Episode 511: Women’s mental health and the Lindsay Clancy story

Warning, this episode contains talk of attempted suicide and harm to children. 

The Lindsay Clancy story may not have made national news, but you’ve probably seen it if you live in the eastern U.S. 

Lindsay was a mother of three, who allegedly killed her three young children while suffering from postpartum psychosis. This is an absolutely unimaginable and tragic case, and one that opens up a bigger conversation about women’s mental health. As well as a personal one for me, as I struggled greatly with postpartum anxiety and some psychosis after the birth of my son in 2007. 

Lindsay was being treated for her mental illness, and allegedly was on several medications. A recent article quotes an OB/GYN nurse and perinatal mental health advocate by the name of Melissa Anne DuBois, where she explains, “The rhetoric coming from the prosecution and other people in authority hazardously distort the medical complexity of this disorder. When they paint Lindsay as a monster who carried out an elaborate, premeditated murder, instead of as someone suffering from a serious mental illness that wasn’t properly treated and who subsequently had a psychotic break, it sends a message to all the struggling parents out there [that] nothing can help me.”

This episode shares Linday’s tragic story, my own personal journey here, touches on how privilege is operating here, as well as what we can do.

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