The Lindsay Clancy possibilities
In discussions of the Lindsay Clancy case, I’ve seen a lot of misunderstanding of psychosis, especially the fact that in some instances a person can plan and function while under the sway of psychosis.
The word “insanity” is actually fairly meaningless in this case, as well. It’s not the legal standard by which Clancy might be found to have had reduced criminal responsibility. I think many people are letting their everyday ideas about “insanity” get in the way of understanding the relevant legal standard in Massachusetts:
In the state of Massachusetts, a person may be found not guilty of a crime “if they lacked criminal responsibility when they committed the offense,” according to the Massachusetts Court System. …
Jurors are instructed that in order to prove a defendant is criminally responsible for their conduct, prosecutors must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not suffer from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense.”
There’s also this:
The second way to prove criminal responsibility, according to the state court system, is for prosecutors to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, even if the defendant suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense, the defendant nonetheless retained the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of their conduct and to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.”
That’s the more basic question with Clancy: she would not only have to have known right from wrong at the time (I think she probably did know right from wrong) but she would also have to have been able to “conform her conduct” to the law despite having a mental disease or defect. That last part is the real question: could she or couldn’t she conform her conduct to the law? In order for jurors to find that she could conform her conduct to the law, it would have to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.. But I think there clearly was reasonable doubt on that score, and/or it’s certainly understandable that someone could in good faith find reasonable doubt.
Nor do we know exactly what the eleven jurors in this case had agreed on for a verdict and what the lone holdout wanted. There were many possibilities for the agreed-on verdict of the eleven, but we can be pretty sure it wasn’t murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence. Of the other possibilities:
Jurors also have the option to find Clancy guilty of the lesser offenses of second-degree murder, which is punishable by a life sentence with the possibility of parole, or manslaughter, which carries a 20-year maximum sentence.
If she is ever found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, the court would begin the process of committing Clancy to a state psychiatric facility. Her commitment order would be subject to regular review by the court, though she could be committed to the facility indefinitely.
I think it most likely that the verdict the eleven voted for was “not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility,” and the penalty would be subsequent commitment, and that Clancy would probably end up being confined for a very very long time.
Can we assume we know what the single holdout wanted? Almost certainly it wasn’t “not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility.” But I wouldn’t assume it was “guilty of murder” either, although many people are assuming that. However, it could have been “guilty of second-degree murder” or “guilty of manslaughter.” We simply don’t know; I wonder if we’ll ever know.
@ Neo > “I wonder if we’ll ever know”
We will as soon as one of the jurors “anonymously” tells somebody.
After which the holdout will be doxxed, harassed, and possibly assaulted.
My problem is with the formulation of one option as “not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility,” which gives a connotation that just doesn’t seem right to laypersons.
I would prefer a formula of “guilty but lacking criminal responsibility,” although with the same penalties as the former.
That seems IMO to express the Clancy situation more precisely.
The fact that Clamncy jumped out of a second-story window after strangling in sequence her three children indicates to me she understood criminal responsibility. The jump is an act driven by guilt.
The problem is that the “psychosis” diagnosis (incredibly rare even four weeks post partum, much less a *year* plus) is so nebulous that a not guilty verdict here becomes a cover for all sorts of future criminal activity.
It’s as dangerous as it is far-fetched.
Let’s hold her accountable.
“prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not suffer from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense.”
And
“prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, even if the defendant suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense, the defendant nonetheless retained the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of their conduct and to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.”
I cannot see how either of these two conditions can be met years after the offense is committed.
Oh, we’ll know. Rumors are out there about doxxing the one holdout juror already. And perhaps one of the eleven will feel strongly enough to make a statement as well.
There are some things legal commentators have mentioned that seem unusual about the judge’s actions. Usually judges outline the various possible verdicts and how they are defined, but not what the possible sentences are for each. This judge included the sentencing numbers, possibly influencing the jurors’ decision on facts.
Also, he added manslaughter at the end. Manslaughter? Seriously?
Then there is this, from experienced attorney John Hinderaker at Power Line.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/09/the-clancy-trial-cultural-watershed-legal-farce.php
So, if you want to get rid of your Mother-in-Law, take a family vacation to Cape Cod, bump her off and say you were nuts.
I mean the brain dead woman who runs Massachusetts just signed legislation saying you can kill your baby up until the moment of birth so why stop there exactly.
Sorry for the cynicism but having gone to grammar school in Mass, high school in RI and college and grad school in Mass and owning property for years on Cape Cod, I find the majority of women of that state nutso.
Then there is this: “More than half (around 56%) of young white liberal women aged 18–29 report having received a mental health condition diagnosis.”
Guess I’m right. Lucky for Clancy she had a jury of her peers, nutso women.
Cicero. That jump could be an admission of guilt or, for various reasons having to do with physics and body positions, an attempt to fake suicide to demonstrate mental illness.
The Babylon Bee:
“State Of Massachusetts Declared Incompetent By Reason Of Insanity.”
Just the fact that she killed those children after she sent the husband out on errands speaks to her guilt.
Automaton Intelligence (AI) is why Planned or premeditated homicides without a history of entertaining abortive ideation to relieve “burdens” of state and mind cannot themselves be aborted in States with an established Pro-Choice religion. What is a human consciousness? There are diverse, Diverse precedents.
A selfie-abortion? Maybe, baby. A fetus… uh, feature of anthropogenic intelligence weighing the balance of political consensus in the woke of performing a human rite to relieve “burdens” of state and mind. God was testing faith. The gods of State are either Choosing or delegating culpability in service of social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress.
My mother was psychotic for several months as a result of prescription amphetamines. She didn’t seem “crazy” but she was fixated on several delusions.
She was busy solving these delusions rationally. Her landlord was putting LSD in the air she was breathing? She rented an industrial-strength air purifier and set it up, rattling away, in the guest bedroom. Young men in white vans were following her around? She took down license plate numbers. Planes overhead were signaling messages with their landling lights? She tried to decipher them.
She could even be persuasive in explaining herself. My godmother and little sister weren’t sure for a while if she wasn’t onto something.
She ended up in a locked ward for a few months of treatment and more drugs. When she got out, she still half-believed her delusions but she had learned not to mention this to doctors.
Happily her delusions didn’t involve harming my younger sister or me.
Richard Aubrey: Either way, she is not guilty by virtue (sic) of insanity., She is in fact guilty of multiple murders of her own children and deserves the highest penalty. No excuses.
Cicero:
You haven’t a clue what drove the jump. She had been depressed, agitated, nearly sleepless, and suicidal for quite a while.
John Galt Iii:
It doesn’t work that way. There has to be a convincing history of mental problems of some duration. Lindsay Clancy had such a history. The person in your hypothetical did not.
BobJustBob:
It doesn’t even begin to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. “Indicating” guilt or the possibility of guilt is not enough. And as I’ve already said, people who are very much suffering from delusions and psychosis can nevertheless plan.
@neo: She had been depressed, agitated, nearly sleepless, and suicidal for quite a while.
And her doctors had been playing psych meds roulette with her:
___________________________________________
Which medications was Lindsay Clancy prescribed?
Here are the different medications Clancy had filled leading up to Jan. 24, 2023, according to a medication list shown in court by the defense on Monday, July 27:
Sept. 15, 2022: Sertraline (25 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Oct. 21, 2022: Lorazepam (0.5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Oct. 26, 2022: Hydroxyzine (25 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Oct. 26, 2022: Lorazepam (1 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Oct. 26, 2022: Buspirone (5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Nov. 2, 2022: Lorazepam (0.5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Nov. 9, 2022: Buspirone (5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Nov. 16, 2022: Trazodone (50 mg) – Kayvon Izadpanah, MD
Nov. 21, 2022: Fluoxetine (10 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP
Nov. 25, 2022: Zolpidem (5 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP
Nov. 25, 2022: Mirtazapine (7.5 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP
Nov. 25, 2022: Clonazepam (0.5 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP
Nov. 30, 2022: Quetiapine (25 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 6, 2022: Diazepam (5 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 7, 2022: Diazepam (5 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 7, 2022: Quetiapine (100 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 9, 2022: Diazepam (5 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 13, 2022: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 16, 2022: Lamotrigine (25 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Dec. 19, 2022: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 19, 2022: Quetiapine ER (300 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 21, 2022: Quetiapine (100 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 22, 2022: Quetiapine (25 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Jan. 5, 2023: Tradozone (50 mg) – Alia Goodheart, MD
Jan. 5, 2023: Lorazepam (1 mg) – Alia Goodheart, MD
Jan. 9, 2023: Diazepam (5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 12, 2023: Trazodone (150 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 13, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Jan. 16, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 16, 2023: Amitriptyline (10 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 19, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Jan. 23, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
https://www.patriotledger.com/story/news/local/2026/07/27/lindsay-clancy-was-prescribed-several-types-of-psychiatric-medications-lawsuits-say-trial-children/91062568007/
___________________________________________
That’s a whole lotta psych druggin’ goin’ on. My mother and little sister took about half of the drugs on this list, not that it helped them in the long run.
I don’t know where I land on Clancy’s responsibility or culpability. However, as I’ve mentioned before, I really don’t trust MDs a jot when they prescribe such drugs in this manner. It’s half the reason my mother ended up in such poor shape.
Yeah, I grant these MDs had good intentions. I remain unimpressed. The medical establishment needs to do some serious rethinking, which I doubt they will do.
It’s interesting that all but one of her prescriptions came from women doctors.
I asked my brother-in-law about Lindsey Clancy.
He said: Who?
He’s right.
There are pages of stories of SSRI related violance even though thousands of cases have been settled including NDA’s. It seems obvious that she was totally out of her mind when she carried out the events. What possibly could have been a motive otherwise.
She had successfully handed motherhood before and kept having babies. Mercy is the appropriate response for such a tragedy.
Psychriatric drugs are very powerful and easily capable of causing what happened.
Many of the responders seem to believe that if she walks that mothers all over will start killing their kids. That is ridiculous.
There is a clear and progressive risk of conflating Planned Parenthood… the wicked solution and premeditated homicide, theatening the performance of human rites, civil rights unburdened, thus the demand for criminal pliability.
Thanks for that prescription list, huxley. Many doctors have a habit of just prescribing more drugs. Bad medicine.
There’s already been one copy cat child murder, in Ohio, perhaps. For this we can blame the media circus and all the weak-minded women out demonstrating over this horrible story.
I don’t know what I would have done on this jury. I’ve read about the evidence, but i wasn’t in court. I lean towards thinking that laws should confine people who have committed heinous crimes to protect the public. If this is what made Clancy do what she did, I am sorry for her, but she did what she did, and that doesn’t change. I don’t trust the doctors to keep her confined.
Kate:
An average of 200 mothers kill their children every year in the US. It is certainly possible or even probable that mother did what she did, when she did it, because she was triggered by the Clancy case. But she might have done it soon, anyway. Most of these cases we don’t hear about.
Clancy was not ever taking all those medications. Some of them she never took even once. Some of them she took one or two pills. Full and nearly full pill bottles were introduced into evidence. Some of these medications were at meager doses, safe enough for children.
The docs kept prescribing new ones because she was telling them they didn’t work or she was concerned about side effects. They were working with her, someone who was herself a heath care professional, to find something that worked for her. It is revolting that her defense now is to try to blame them.
It is not true they just kept loading her up with pills.
And no one seems to be wondering what is she taking now? From what I could find in the trial transcript she’s been taking five psychiatric meds since the murder. Some of them are ones she was prescribed to take before the murders.
This whole discussion is sickening. All of it, every bit of it.
Neo: “Most of these cases we don’t hear about.” Yes, and we’d be better off if none became national media cases.
I agree with IrishOtter.
Niketas: I have not been following trial details so appreciate the info as this post re Standard of Care raised some doubts: https://drmcfillin.substack.com/p/thirteen-drugs-in-four-months-lindsay
-No excusing nor justifying her actions, but it’s disturbing in general and needs to be looked into. Agree with Huxley re Rx and MDs
My initial reaction was this is demonic. Three innocent children are dead; killed by their own mother. There is no excuse.
There seems to be planning involved at a level beyond comparing her actions to someone who is blackout drunk yet still functioning. If she was in some type of psychotic break her suicidal ideation is understandable.
As to Clancy’s ability to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law, I could not find any evidence in the trial transcript that she ever had any trouble with this either before or after the murders. She seems to have been able to conform her behavior just fine at every time before and after, and her inability to conform her behavior is mysteriously limited to the twenty minutes or so it took to strangle her children.
@DisGuested:Niketas: I have not been following trial details
You are far from alone, unfortunately, I keep seeing the narratives things over and over without any acknowledgment of what the jury actually heard that contradicts those things.
The drugs she was prescribed but did not take, or never took, cannot have been responsible. The drugs she stopped taking weeks before the murders could not have been responsible either, unless we’ve all been wrong about homeopathy. The drugs she’s taking now that she was prescribed then don’t seem to be responsible either, because she doesn’t seem to have had any other incident of psychosis since.
One of the exhibits the jury requested to review during deliberation was the full and nearly-full prescriptions bottles.
Interesting post on substack notes by ivanaunfiltered:
“Apparently, It Was the Hormones
Women have spent generations fighting one of the oldest arguments ever used against us: that we are creatures governed by our biology.
Too emotional.
Too hormonal.
Too irrational.
Menstruating.
Pregnant.
Postpartum.
Menopausal.
Hysterical.
Possibly all of the above before lunch.
Every woman knows the particular murderous irritation of being legitimately angry about something and having a man ask, “Are you getting your period?”
No, darling.
I am not angry because of my hormones.
I am angry because you are annoying the living shit out of me.
Ask my husband. Matt learned this somewhere around twenty years ago. The words “PMS” and “hormones” are not permitted as explanatory devices for my opinions unless he has suddenly developed an overwhelming desire to sleep on the terrace.
Why does that question make women so angry?
Because of what it implies.
It implies that our judgment cannot quite be trusted. That perhaps the thing we are saying is not really the product of reason, observation, character or conviction. Maybe our ovaries are talking. Maybe estrogen has seized the control room.
Women spent a very long time telling men that this was sexist nonsense.
And now some feminists appear determined to prove the men right.
Congratulations. We Reinvented Hysteria.
This is what astonishes me about the response to Lindsay Clancy.
Not the trial. I am a lawyer, but I am not her lawyer, and I have no interest in spending my afternoon conducting an amateur psychiatric hearing on Substack.
I am interested in the women defending her.
Three children were killed.
Cora was five.
Dawson was three.
Callan was eight months old.
And somehow an extraordinary amount of female energy has gathered around explaining the woman who killed them.
She was postpartum.
She was mentally unwell.
She needed help.
Her doctors failed her.
The system failed her.
Her hormones affected her.
Something happened to her.
Do you ladies hear yourselves?
Because if this is the argument, we have a much bigger problem than one criminal case.
If female biology can compromise female agency so profoundly that after a woman kills three children we immediately begin searching her hormones for an explanation, then perhaps the men who once questioned women’s capacity for serious responsibility had a point after all.
Perhaps women are too hormonal for serious responsibility.
Perhaps we should not vote.
Perhaps we should not become judges.
Perhaps we should not run companies.
Perhaps we should not command armies.
And for the love of God, absolutely do not elect one president. You want to hand the nuclear codes to a woman? Have you considered that she may be perimenopausal?
I am kidding.
Obviously.
But I am following your argument.
You Cannot Have Equality Without the Ugly Half
This is the part of feminism that apparently nobody put on the tote bag.
Equality is not merely the right to be praised equally.
It is the right to be judged equally.
If a woman becomes a brilliant surgeon, she did it.
If a woman builds a company, she did it.
If a woman writes a great book, she did it.
If a woman becomes president, she did it.
And if a woman does something monstrous, sometimes she did that too.
You cannot spend fifty years demanding that women be recognized as autonomous moral agents and then revoke our agency whenever one of us behaves so horrifically that acknowledging it makes you uncomfortable.
You are saying that women are competent enough to control governments but perhaps not competent enough to control themselves.
Strong enough to lead the free world but fragile enough that biology may suspend responsibility.
Rational enough to demand absolute autonomy over our bodies, but when those bodies become inconvenient, suddenly hormones are back in the witness box.
Pick one.
The Person Formerly Known as Woman
And this gets even funnier when you consider where modern feminism has spent the last several years.
We were told not to reduce women to biology.
Womanhood, apparently, could not simply be connected to the female body. Biology was crude. Outdated. Suspiciously conservative. Women who had previously managed perfectly well being called women acquired an adjective in front of the word. We were informed that womanhood was complicated, expansive, socially constructed and certainly not something vulgar enough to be determined by reproductive biology.
Fine.
But then a woman does something unspeakable and suddenly everybody discovers the ovaries again.
Now biology matters enormously.
Now pregnancy matters.
Now childbirth matters.
Now hormones matter.
Now the female reproductive system is apparently so powerful that it belongs prominently in our discussion of personal responsibility.
Yesterday you were furious that anybody might define a woman by her biology.
Today you are asking me to consider her biology before I judge what she did.
At least pick a century.
I cannot keep changing corsets this quickly.
Men Are Agents. Women Are Victims. Even When Women Are the Perpetrators.
There is actually a name for part of this phenomenon: gender bias in moral typecasting.
Researchers have found that people more readily associate men with the role of perpetrator and women with the role of victim. Identical wrongdoing can produce harsher judgments of male perpetrators, while women are more easily cognitively placed into the suffering role.
Which explains quite a lot.
When a man commits some hideous act against his family, we generally have no trouble locating the perpetrator.
There he is.
Nobody needs Google Maps.
We do not ordinarily watch hundreds of men arrive outside the courthouse dressed in blue saying perhaps his testosterone did it.
Where is the male solidarity movement explaining that he had PTSD?
Where are the signs saying HE NEEDED HELP?
Where are the men explaining that society failed him, that male suicide rates are terrible, that men’s depression is frequently ignored, that perhaps his childhood was traumatic, and therefore we should reorganize the emotional center of the story around his suffering?
We would call that what it was.
An excuse.
But put a woman in the perpetrator’s chair and something strange happens.
People begin looking desperately for another perpetrator.
The psychiatrist.
The healthcare system.
Society.
Her husband.
Hormones.
Postpartum.
Somebody must have done something to her.
Because apparently we are so culturally accustomed to imagining women as victims that even when a woman is quite literally the person who committed the act, we begin rebuilding the story until she can become the victim again.
And the actual victims?
Three little children?
They quietly slide out of frame.
This Is Not Feminism. It Is Paternalism in Pink.
That is perhaps what irritates me most. The women doing this presumably believe they are defending women.
I think they are doing the opposite.
There is nothing empowering about arguing that women require a special moral discount because female biology makes our agency unreliable.
There is nothing feminist about treating a grown woman like a child who cannot quite be held to the same standards as a grown man.
There is nothing progressive about resurrecting the oldest paternalistic idea in the book: that women are fragile creatures buffeted around by forces they cannot control and therefore perhaps should not be expected to carry the full weight of adult responsibility.
If you believe women are equal, have the courage to believe it when equality becomes unpleasant.
Women can be wonderful.
Women can be brilliant.
Women can be brave.
Women can be loving.
Women can also be cruel.
Women can lie.
Women can abuse.
Women can manipulate.
Women can commit crimes.
Women can do evil things.
Welcome to equality.
We contain the entire shitty human spectrum.
Brian, Put Down the 19th Amendment
And this brings me reluctantly back to Brian.
My dear Brian, you may stop drafting the repeal. The 19th Amendment is safe with me. But apparently you no longer need to make the argument that women are too emotionally and biologically unstable to be trusted with adult responsibility.
There are women making it for you.
And that may be the most embarrassing part of this entire spectacle.
For generations, women demanded that men stop treating us as hysterical creatures ruled by our reproductive systems.
We demanded agency.
We demanded autonomy.
We demanded authority.
We demanded the vote.
And we were right.
So I am not giving any of it back.
Not my vote.
Not my judgment.
Not my authority.
And certainly not my responsibility.
If your feminism requires me to surrender the last one in order to keep the first three, you can keep your feminism.
I would rather remain a woman.
Ivana
https://substack.com/@ivanaunfiltered/note/c-328928036
* apologies Neo – didn’t realize it was so long
Not a full endorsement-thought provoking
If these drugs are so powerful as to excuse the triple murder, what about the stuff handed out to school kids? Didn’t used to do that and didn’t used to have school shootings, either. Bad old days with Ozzie and Harriet or something. A principalat an upscale public high school said the girls’ competition in drama usually involves competing mental illness. Worse on social media than in real life, but not a good start for being a grown up.
i am far from an expert in these matters. But from what I hear, competent planning indicates against a psychotic break. A psychotic personality can do it, but one in the throes of a breakdown, maybe not. Hence the questioning, I suppose. To put it another way, an affirmative defense probably has to overcome that issue.
Richard Aubrey:
The drugs were a factor but hardly the only factor, and they didn’t make her do it. I have written a post on SSRIs and violence; please see this.
Richard Aubrey:
Competent planning certainly isn’t COMMON with a psychotic break. But it also does not preclude it. It is simply not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that her excuse is garbage.
@Niketas Choniates: The docs kept prescribing new ones because she was telling them they didn’t work or she was concerned about side effects.
Oh, well. I’m sure it would have turned out all right had Clancy had taken all the pills exactly as they were prescribed.
My point, as an observer in the wild, is that docs and pharma are a pill-dispensing machine. No matter what. As long as someone complains, the solution is more drugs.
And the docs feel good and make a good living from it.
My mother’s psychiatrist, after she got out of the locked ward, calmly explained to me (paraphrasing) We used to believe talking to patients would help. Now we prsecribe drugs.
It’s who they are. It’s what they do. It’s mostly all they know what to do.
During 2015–2018, 13.2% of adults aged 18 and over used antidepressant medications in the past 30 days.
Use was higher among women (17.7%) than men (8.4%).
Antidepressant use increased with age, overall and in both sexes—use was highest among women aged 60 and over (24.3%).
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db377.htm
_____________________________
Call me crazy, but I don’t believe one of eight American adults needs to be taking antidepressants, much less one out of six women. Or a quarter of women 60+.
My other sister has been on SSRIs since the 90s. She would like to get off, but she feels bad if she does. Sounds like drug withdrawal.
Fortunately, psychiatrists were on the job and carved out a loophole so that “SSRI cessation symptoms” were called “discontinuation syndrome.”
Problem solved!
And my sister is still on SSRIs thirty years later.
DisGuested:
Irrelevant. No one is saying that hormones made her do it. Postpartum psychosis is rare and hormones are probably part of the trigger, but it is not a simple reductionist explanation at all.
All women giving birth experience huge hormone shifts. Many feel emotional lability for a while as a result. Some feel rock solid and have no problem with any of it. People differ. The same is true of hormonal shifts with a regular menstrual cycle devoid of pregnancy. Some women have a lot of reaction to the ups and downs.
It’s a different thing to ascribe all female emotions to hormones, versus saying that some women have (mostly mild) responses to them, and a very few women have more extreme responses to them, and some have no reaction at all and remain on an even keel.
For that matter, men can respond to testosterone in various ways that affect their emotions.
Neo: I think that was the point of the post. It’s very reductionist for all these supporters to claim and try to excuse her horrific behavior.
That was a copy of a substack note, not a comment from me. I just thought it was thought provoking.
I also realized I cut part of the beginning off; I didn’t want to include the irrelevant lead in at the top (see link) but I clipped too low. Missing intro “And now, after watching hundreds of people — mostly women — dress in pink and rally around Lindsay Clancy, and after reading woman after woman explain that we must understand what postpartum hormones, mental health, childbirth and female biology can do to a person, I have one question.
Brian?
Would you kindly come back?
I may owe you a drink.
Apparently, It Was the Hormones…”
I think that is tongue in cheek but I could be reading it wrong and misunderstanding.
Sorry for confusion.
huxley: My other sister has been on SSRIs since the 90s. She would like to get off, but she feels bad if she does. Sounds like drug withdrawal.
Consider this:
1) Vigorous program of behavioral therapy
2) Vigorous program of healthy lifestyle
1 + 2 in place for at least a month or two before:
3) Find an respected specialist in “de-prescribing,” e.g., taperclinic.com
4) Follow the specialist; don’t DIY or doc shop.
5) No white knuckles. Less Discomfort = More Success
6) Commit to taper slowly. This may take 0.5 to 1.5 years
7) Take doses on the clock, on the calendar — no mistakes.
8) Be willing to learn that you actually need the meds — fail safely.
AppleBetty:
My sister was a head nurse. The problem isn’t awareness of options.
“For that matter, men can respond to testosterone in various ways that affect their emotions.”
Are there legal sentences in the USA where testosterone is considered in order the evaluate criminal responsibility for a man?
Paolo Pagliaro:
There are no laws in the US that specifically mention female hormones or male hormones as a defense to criminal behavior. There are cases that involve post-partum psychosis, which is not primarily about hormones; the causes are poorly understood and probably there are many factors involved. And there are cases involving “roid rage,” where men have attempted to raise anabolic-androgenic steroid (synthetic male hormones) use as a defense. These attempts have been unsuccessful so far, probably because steroids are illegal when used for bodybuilding and the like.
“No one is saying …..”
Sorry but I don’t accept that many are saying that hormones did play a big part and that men just can’t accept she was a victim of male culture and female chemistry. The unfairness of it all. Three dead (murdered) childern, crickets.
A horrible crime, a travesty in and outside the courtroom.
om:
I suppose someone somewhere is saying almost anything.
But I’ve not read anyone saying that hormones MADE her do it and that there were no other additional factors in the mix that helped cause the murders – that it was the hormones, pure and simple.
I just don’t know. I have not been following the case that much. I do know that there are a lot of Men that have no sympathy for her. Read Instapundit. I would hate to be on the jury.
The devil is always in the details.
And yet how long has testosterone poisoning and toxic masculinity been trumpeted?
Murders most foul.
I try to imagine my reaction if a defendant robbed a bank and blamed post-partum depression and SSRIs. I wouldn’t buy it for an instant. What makes this case difficult for me is that Clancy did something so unspeakable, and that she immediately tried to destroy herself as a result. I can’t see her as a criminal who is using mental illness as an excuse to get away with whatever crime strikes her fancy or suits her convenience. I assume that a mother who could kill her kids and react that way is in the grips of a more miserable derangement than I can possibly imagine.
I want her locked up forever, but I’m OK with its being on a psychiatric ward. Yes, they may screw up and release her, but that’s true of ordinary prisons as well.
Massachusetts must institute strict controls on exercise bands, surely they contributed to the foul murder of the three children; no stone should be left unturned. (sarc x 11)
Can anyone tell me. Was Clancy a habitual liar? It seems she ‘doctor shopped’ and lied to her care team about taking her prescribed meds. Did she lie about other things? I understand family and friends who testified painted her in the most positive light – it has been said they did not want to undermine the pending civil cases, so something like this would not necessarily come out at trial.
I did not watch the trial – I need my sleep. But this point is interesting to me as I was personally acquainted with the case of a woman who killed her husband and had premeditated it and faked a self defense scenario. Didn’t work, her lies found her out in a rather dramatic fashion midway through the trial.
Most everyone who knew her well knew she was narcissistic and a liar* but she fooled a lot of other people right up to the ‘big reveal’. If her trial was held today I have absolutely no doubt that she would have hordes of supporters over flowing the courtroom. Even after she was forced to admit guilt as part of a plea deal she set up a ‘battered women’s’ foundation in her name from prison. Shameless!
This experience has given me doubts about Clancy. I think there is a lot more to the story than the picture of her and her life that was presented at the trial.
*My mother’s comment on her; ‘That woman couldn’t tell the truth about a trip to the grocery store.’
Re: Was Clancy a habitual liar?
Molly Brown:
I can go there. I’ll agree that it’s possible for a mother to methodically strangle her children while psychotic.
But it is also possible IMO that her psychosis was a cover for malice. Or maybe some combo.
I just don’t know.
But her sympathizers? They are deeply wrong and should know better.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc0DkW6SY8O/?stkn=YmRnZHB3aWFoMXRv
Goose and gander? How quaint. Not in the state of Massachusetts, insanity rules there.
neo
With regard to SSRI and similar issues in school:
When I was in elementary school toward the middle of the previous century, there were two things we didn’t have; behaviors requiring drugs, and the drugs themselves.
In the first case, expanded diagnoses are likely part of the issue. But, still…. Nothing I saw then or heard of from classmates or teachers or parents then or later.
Been mentoring a kid for the last couple of years. Two of those years I was in an office next to the nurse’s office in an el ed. Shocked at the number of kids who came in for behavior pills. Not counting those whose meds were early. Multiply that by the number of kids in the state and….. Doesn’t take a high probability of a really negative reaction to end up with a really bad reaction in one.
I’ve been prescribed a common sleep aid. The dosage doesn’t work. Twice as much has a negative reaction. I have a relation taking, by body weight, ten times my scrip and with no issues at all.
With the size of the iceberg, to use an overused metaphor, even the smallest tip is inevitable,
Molly Brown; huxley:
I have seen nothing whatsoever the anyone has said about Clancy that was negative, prior to her mental/emotional problems after the birth of her third child, and of course the murders. The idea that she was some sort of hidden violent psychopath (and/or liar) for her entire life and as a mother of her first two children, and no one has reported anything other than exemplary and loving behavior, is I suppose theoretically possible but I think HIGHLY unlikely.
Wendy K. Laubach:
Post-partum depression was not what Clancy is claiming to have suffered. It is post-partum psychosis, plus exacerbated manic-depression. That’s a different entity. And yet many people keep saying postpartum depression.
Postpartum psychosis is rare and postpartum depression is common. But with postpartum psychosis, the person is often at risk for harming or killing her children even through she has shown nothing but love and caring for them in the past. Postpartum psychosis does not lead to bank robbery or random crimes, when it leads to crimes. It leads to child harming or child murder, usually under the sway of a delusion of some sort, and often coupled with suicide attempts or completed suicide.
See this:
That article is from 2012, and the review of cases goes back a ways before that. So we’re not talking about the result of recent internet social media hysteria influencing trials. Most of the data almost certainly predates the ascendance of social media.
huxley,
I am sorry for your mother and sister, and for you and your surviving sister. Being raised by a parent in such a state must have been very difficult.
Kate,
“I don’t know what I would have done on this jury. I’ve read about the evidence, but i wasn’t in court.”
My attitude also. As the lone, hold out juror on a murder trial* I have personal experience that the evidence and arguments presented to jurors, along with the judge’s instructions, can be quite different from what the general public perceives reading media accounts.
*I eventually changed my vote reviewing and discussing the evidence with the other jurors. It was a complex case and not nearly as cut and dry as it seemed to the casual observer.
neo @ 6:49am,
Thank you for that information.
In various jurisdictions, not necessarily Massachusetts, choices of charges include; Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity”, and “Guilty But Insane”. Clearly, in neither case is it being said the accused didn’t commit the offense.
The question is the sentence, if any. Clearly, if “not guilty”, you don’t get prison time as if guilty, but some serious attention from the mental health system is warranted, but how is that enforced? Does a panel of psychologists say….he’s okay now, and the perp gets out after a short–relative to the jail time if he’d been “guilty”–period and is….on the street?
If guilty but insane, does the perp go from mental institution to prison for the remainder of his sentence? Yes. No. Sometimes.
From the outside, both look kind of …..not good enough for the offense. So, I submit, popular opinion would like to see “not insane” so that the full sentence deserved is imposed and served. Which conflicts with “you gotta be nuts to want to do that stuff.”
Tough, tough case in the court of public opinion. A psychotic break as Neo describes it means a powerful, possibly irresistible urge to harm your kids. After which it goes away. It was in your head, waiting for the kids to show up, and now it’s gone. Gone…. So she could get a job at a daycare center? Would her fan club compalin if she were turned down–presuming mobility? EEOC?