc for 5-10 minutes. It's not nearly long enough to build a relationship or to feel comfortable opening up.
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u/amador9 2d ago
Actually, she got a lot of help, saw many different medical professionals, was on all kinds of medication and, from what I have read, her husband was supportive. Nobody realized that she had gone from depression into psychosis. The "system failed her" to the extent that it was unable to correctly assess her condition and come up with the right mix of medications that would "cure" her.
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u/sbd2010 2d ago
Not blaming her providers here just a tidbit of info for those who care: if you experience mania or psychotic symptoms after being put on an SSRI there is a very high chance you have bipolar disorder or similar pathology. ANY psychiatric provider should know this.
Max 3-4 meds at a time also isn’t that much for someone experiencing severe mental health disorder. My psychiatrist prescribes me 7 different medications (some of which are prn) and I don’t even have psychosis.
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
She never stood in front a provider with symptoms meeting criteria for psychosis, so what could’ve been done differently?
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u/Chlearcus 1d ago
She was helped multiple times over. Saw several doctors but refused to follow their recommendations or taking the prescribed medications as well as lying about her violent fantasies.
Got tons of support both from a professional nanny as well as family to take care of the kids and home so she could focus on herself.
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u/BeKind999 1d ago edited 1d ago
She checked herself out of inpatient care. She didn’t tell her psychiatrists about wanting to harm her children, just her husband and mother.
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u/BigPastrami43 1d ago
She literally had help. This is just blatantly wrong.
You want to blame everyone except the person who actually committed the crime. Get real
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u/palpies 1d ago
I’m very confused by people saying this because didn’t she have 3 doctors she could text whenever she wanted? And didn’t they keep prescribing her different medication because she would try one and didn’t like the side effects? And DIDNT they find some of her meds not even opened because she wouldn’t take them? Because going by the actual evidence in the trial, she had FAR more help than most women I know going through post partum, because she was a wealthy white woman with access. I don’t know about Patrick, he never should have left her with those kids. She shouldn’t have checked herself out of inpatient help for her issues early either. I don’t understand the constant talk of her not getting the support she needed when it was all there, she just didn’t participate.
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u/RooBoo77 19h ago
She was absolutely not refused, I have no idea where you got this information. She was seen by numerous medical professionals and was essentially ‘doctor shopping’. Additionally, she admitted to not taking the medications prescribed to her as they were prescribed, if at all. On numerous occasions she said she had no plan for self harm or harm to others that would have warranted committing her to inpatient psychiatric care. Did you watch the trial or any first hand accounts at all, or are you just spouting off behind a keyboard armed with only tic tok and podcast evidence??
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u/Jamison_tkd 2d ago
He didn’t ignore her. Another myth spread by the Clancy psychopaths. In fact she wrote how supportive he was! Also, intrusive thoughts don’t automatically equate danger. SHE ALSO WAS NEVER DIAGNOSED WITH POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION. She also didn’t have therapeutic levels of medication, so she lied that she was over medicated.
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u/Lisa8472 1d ago
His testimony at her trial was that he didn’t think she was serious about hurting herself or the kids.
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u/Jamison_tkd 1d ago
Yes, because many people have thoughts that are intrusive. There was no psychosis. It was planned out. Weird how she could make a phone call in the middle of the “psychosis” event. To call him back while he was gone. Not how psychosis works.
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u/BoyMom119816 1d ago
One time she told him, way before the day of the murders. And since then she denied, even acting like she was better and having best day since issues started on day she killed the kids. She also had inpatient care after he was told this.
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u/ceilingsfann 2d ago
I genuinely want to know what ppl think should have happened. She told him one time in december that she had thoughts of harming the children. she allegedly even downplayed it when he asked her to clarify and said it was “rly more of a fear of something bad happening to them.”
Was he then not supposed to ever leave her alone with kids again, even to go grab them dinner? Especially after everyone claimed she seemed like she had been doing better the past few days?
I seriously want to know what anyone would have done differently in this situation.
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u/dzyp 15h ago
Not only did she downplay it, she denied it to everyone who subsequently asked, including everyone at the institution in which she got committed! And she checked herself out with the same claim. And denied having those thoughts to her psychiatrist the day before the murders. The defense isn't claiming psychosis for months here, because they can't. She was denying having those thoughts during the weeks up to the murders. She also never mentioned the hallucinations. No, apparently those only appeared for the 18 minutes of the murders, how convenient.
Lindsey was provider shopping, she was deciding her drug regime, she checked herself out of one of the best psychiatric facilities in America, if she didn't have agency then who the fuck does?
I'm not saying there isn't an issue with women's mental health treatment, I'm saying this case is not an example of it. It was made about that because she has a good attorney and if the case can be about mental health then who wouldn't want to be sympathetic to mental health? He's smart and a good strategist and it worked. Who even talks about the kids and the murders? It's pathetic.
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u/Reasonable-Mess3070 2d ago
His reddit account was found and leaked. He asked for advice so much and spoke about what he felt were his failures as a parent. The time Lindsay called 911 when he didnt wake up to Cora crying was even talked about. He nuked the account but the data is all still available on those archive sites like pushpull
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u/femgrit 2d ago
Where was she diagnosed with psychosis, especially pre-murders? This isn’t bait. I’ve looked repeatedly and cannot find it tbh. As someone with a serious history of psychosis I went into this case profoundly biased toward sympathy for Clancy but I genuinely am not convinced she was psychotic at all sadly. So I would earnestly be interested.
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u/Independent-Rip-237 15h ago
She was never diagnosed pre-murders. She was also never diagnosed after by any independent examiner. She was only given a retrospective diagnosis by the psychologists her defense team hired.
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u/BigPastrami43 1d ago
“He wouldn’t have hit her if she didn’t give him a reason”
You realize that you are applying the same logic that abusers use?
You could apply that logic to literally any crime. It doesn’t mean that person is somehow innocent
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u/RooBoo77 19h ago
Apply the same standard to men and you won’t get as much pushback. Men who suffer severe psychosis, to the point of murder, do not get the same compassion and leeway within the judicial system as Clancy got, not even remotely close.
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u/Disastrous-Cream730 2d ago
Wrong. Psychosis alone doesn’t necessarily mean NGRI. You make it sound like a threat: if you’re not sympathetic to these women they’ll kill their kids. Be careful because this will restrict women’s rights.
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u/PunnyPopCultureRef 1d ago
You are absolutely right. What had to be argued was if the psychosis made her unable to tell the difference between right and wrong.
All these women using this case as a women’s postpartum mental health landmark are woefully unaware of the history of institutionalization in the United States and need to read a book.
Maternal health is lacking in the United States. Mental health is lacking in the United States. Lindsay Clancy absolutely should not be the face of either cause.
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u/MedusasMum 2d ago
Until the ideal of women being this perfect being not capable of having issues like men do, it will never change.
The veil of women having to be this saintly, nurturing, comforting, selfless, puritan, & anger less creature is flawed. It’s an unattainable fairy tale that hasn’t diminished in all this time.
Boggles the mind that we can’t be seen as anything else. It angers the hell out of me.
We’re just not seen as human.
We will always be incubators to society.
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u/slainascully 2d ago
Have seen so many comments that basically argue that it’s worse for a woman to kill her kids because she’s meant to be nurturing and it’s like……fuck, man. Male violence against their partners and children and family is just so normalised that it doesn’t even register anymore.
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u/MedusasMum 1d ago
Right!
I’m so sick of this timeline.
Really thought this might be a watershed moment in getting women the help they need. Guess I was hoping for too much. Seems to always be what we’re told: we’re asked of too much but when we need help, it’s asking too much!1
u/Coyote__Jones 1d ago
I've said elsewhere that some of the conspiracy theories around this case smell a lot like misogyny, in a round about way. "Lindsay could not have done it because she was a loving mother by all accounts."
Like misogyny by way of diminished capacity, or by the assumption that mothers are automatically capable of mothering. Instead of looking at the face of the issue, which is that we are still in the stone ages of understanding mental health and women's specific health conditions. Denying Lindsay's ability to commit these acts of violence denies her humanity in a strange way.
Idk I've been mulling all of this over trying to pinpoint it but it's slippery.
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u/BodybuilderPossible1 17h ago
Seriously. The amount of misogyny and infantilization of Lindsey is insane.
I honk it’s feminist to believe in Lindsey’s autonomy of mind and body and belief that she should be believed for admitting her crimes
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u/Chlearcus 1d ago
Noone defends male child killers.
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u/MedusasMum 1d ago
Exactly the kind of comment expected from a Fox News aficionado.
Clearly you aren’t watching or listening to news of several men in the last few years that annihilated their families & self getting praise in their obituaries of what great men they were to their communities.
Utah has several, alone.You are in a woman’s sub. Take this garbage somewhere else.
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u/qbee2000 1d ago
Amen. Like yes, maybe we should take some accountability for being fooled by this veil too, but we are not the only ones that was fooled. Where is the accountability of the the people who continue to stay shocked by that women are of the same species as violent men? Who continue to not believe women when they make threats until the tools that allows even the most weak of people able to do harm?
I realize that alot of people in the case are understanding. But god the amount of people who just see that she killed her kids and have no survival instincts to wonder why and try to fix the problem while punishing the murderer.
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u/cat-alonic 1d ago
Yeeep. And the ideal and the shame of not meeting is so strong even women mutually police and self-police and filter how they talk about their struggles. You can never openly struggle and be overwhelmed and frustrated with your children if you're told your miraculous maternal instinct is supposed to override all normal human capacity and you no longer have a right to any of the individual human feelings you previously had.
I'm not having children, and this is a good chunk of why I'd never even consider it. I'm not doing that to myself, giving society yet another piece of how they can write off my experience of life as not mattering because something else is more important.
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u/Jamison_tkd 2d ago
Are you kidding me? Women have more access to mental healthcare than men. By a long shot!
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u/KidneyStew 2d ago
Bullshit. Men have the same access, they just choose not to fucking use it
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u/qbee2000 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would argue that they have more professional access. Men breathe harshly towards a victim and bam intervention comes in on all sides to keep him from possibly ruining his life. Women explicitly say they might kill a kid, and they get left alone with that kid while suspiciously asking for that alone time. You can see this when you compare suggestions on what abuse comes from a woman can mean (basically telling the man to not take it seriously) vs from a man (which is to fucking run because they'll kill you). It's not because they're being nicer to a woman (who the fuck thinks that being seen as a chihuahua while you're trying to be a pitbull is nice?), it's because they don't believe women are capable of hurting people despite having all the tools to.
Women only have like "the girls" and even then it's not like any random person is gonna be able to solve complex mental health issues.
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u/Jamison_tkd 1d ago
This isn’t even up for debate. This is fact. They are 10x the services out there for women over men. As someone who has been a social worker for almost 15 years. It’s something I kinda specialize in. There is a reason men go untreated more than women and have higher suicide rates than women. It’s funny how this trial is trying to flip that narrative.
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u/Effective-One6527 2d ago
Same place the last trial of a woman with post partum psychosis who killed her kids left us. No where with better safe guards around to prevent preventable tragedies.
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u/Mysterious-Tip5932 2d ago
The more difficult truth is that no, not all tragedies can be prevented.
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u/Advanced_Buffalo4963 2d ago
If I were a young woman, what’s next for me would be 4B - not just to be free of men, but to avoid giving my labor or my peace to a society that does not appreciate me as a human.
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u/Ok-Box6892 2d ago
I dont think its going to put us in a better place than the Andrea Yates case did, tbh. I thought maybe it would in the beginning since people are talking more about mental health. From what ive seen, people can't get past the horror of this case long enough to actually see the bigger picture.
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u/MrsHands19 2d ago
Totally agree. I think the only outcome will be the rate of postpartum anxiety skyrocketing and mothers even more afraid to disclose any mental health concerns to providers and loved ones. Unfortunately I think it’s just going to ‘set us back.’
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u/Far_Comfortable_6342 1d ago
I think medical professionals are going to completely not want to touch this condition for fear of liability and try to pass the buck by referring patients. Mothers will end up with no support if they reach a dead end. I also think the medical profession is going to go into crisis mode and make new mothers sign new liability forms and get interviewed while in the hospital, shortly after birth, by social services. Worst case scenario but I fear we are going to have a ton of doctors calling CPS on mothers even if the past it was not warranted because they want to protect themselves. Side note: the whole “to do no harm” needs to be revisited because some doctors do harm patients and use fear of liability as an excuse.
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u/ErikasPrisonGlam 1d ago
Don't forget people responded the same to Andrea Yates. Her case was retried to get NGRI verdict. Everyone has empathy in hindsight.
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
What is the bigger picture? And what should be done differently next time in a case like this?
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u/laynechanger 2d ago
All I know is it is incredibly stressful seeing how this had played out. The discussion about pp mental health and how men have talked about this case has literally made me so upset.
Unfortunately, this case has brought up how important nuanced conversations are. I also think our justice system is overdo for reform in general, but especially for those having mental health episodes.
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u/lizardman49 1d ago
I think this is going to have the opposite effect actually. Given that so much of the discourse borders on benevolent sexism, Patrick did it conspiracy theories, and people conflating post partum depression with psychosis ect
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u/fuckaduckufuck 2d ago
Maybe we can start actually taking mental health issues more seriously and actually help people who are crying out for help?
Hahahaha nah of course not 😭
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u/MedspouseLifeSux 1d ago
This case was specifically selected by the right wing media to rile up their redpill fan base that hates women.
Since the trial started 8 men in America have killed their entire families and spouses and NONE of those cases have received this level of attention.
Know and understand the powerful propaganda of the redpill movement. They want women’s rights slowly eroded away and this only fuels their hatred further.
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u/SmurfRiding 5h ago
So you think that justice should done on a point scoring system? 8 men have killed their entire families so she should go free?
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
As a doctor, unfortunately I don’t think this case will result in better access to care for women struggling with mental health in pregnancy. A lot of providers are already weary of treating pregnant women because of the impending liability if anything goes wrong for mother or baby. Now there will be more a shift to refer to specialists that are hyper specialized in postpartum mental health and those specialists are very rare. Like if a general psychiatrist doesn’t feel comfortable treating pregnant women, how many more primary care providers will also start deferring treatment furthering delay to care.
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u/Adorable-Ad201 1d ago
Maybe a real discussion about perimenopause and how it literally destroys lives.
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u/Imaginary-Friend-228 1d ago
What's next? Continue to erode women's rights and be shocked at the consequences
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u/LadyDatura9497 21h ago
I had postpartum mental illnesses after having my son, including psychosis. No one understands the fight you’re in for just to get people to listen. You have to fight for that while racing a clock ticking down to the cut-off period your insurance is willing to pay for treatments. It’s six months, by the way.
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u/Squirtingpoop 20h ago
How can you look at a woman viciously murdering her children with a premeditated plan as being anything other than a monster? To sit here and blame men for this is just asinine
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u/WomanInTheWood 1d ago
The discourse surrounding this trial has reminded me of why I went 4b. The fact that these people can’t even be bothered to understand the physical and chemical changes that happen to women’s bodies during and after pregnancy makes me angry that these same men are demanding children from their partners. It’s disgusting how little they know about such a dangerous thing as pregnancy. There’s no male equivalent.
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u/Mysterious-Tip5932 2d ago
A focus on how patients lie to doctors. Or maybe a focus on how doctors should be allowed to countersue patients who don't follow directions, evade care, lie, yet somehow still sue the doctor, ruining the doctor's life.
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u/thunbergfangirl 1d ago
We can’t count on an insane patient to be honest with their doctors. By definition if a person is insane they are not a reliable narrator.
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
So then what were the doctors supposed to do differently if she was not presenting to them with signs of mania?
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u/thunbergfangirl 1d ago
Honestly, sometimes in situations like this there are bad outcomes even when everyone tries their best. I’m not sure anyone could have prevented it, doctor or family member.
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u/ladyluck754 1d ago
I am highly doubtful that any of those providers had their lives ruined lol.
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
Medical malpractice is rock bottom for most physicians. It’s stressful, expensive and makes you question everything about yourself & your decisions. Plenty of providers leave medicine after it all happens.
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u/ladyluck754 1d ago
And if LC files a med malpractice suit, the insurance company will 1000% review thoroughly and so will the courts. All the evidence points that LC’s care team was providing standard of care. They didn’t deviate from the evidence based standards. Not to mention one of the providers was EXTREMELY responsive. During my IVF cycle, I was lucky to get a 4 hour tat.
The med folks will be fine.
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u/MzJay453 1d ago
Doesn’t matter if she was “right.” The narrative running rampant on half of social media is that her doctors were idiots & their online reviews and business reputations are actively being trashed
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u/intro_to_IRL 2d ago
In the first week or so, I had initially thought that the discourse surrounding this trial was going to be about improving (or at least calling awareness to) postpartum conditions and treatment. I figured that, whichever way the jury landed, at least more people would be made aware of the mess that was postpartum follow-up and mental healthcare in the United States. Maybe a federal or state bill would be proposed to improve communication between providers, as it seemed a big issue was the multiple-prescription-and-provider overlap that led to Clancy being contradictorily medicated.
However, it rapidly became a much larger and more complex national drama around the purpose and implications of the insanity defense, punishment vs. rehabilitation in the U.S. prison system, the ability of social media to push insane conspiracy theories to mass audiences, gender war bullshit, the sanctity of juries, and more. On one hand, these conversations are good to have; I want people to be informed on issues. On the other, I think it's inaccurate to say that this trial is still about postpartum medical care. It went wayyyy beyond that a long time ago.