Mothers in Crisis

When each of my sons was born in the late 90s and early 2000s, I expected immense love and joy, but also exhaustion and sleepless nights from caring for a tiny helpless human.

What I didn’t expect was depression.

Not once, but twice.

I remember first experiencing the old-fashioned “baby blues” while still in the hospital, that settled into something a little darker once I got home. My days became a blur of feeding schedules, diaper changes, and trying to appear like the capable mother everyone assumed I was, while inside, I felt disconnected, overwhelmed, and so deeply unhappy over something I couldn’t name. Which only led to guilt and self-loathing because of the lack of immense joy I expected. I loved my babies fiercely, but love alone couldn’t lift the crushing heaviness that settled over me.

As a society we celebrate new mothers with gifts and congratulations, but we don’t always make room for the mothers who are grieving the loss of themselves or experiencing serious hormonal upheavals, or worse, developing a mental illness. Even now, we expect gratitude and love to be stronger than biology, as though the arrival of a wanted child somehow immunizes a woman against serious mental illness.

Looking back, I recognize how fortunate I was that my illness remained depression and didn’t progress into something more dangerous. That recognition has stayed with me every time another tragic story dominates the headlines.

The case of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in 2023 after a well-documented struggle with postpartum mental illness and psychosis, has reignited a national conversation about postpartum psychiatric disorders and how society responds when they end in tragedy.

Before the onset of her documented mental health crisis, Clancy was consistently described by her husband, friends, coworkers, and former patients as an exceptionally devoted mother, loving wife, and compassionate nurse. Those descriptions have become an important part of the public discussion because they stand in stark contrast to the prosecution’s portrayal of her actions:

“This is not a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women. This case is about this defendant, Lindsay Clancy.” — Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham, opening statement, July 2026.

Buckingham went on to argue that Clancy made a “calculated decision” to kill her children and described Clancy as “controlling, meticulous, and manipulative,” contending that the killings were intentional rather than the result of psychosis.

The prosecution’s broader theory is that Clancy deliberately sent her husband out to pick up takeout and a prescription to create an opportunity to kill her children without interruption, evidence they argue demonstrates planning and intent, despite court filings, medical records, and testimony showing she sought psychiatric treatment repeatedly in the four months before the deaths of her children.

Her defense argues her records show an escalating postpartum psychiatric crisis; the prosecution argues the evidence doesn’t establish legal insanity.

Court records indicate Clancy was prescribed 13 psychiatric medications over approximately four months by multiple providers, with frequent medication changes, including:

• Zoloft (depression)

• Prozac (depression)

• Celexa (depression)

• Wellbutrin (depression)

• Remeron (depression)

• Trazodone (insomnia)

• Ativan (anxiety)

• Klonopin (panic disorder/anxiety)

• Valium (anxiety)

• Seroquel (atypical antipsychotic)

• Abilify (atypical antipsychotic)

• Benadryl (sleep aid)

• Additional short-term medication adjustments were also documented during treatment.

Clancy also sought psychiatric treatment from multiple psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and a specialty women/infants program during this time. She was evaluated in hospital emergency departments because of her worsening psychiatric symptoms, and participated in a partial hospitalization program (PHP) for intensive outpatient psychiatric treatment. She reported intrusive thoughts, severe anxiety, panic, insomnia, fear of being alone, depression, and suicidal ideation to providers, and continued seeking help despite repeated medication changes and worsening symptoms. She also did extensive journaling tracking of her medications, symptoms, and mood almost daily.

After reading that list, and then hearing the prosecutor describe Lindsey Clancy as “controlling, meticulous, and manipulative,” and insisting that she made a “calculated decision” while being subjected to at least thirteen different medications, I can only shake my head in disbelief

It takes me back to another mother in the news, and one who had a profound effect on me twenty-five years ago.

Twenty-five years ago I was pregnant with my second child when Andrea Yates, a Texas mother with (again) a long-documented history of severe post-partum depression and psychosis, drowned her five children in a bathtub. That case was the first time I’d really heard and understood the term “post-partum depression and psychosis.” I’d heard of “baby blues,” which always sounded like something sweet, harmless, and temporary. But the Yates story helped me realize I’d suffered from long-term post-partum depression after the birth of my first child, but more importantly helped me recognize when it started again after the birth of my second, and that I needed to ask for help this time and not needlessly suffer.

Now, the public conversation around the Clancy case is following a similar script to the Yates case. They’re still viewed through the lens of intention rather than illness. As calculating and evil. The debates themselves continue to prove how uncomfortable we as a society remain with the idea that childbirth can precipitate profound mental illness.

Of course, none of this erases the unimaginable suffering of the children, or the grief of the families left behind. No one is arguing that. But compassion for victims and recognition of psychiatric illness can exist together.

That distinction matters because while postpartum psychosis is rare, it is a true psychiatric emergency in medicine. Delusions and hallucinations can completely distort reality. A woman experiencing psychosis may believe her actions will protect her child from imagined danger, or respond to voices no one else can hear (as documented in both the Yates and Clancy cases) in inexplicable or even violent ways. And these beliefs are symptoms of a brain in crisis, not evidence of calculated decision-making with the intention to commit serious crimes.

These beliefs are symptoms of a brain in crisis, not evidence of calculated decision-making.

By understanding this point, we don’t excuse tragedy but might instead attempt to prevent the next one.

When women fear they’ll be judged as terrible mothers, they become less likely to admit frightening thoughts. When families mistake psychosis for stress or exhaustion, opportunities for meaningful intervention is lost. When policymakers underfund maternal mental health care, psychiatric beds, and postpartum screenings, mothers are left navigating life-threatening illnesses with too little support.

I often wonder how many women suffer in silence because they’ve heard stories like Andrea Yates’s or Lindsay Clancy and believe that admitting terrifying symptoms will only make others fear them.

I also wonder how different my own experience might’ve been after the birth of my first son had postpartum mental illness been discussed with the same openness as gestational diabetes or high blood pressure. No one questions whether those conditions are real, or calculated and intentional.

Healing taught me something I wish every new mother knew:

Postpartum mental illness is not a character flaw. It’s not a failure or absence of love. And it’s certainly not calculated or intentional.

I endured postpartum depression twice and remain grateful my story ended with recovery and healthy children. Those of us who’ve experienced it need to keep speaking openly about it so that another mother recognizes it in herself before her illness deepens, so we can work to replace shame with better treatment and judgment with understanding.

Because when we insist on viewing every maternal tragedy through the language of intention alone, we miss the opportunity to recognize illness while there is still time to save a mother—and perhaps a family.

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