Illustrating how out of touch I am with much of current events, this morning I finally educated myself about the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. Clancy is being prosecuted for the 2023 murders of her three young children. The defense is arguing that Clancy was suffering from psychiatric issues, including postpartum depression. If convicted she would get life in prison without parole and if she's found not guilty she's looking at being incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital for a long, long time.
I guess I should have been keeping up with with this all along, given my background in mental health as both patient and professional.
Sweet Jesus.
This woman was on WAY too many medications. With that wild variety of drugs in her system, it's no wonder that things were going to go bad. It really is altogether possible that Clancy was completely screwed up, entirely disregarding postpartum depression and possible bipolar disorder altogether. She may have had only the vaguest notion of what she was doing when she murdered her kids, doing so robbed of conscience.
The doctors and nurses attending to her made a very serious mistake, having her being on all those meds. The interactions could not have been adequately predicted. Anything at all could have gone wrong in her mind.
I'm not making excuses for her. I believe that she needs to be put into a psychiatric facility for a long time. But having had some troubling experiences with being overly-medicated myself, I can understand how Clancy could have become unhinged from reality because of being on too many meds.
I'm going to be tuned in to the verdict when the jury hands it down, likely this coming week. This could establish a significant legal precedent, one that might impact mental health care in this country enormously.
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