The mental health system is on trial with Lindsay Clancy

Lindsay Clancy is on trial for strangling her three children, but her lawyers are putting the mental health system on trail. Clancy had three psychiatrists prescribing medicine at the same time. She had twenty prescriptions simultaneously. One of the prescribers had never had a postpartum psychosis client. Another did not know Clancy had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. All the prescribers could have looked at Clancy’s records and they didn’t.

Mere mortals are unable to challenge the mental health system. Clancy is an experienced nurse and she kept incredible records of her own treatment — qualitative and quantitative. Her records are more thorough than the doctors’, which is why she can challenge institutional mental health providers.

Husbands, take notice. Every trial about postpartum psychosis has a spouse who was oblivious to how serious his wife’s condition was, and he left the mother alone with the kids. Andrea Yates’s husband left her alone with the five kids for an hour every morning even though her psychiatrist said to never leave her alone with them. Clancy’s ex-husband (he’s ex now that the kids are dead) said he had never heard the word psychosis before she killed the kids. But Lindsay was googling questions about psychosis long before the day of the killings. He thought the mental health issues were hers to handle. Meanwhile he was taking control of other things: he decided that if Lindsay was not going back to work, he would fire the nanny.

I noticed this right away because I had postpartum psychosis. It happened after my second kid. The first had already been diagnosed with autism, and at three years old we attended early intervention 40 hours a week. My second was born with a major facial deformity: hemifacial microsomia. We had a team of sixteen doctors to address the problem. I was so scared I wouldn’t bond with the second kid that I never let go of him. Held him all day.

I was also working. Nino was laid off, and I was supporting us by writing. I wrote a column right before I received the epidural. But months later I couldn’t write anymore, so I was submitting articles that had already been published. I knew I would get found out eventually.

We were already in early intervention, so we had a social worker helping us parent. A week before my psychotic episode, Nino and I were sitting across from the social worker in our living room. I stood up to try to get the baby to stop crying. And while I was bouncing I said, “I want to just slam the baby’s head into the wall.”

The social worker stood up and said we need someone else to support our family.

I remember feeling abandoned. But only for a second. Because the baby was crying.

Nino and I were together most of the time. He managed the older kid in therapy, and I went there, holding the baby, not wanting to miss talking with the therapist or time to bond with the baby. We were like a parade.

At night, Nino put the older one to bed, then he sat in the kitchen, because we were in NYC in a 500-square-foot apartment and the living room became the bedroom at night. I was holding the baby and doing the dishes, slowly, with one hand. And I picked up a knife and pushed it into my head. I remember it not getting in. Like, my skull was too strong. So I pushed harder. Slamming the knife like I could make headway.

Nino took the baby from my arms. He called 911. I screamed that he couldn’t take the baby. So he told me to put the knife down and sit in the chair and he’d give me the baby. Then the ambulance came.

He stayed with the older kid. I went to the hospital. In the ER I said I wouldn’t leave the baby.

They told me it was okay to leave the baby to go to the mental ward. “The baby needs you to be safe and healthy,” they told me.

I told them I won’t bond with the baby if we separate. “Look at his face,” I said. “It’s a mess. I am scared he won’t feel loved.”

One nurse stayed with me. Then a social worker. People had conferences. I remember feeling like I hadn’t slept as well as I was sleeping in the ER, under constant surveillance and ER chatter all night long.

People told me I can’t go to the mental ward with a baby. So I said I’m not going. People tried to explain how serious it was. I tried to explain how messed up his face was.

Finally the doctors agreed to let me stay in the ER. They were not allowed to release me when I was a danger to the child, but they wouldn’t be violating the law if they let me stay in the ER. I had a bed, and a social worker, for three days. It was support I could not get when I had two kids and a husband and 40 hours of therapists all over NYC.

The hospital called Nino and told him I couldn’t be alone with either kid. I remember thinking that sounded crazy. We can’t do that.

But we did it. Nino took one kid to multitudes of therapists, and I stayed at home with the baby and a nanny. The nanny was $75 an hour because we had to use an agency — we needed one on no notice — and we needed someone who was okay being in charge of not letting me use a knife again. Or anything else.

It took a community, and both our 401Ks, to care for two special needs kids without letting me be alone with either one of them. I used to think we were so irresponsible for cashing out the 401Ks. So irresponsible for neither of us working. Now I’ve seen what happens when a spouse continues going to work in the face of postpartum psychosis. It’s a full-time job to allow a mother to keep bonding with the baby and keep parenting the other kid while still maintaining awareness that she could be dangerous.

I want to tell you I was annoyed by the surveillance. But it was so, so scary how quickly I put the knife in my head. It was so, so scary that I could have been separated from my kids. I just wanted to feel like that wouldn’t happen again.

As years passed, foggy memories made me wonder if the psychosis really came on that fast. How could I be caring for the baby one second and putting a knife in my head the next?

Then I was in the emergency room with Z for his traumatic brain injury. His headaches were so bad he was vomiting for the second day straight. They gave him an IV of anti-nausea medicine and I sat by his bed holding his hand.

All of a sudden he told me he needs to rip out the IV. He said he needs to get out of his skin. He scratched at his body. He was yelling: “I need to get out.”

I said, “You’re okay. The medicine works. It will get better.”

He said, “Get away from me or I’ll kill you. I want to kill everyone.”

I opened the door. Said to the first nurse I saw, “My son’s trying to take out his IV and he’s telling me he wants to kill me.”

Ten nurses and doctors were in the room immediately. They were holding him down. He was screaming, “I need to tear off my skin! Let go! I’ll kill all of you!”

I was standing in the doorway saying things like, “He’s a good boy. He practices cello six hours a day. He never breaks rules. He’s such a nice boy.”

No one was listening to me. But five minutes later they told me and Z that psychosis is a known side effect of the medicine he was taking. Akathisia. That’s the word they used.

I didn’t realize it was psychosis until I was listening to commentary on the Lindsay Clancy trial. I felt a little like her husband: I did not know Z had psychosis even though I was standing right there.

I am so lucky I had the doctors in NYC who kept me in the ER with my baby. Lindsay was upset being away from her kids. I would never have taken medication because I would have had to stop breastfeeding. But Lindsay wanted to get better so much that she took the medicine.

Pay attention. This trial affects you. You need to understand psychosis so you know it when you see it. And pay attention to who is going online to criticize Clancy. They are mental health providers who don’t want to believe they’re in a corrupt, poorly regulated industry. But they are.

Lindsay Clancy is going through hell in this trial. But she’ll save so many women from going through hell themselves.