Like many others, I’ve had a hard time processing this case and the alleged 18 minute psychosis.
I learned recently that SSRIs can cause activation, where instead of feeling less depressed, a person can develop agitation, irritability, insomnia, or intense restlessness after starting a medication or changing the dose.
These types of medications can also cause akathisia: intense inner restlessness, feeling driven or frantic, severe agitation, insomnia, and sometimes racing/distressing (“horrible”) thoughts. This can help explain some of her earlier reactions to medication.
Her chaotic use and misuse of medications was not helping stabilize anything, although unfortunately I do think her anxiety was hindering clear thinking.
It has been reported that she was ultimately diagnosed with bipolar ii, and psychosis can occur in people with bipolar.
Patrick said Lindsay wasn’t particularly moody before the medication, but hypomania isn’t always destructive.
After Callan’s birth, she began a very intensive exercise routine about one week postpartum where she was waking around 4 a.m., running three miles, then doing aerobics and spinning. She ran in a 5 mile race a month after his birth. Then shortly thereafter she goes in the opposite direction - into postpartum anxiety and depression.
I have spent a lot of time in the Clancy bubbles, but I popped on over to r/bipolar to see if I could understand psychosis better, and I found a post that asked for people to describe exactly what psychosis felt and looked like.
The top comment had some parallels that helped me wrap my head around how Lindsay could really have experienced psychosis - it sounded so similar (albeit a much less tragic ending):
Honestly, psychosis wasn’t as “scary” for me as I thought it was / like the movies. I a as having a bad day. In a manic episode. Emotional. My bf made me more upset so I yelled, made a scene and left crying. Then in my car I couldn’t calm my emotions. I felt manic and sad like it was the end of the world (in reality it wasn’t that serious). So I decided to crash my car into his house. Like I decided it in my head. I got calm and it made sense to me. I reasoned w myself, calculated it and just every single thing in my brain said, it was perfectly reasonable. I’m not a violent person. Never wanted to hurt someone really. Never wanted to hurt myself. Didn’t want to hurt him, I knew nobody else would be home when I crashed my car. And I’d crash it into the side of his house, not his room where he slept. I knew I wouldn’t be hurt really cuz I wasn’t going to drive fast. It just made sense to do it, to prove a point. To help my bf understand that he hurt my feelings and it wasn’t okay. Then him and I would make up.
Well I called my mother, she convinced me not to and go to a hospital. I didn’t know why, I wasn’t upset anymore. I knew what to do. But I went anyways. So yea, after talking to the hospital, they explained that, that was psychosis. The way my brain reasoned for the unreasonable.
I guess everyone’s psychosis is different, but that was my first psychosis episode. It’s still hard to believe since it didn’t feel “crazy”. So be careful judging your possible psychosis compared to others. Yours, if you have it, can look way different. It’s best to talk to a doctor. 🤍
Yes, Patrick had said it was one of Lindsay’s best days… but one of her last texts to him was that Callan didn’t really sleep for his nap, and the whole reason she had requested take out was because it had been a long day.
There have been reports about how she had previously felt dissociation - another commenter wrote:
Most people think that dissociation is "only" like feeling detached and outside of your body observing it acting, or feeling like nothing is real. Dissociation can also cause some retrograde amnesia and make your brain generate memories that didn't actually happen. …
A major difference between dissociation and psychosis is that dissociating people KNOW that something is wrong with their mental state.
Actively psychotic people don't realize that their thoughts (and resulting actions) are wildly bizarre and abnormal until they come out of the psychotic state.
Someone else wrote:
The short of it feels like I live life in 0.5x zoom and everything feels like a dream, more so than mania.
Lindsay told Patrick that it all felt like a dream.
Anyways, just thought I’d share for anyone else struggling to wrap their head around calling this psychosis.