Lindsay Clancy was let down

[hds873banana]

For those of you who may not know, Lindsay Clancy is an American mother who killed her three children (all under age 5) then tried to commit suicide by throwing herself out of a window, and is now wheelchair bound as a result. Her defence is she was in the throws of post natal psychosis.

You can watch the full trial on Court TV. The trial is ongoing now.

She was totally let down by the system, the doctors, maybe even her husband. I’ve never watched a full trial and been so appalled at what I am seeing and hearing. Kevin Reddington her lawyer needs an award.

It is interesting to me because I have a close relative who I’ve cared for for over a decade who is regularly in psychosis. The lack of understanding of psychosis generally is wild. I My relative can slip in and out of psychosis on a minute by minute basis some days.

I really hope Lindsay’s defence lawyer gets the best outcome for her even though her life is completely ruined whatever the outcome of the trial.

1. She was not successful in killing herself, she was successful in killing her three children. People jump out of house windows to escape fire. It is not a guaranteed method. Strangling is.

2. We don’t know whether she’s going to spend the rest of her life in prison do we? That’s what the court case will determine.

I agree, this woman had told several people (including doctors) that she had suicidal ideations and wanted to kill her children, yet she was not taken seriously or placed in a psychiatric facility (which is what they should have done to begin with). She had been telling people all along. Medical neglicence at it's best.

Do you say that when men kill their own children?

I've never heard of anyone escaping a fire slicing his wrists and jumping head first from a second floor. As per were she's going to end it's either prison or psychiatric ward, two horrible places to spend the rest of your life. And yes, we don't know which one, that's for the jury to decide.

Don’t men who kill their children often take their own lives afterwards? Does that make us feel more kindly towards them and that they are not still guilty of a terrible crime? Certainly not that I have noticed.

I experienced psychosis from medication I was put on. Prior to that I had no history of anything like that. It is almost impossible to explain how it completely turns you into another person. Because of this I absolutely understand how it could cause someone to do something horrific like this.

Men don't suffer post natal depression, they don't develop post natal psychosis and usually the type of psycopath that kill his children hasn't been warning family and doctors for a while that he's having allucinations and fantasizing about killing his own children, and if this was the case the system would make sure to never leave him alone with the kids. If I know my husband had serious mental health issues, is on a cocktail of psych medications and telling me he wants to kill himself and the children I'm not letting him one minute alone with my kids. So yes, I believe the system failed Lindsey clancy.

Google ‘Dayton Webber’!

Also Oscar Pistorius, to a much lesser extent.

I've never heard of anyone escaping a fire slicing his wrists and jumping head first from a second floor.

Neither have I, I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.

Jumping out of a house window is unlikely to be fatal. The slicing of the wrists was not done sufficiently to be fatal.

The fact is, she made sure to use a “successful’” method for her children but was not “successful” in taking her own life.

All the evidence in this case points to Lindsay being a good, loving mother, until she got sick. The evidence simply does not support the idea that she was an evil sociopath, the evidence points to her being extremely unwell due to being over medicated.

I believe killing your kids (kids she always dotted on), breaking your back, being paralized and end up
in a psych ward for the rest of your life is quite a "sucessful" way of ending your life.

I’ve followed the case from very early on as my cousin lives very close to where it happened and the whole commmunity were understandably affected. I’ve watched parts of the trial most days, I’m no armchair psychologist making assumptions, just to be clear.

No-one knows exactly what happened that day, people can assume all they want, evidence can be presented and facts can be twisted by both the prosecution and defence…

Postpartum depression is horrendous, I suffered from it after the birth of my second child and it was a long road to recovery, I can’t even begin to imagine how postpartum psychosis affects someone.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, 3 children lost their lives and that’s the part that matters most. This part has been edited IMO anyone that takes the life of another should face the consequences, whatever those consequences are in the country they live in.

It interesting that on MN when mental health of men is discussed the majority believe that it is the man’s responsibility to manage his mental health. Here it seems it is everyone else’s responsibility but not LC’s. If I had ever felt I was going to harm my children I would have removed myself from any situation which put them in danger. I have felt suicidal (when DC were adults) and took steps to ensure I wouldn’t hurt anyone else (eg not getting behind the wheel of a car whilst I felt that way). People seem to accept as an article of faith that LC had zero responsibility for her actions when that is not proven.

i agree. The conspiracy theories surrounding this case simply distract from essential awareness: of mental health, psychosis, lack of proper clinical care/understanding and the tragic outcomes which in this case resulted in the death of three young children.

Okay, I don't know the case, it's clearly horrific and emotive.
One thing that has struck me from the comments though is that her self harm and jumping from a window indicates (to me, a severe self post natal harmer) that she had the mental capacity to understand what she had done was wrong and to feel guilt because of it.
Where does ones capacity start and end.
I've had more stitches than I can count, I was in so much emotional pain. But that was me, everything I did was aimed towards me. I wouldn't and didn't ever contemplate hurting my children. If I'd wanted to kill myself I would have have done.
I wouldn't have killed my children then come out of the pyschosis to feel guilt and remorse and then want to kill myself. I probably wouldn't even have known I'd killed them. There would be no feelings there.
That's my only take on it.

For me, my life would be over. I would have no wish to continue if I killed my children. And I wouldn’t care what happened to me.

LC has not plead guilty and is trying to mitigate her sentencing so clearly does not believe that her life is over.

Yes - of course you would have removed yourself but you have not experienced psychosis which is the basis on which this case is being defended. It's not a case of saying "if I experienced psychosis I would have done x" because people who experience this are not in control of their reality. I know someone who was sectioned with this condition and they had no grasp on reality / thought they were being targeted by aliens. It's not the same.

You do have a point, maybe she should have removed herself from the situation and go some place else to heal while making sure her kids were safe?. I want to think that it's a difficult thing to do when you have small children. Maybe the father has some responsability to for not intervining (putting her wife in psychiatric care and the children in a safe place)? They were his kids too.

There are a lot of people trying to explain her behaviour through a rational lens: “She did this, so she must have known this.” The psychotic brain doesn’t work this way. You don’t do things for the same reason a normal-thinking person would do them. You don’t necessarily jump out of a window because you know what you did was wrong, you might jump out of a window because a voice that you were under the power of told you to. You can feel that if you don’t do what the voice says, much much more horrific things will befall you and your children. As I said, it is pretty much impossible to explain this to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. You are very much not yourself. It is like being in a waking nightmare.

A Phychotic outbreak is not the flu, something you see it coming then go to bed for a week and eat chicken soup till you feel better. It comes, can last a few hours were you can trash your neighbours car and remember nothing.

But it all seems very circular to me. “She’s a woman and she killed her three children in a horrific way so she must have been psychotic”. People almost seem to want to believe this, based on the awfulness of the crime.

Well, yes, surely they must be mental to kill their own children? It's obviously not normal

People kill, for all horrible reasons that are not psychotic. What makes this case different (and a blatant case of mental illness) is that this woman had a) suffered from mental illness all her life b) was suffering from post partum depression c) had warned everbody she was fantasizing with killing herself and the children d) had seeked psychiatric help many times and e) she was on a molotov cocktail of drugs. This was not a psycopath but a very mentally ill person.

Had she suffered from mental illness all her life? I thought it came affer having kids

apparently she had beeb taking psych medication since she was young and started nursing school, i believe it was anxiety and depression? she started getting worse after the birth of each child, then fell of the loop (mentally speaking) after her third child.