Reflecting on The Clancy Family Tragedy
I was watching the utterly heartbreaking trial that has been playing out in the Lindsay Clancy case. If any of you have been following, it was near impossible to not cry. Lindsay Clancy is a 36-year-old mother from Massachusetts who had an 8-month-old baby and two other children. She was a labor and delivery nurse with no prior history of mental illness. She reportedly was experiencing postpartum depression and having a terrible time getting her newborn baby to sleep, and became obsessed about his nap schedule. She reportedly had a tremendous amount of anxiety about returning to work and leaving her children, that together may have contributed to a severe psychiatric crisis consistent with postpartum psychosis or PPP.
Whenever a patient struggles with severe insomnia and anxiety, doctors often try a polypharmacy combination of medications, including antidepressants, antipsychotics, and benzodiazepine tranquilizers. What is not well known is how crucial it is that if a patient is not responding to a medication, they go through a patient-led slow titration process to safely remove these drugs from their system. If they don’t work as hoped, the provider may simply discontinue them cold turkey, change medication or dose or rapidly taper. This rapid change can have severely dangerous repercussions on an already vulnerable postpartum hormonal system.
Nowadays, guidelines increasingly highlight that antidepressants can require months, and benzodiazepines can, in some cases, take a year or more, to titrate off of safely. This avoids experiencing extreme rebound repercussions such as acute clinical depression, severe insomnia, and heightened anxiety. Many of these medications carry black box warnings advising patients and providers to be extremely vigilant watching for intrusive thoughts, as well as suicidal and homicidal ideation.
Drawing on my training as a sleep coach, I have lived experience using powerful pharmaceutical sleeping pills and some harrowing rebound effects titrating off them. Drawing also on my experience as a mother who navigated low-grade postpartum depression after the birth of my daughter, I could see this unfortunate perfect storm of events creating a very dangerous situation for the Clancy family, and may have contributed to the tragic deaths of the three innocent children. In my opinion, Lindsay seemed to not get the proper support that she needed and the system failed her, resulting in this utterly fatal tragedy. I would like to explore some of the issues that arose in detail so that families can be aware if this happens again, and take precautions for the safety of everyone involved in the future.
Infant Insomnia and Colicky Babies Can Have Devastating Effects on The Family
Every parent knows about the physical exhaustion of having a newborn baby. You have to get up in the middle of the night to feed and change them. You’re constantly sleep deprived and sort of “out of it,” but somehow you don’t really mind because you’re willing to put your own comfort aside out of so much self-sacrificing love for your child. I have a close friend who had a long-term marriage, but with the birth of their second child, he told me that the child had constant colic and cried pretty much all the time. I know as a mom, when you hear a child cry it does something to you. It creates this intense fight-or-flight panic response, where you are hardwired to want to go to help to console them. If the crying does not stop, you feel responsible, desperate, like you have failed.
I’m sure it has to do with a very deep biological parent and child protective survival-safety mechanism. If you hear a crying child or a screaming child, God forbid, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises. You simply have to respond. It’s usually not a big deal because babies will cry, but if it’s a colicky baby or a baby that’s having significant sleep troubles, the mother, who is already recovering from birth and going through massive hormonal shifts, can begin to live in a permanent state of nervous system activation. In Clancy’s case, journal entries revealed:
“Lindsay Clancy documented in her journals that hearing her 8-month-old son Callan cry for over an hour without intervening during sleep training felt like it was “just about killing her.” She wrote that she told her husband, Patrick, “I even said the words ‘I want to die’ to Pat while he was crying.” For further details, read the full report from The Boston Globe.
If anyone ever had chronic or acute insomnia, what happens is your body begins to live in a chronic dysregulated hypervigilant state. If you could just get a deep, restorative sleep, you feel like yourself again and you can break out of the hypervigilance. But, if you’re living in an extreme situation where you simply can’t rest from a near-constant crying baby, or you’re in a war zone like we’re seeing right now worldwide, people can develop extreme psychological issues, that can’t be underestimated, from sleep deprivation.
Unless you’ve had lived experience with this process, I don’t think anyone is in a place to judge the significance and depth of what it feels like: to be in postpartum depression, battling issues of acute insomnia yourself, caring for a crying, inconsolable colicky infant, being deprived of your own capacity to rest, and then battling with all of that while coming on and off of dangerous multiplicities of psychotropic medicines. I can tell you from firsthand experience that if I, or anyone, were to have these issues all together, it would be a recipe for disaster and an acute situation which would need continuous professional support and intervention. We now see the terrifying outcome that can happen when chronic sleep loss, severe parental stress, rapid medication changes, and a lack of immediate crisis support all crash together at once.
It goes without saying that I’m not writing this to defend or excuse what happened. The inconsolable loss of these three innocent children is an absolute tragedy. I am writing this as an urgent warning for families, communities, providers, and partners to now become more aware of when a woman or family might be in danger. I feel like she tried to seek help and in retrospect, she should not have been in that home alone with those children. My hope is that we can begin to spot the red flags early and build genuine, practical safety measures before any parent or family reaches an acute situation and their ability to be safe collapses.
What Happens to the Brain Without Sleep
Getting a reasonable amount of sleep on a consistent basis is a fundamental biological necessity required for us to be able to think clearly, regulate emotions, and even maintain consensual reality testing. When sleep deprivation becomes chronic, a person can be burdened with severe exhaustion which could last months, and it can affect the brain’s ability to process information. If the mind cannot get sufficient rest, even for a few days, severe sleep deprivation has been associated with psychotic symptoms.
The brain can lose the ability to put intrusive or scary thoughts into a proper context. Clancy reported loud, incessant male voices as intrusive thoughts, and she reportedly began to dissociate from consensual reality. This acute sleep loss, postpartum hormonal shifts and coming on and off of a cacophony of different psychiatric medicines without proper titration and tapering procedures, might overlap in ways that may increase vulnerability to severe psychiatric symptoms, including postpartum psychosis.
The Perils of Polypharmacy and Sudden Medication Shifts
Of course, when you’re in such an extreme state, you go to your doctor and ask for help. Their first line of defense is not CBT-I (non-pharmaceutical cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia); it is to offer a variety of medications. However, the psychiatric medications offered now, thankfully, include clearer black box warnings about the increased risk of suicidal (and homicidal) thoughts, heightened anxiety, and insomnia. There is recent public awareness of the need to titrate off of these medications under careful, educated supervision rather than just discontinuing cold turkey.
If you stop and start certain medications like antidepressants, it can trigger akathisia, an agonizing state of internal restlessness, like an internal flutter, where a person feels unable to sit still or stay inside their own skin. You can see it when people have to fidget or have a leg that bounces. The medicines that were designed to ease anxiety can actually cause paradoxical anxiety and rebound insomnia once they lose their efficacy, or once you build up a tolerance or experience simple biochemical side effects to certain formulas. In the case of benzodiazepines, which are considered the most dangerous prescriptions, people can actually die from seizures if you cold-turkey them, or even if you do a rapid taper with a detox model. Even if they survive the detox process, if it’s not done slowly enough, people can have protracted, biochemical benzodiazepine-induced withdrawal that they may never fully recover from. In Clancy’s case, she actually said to her mother that the medicines were “making her worse.”
As a sleep coach and someone with lived experience and multitudes of training in sleep, education, CBT-I, and wellness protocols, I am not at all averse to pharmacological intervention in acute cases where CBT-I has failed. Please don’t take anything that I’ve said here as medical fact, as I am non-medical personnel; always consult with your physician before beginning or discontinuing any medicine.
My concern is that some doctors really are not educated in the biological processes of what happens to you when you’re prescribed a psychotropic medicine. It’s more of just a “trial and error process,” where they are simply stabbing in the dark. That’s where you see people being given these cocktails, on and off of different configurations, and I agree that without a thoroughly trained specialist in both the prescribing and de-prescribing of these medications, providers can do much more harm than good. This process is extremely delicate, and if done wrong, downright dangerous, if not lethal. It all has to do, frankly, with the efficacy and education of the provider. In most of these instances, medication is prescribed during a temporary event like a divorce, a death, or postpartum depression.
We have to reassure and support people in understanding that these extreme states are generally fully recoverable, and that medication is a temporary intervention to help them through a difficult process, but that as soon as the acute state has resolved, they may begin a patient-led, slow tapering process to get off of the medication. Medication plans, for many people, should be periodically reassessed. Discontinuation should be individualized, clinician-guided, and gradual when appropriate, rather than abrupt or unsupervised.
Emergency Safety Protocol for Postpartum Families
I had written an article previously about how to prevent teen suicide, because after Covid, it was a national emergency how children had fallen into clinical depression, and suicidal ideation and attempts had reached a national crisis epidemic. There is help available for families in need, but you have to be aware of how much danger a family member is in and advocate for yourself to get the sufficient level of care.
When a mother shows signs of severe sleep loss, intrusive thoughts, or detachment from reality, families cannot be in denial and afford to “wait and see.” We have to treat the situation as an immediate medical priority. The following steps outline a clear safety protocol that partners, families, and support networks should use if red flags begin to appear.
- Immediate Physical Supervision: If a mother expresses intrusive thoughts, severe detachment, or voices telling her she is a failure, she must not be left alone with the infant or other children for any amount of time. A person in any type of psychotic state with ideation to harm themselves or others should be evaluated at a hospital. If they are admitted, they can be monitored, and if they’re discharged, there will usually be an aftercare plan where they are not allowed to be alone until they are out of harm’s way. This is a critical safety measure. A partner, parent, or trusted family member must step in immediately to take over all childcare duties to relieve the physical pressure. This is called wraparound care.
- Enforce Protected Sleep Blocks: Sleep is the single most important health intervention required to restore basic brain function. The family should prioritize a protected block of uninterrupted sleep in a quiet room every single day. The room should be peaceful and dark, and she can use good quality earplugs. I use MACK’S® silicone swimmers ear plugs. Someone else has to take over the responsibility of the evening baby care. Nighttime feeds during this window should be fully handled by a partner or relative using formula or pumped milk.
- Assign a Single Healthcare Advocate: An overwhelmed parent in cognitive distress cannot manage medical logistics or make complex decisions. Choose one family member to act as the advocate who will schedule appointments, keep a log of symptoms, pick up prescriptions, and talk directly with medical providers.
- Do Not Abruptly Alter or Discontinue Medication Without Medical Guidance: Keep to only one trusted provider, someone you have already vetted, who will judiciously use medication under careful supervision and who also has expertise in de-prescribing techniques. Please be wary of poly-pharma prescriptions. These medicines can create serotonin syndrome and toxicity, and can conflict with each other, and virtually no provider is a neuroscientist. Never allow a person to stop any psychiatric medications cold turkey, and be careful of PRNs (as-needed scripts).
I once had a coworker come to me who was prescribed Valium for sleep whenever he needed it, and it turned out he was eventually “needing it” every other day. He came to me in crisis, in a hypervigilant state, having had a mild seizure the night before.
As a sleep coach and someone with experience titrating off of sleeping pills, I suggested he contact his provider; he might need to take a regular stabilizing dose and then oversee a patient-led titration to wean off. It took him a few months to recover. Advocacy organizations like the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition emphasize the fact that people who can get easily chemically or physically dependent on a medication (physical dependence, or PD) because the meds are so biologically habit-forming even after a few uses, are not necessarily suffering from a Substance Use Disorder (SUD). The Benzodiazepine Information Coalition is an excellent community for support with slow psychiatric medicine tapers.
- Remove Environmental Triggers: Gather and lock away or remove all household medications, sharp objects, and potential hazards right away. Cut down on sensory overload by limiting visitors, turning off loud screens, stepping away from or deactivate social media, and dropping all non-essential household demands. Create a warm, clean, safe, and nurturing space to recover.
- Activate Crisis Services Early: If a parent, child, or anyone mentions hearing voices, holds unshakeable paranoid beliefs, or feels completely unable to keep themselves or their children safe, skip standard doctor appointments. Listen to what they say and write, and believe them. Ask directly, “Are you thinking of harming yourself or another?” Contact specialized maternal mental health crisis lines immediately, such as the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA, or go straight to an emergency room if anyone’s physical safety is at risk.
Holistic Foundations for Perinatal Rest and Recovery
While severe postpartum emergencies require direct medical care, my own experience and my work with insomnia survivors has shown me that prescription drugs shouldn’t be our only initial defense against insomnia and anxiety. Building a strong, natural foundation for nervous system support through daily self-care and stress reduction, before a crisis develops, is essential for long-term health.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I): CBT-I is recognized as the gold standard for treating chronic sleep issues. Unlike sedative medications that force temporary unconsciousness without fixing natural sleep patterns, CBT-I addresses the underlying anxiety and poor sleep hygiene patterns (like consuming sugar or alcohol, or doom scrolling) around sleep, and helps rebuild natural sleep drive without medication side effects.
- Circadian Rhythm Anchoring: The brain relies on natural light cues to reset its internal clock. Getting ten to fifteen minutes of direct morning light, right when you wake up, helps regulate cortisol levels and signals the brain to produce natural melatonin later that night. In the early evening, around 8 p.m., dimming lights and staying away from bright screens and scary news and media prepares the body for rest.
- Somatic Down-Regulation: Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) practices allow the body and brain to enter restorative states similar to deep sleep even while remaining awake. Simple breathing techniques, like lengthening your exhales (box breathing) so they are longer than your inhales, engage the vagus nerve and signal safety to the body.
- Targeted Gentle Support: Bioavailable magnesium glycinate can help relax physical muscle tension, while gentle herbal teas like chamomile or lemon balm provide low-risk comfort to an overworked nervous system. My favorite is Yogi Tea’s Soothing Caramel Bedtime | Sweet Dreams, which has chamomile and California poppy to really calm you.
Moving From Isolation to Community Protection
The tragic loss of life of the three children by the hands of Lindsay Clancy will hopefully serve as a much-needed wake-up call for the support that we offer to new parents. My husband is European, and his home country offers 16 months of paid parental leave; in the United States we have virtually none, just a few weeks to a couple of months. We used to live in more extended families, where the mom alone wasn’t expected to manage a crying baby, run the household, recover physically from just having given birth, handle postpartum issues, and then get right back to work after a short period of time, all while single-handedly navigating postpartum depression or complex mental health struggles on her own. In more traditional cultures, the postpartum period would be much more supported by these extended families, community, and paid time off.
Some people have said that Clancy knew exactly what she was doing because she researched how to take the life of her children and planned everything out, so these murders were, in fact, not born from impulsivity, mental illness, or a dissociated state. I personally beg to differ with that assessment. People can be in an extended psychotic state where they’re hearing intrusive voices and the basic safety and reality mechanisms have fallen.
“Andrea Yates drowned her five children on June 20, 2001. Her actions were purposeful and methodical. She waited for her husband to leave for work. She filled the bathtub. On retrial in 2006, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.” Source: Psychology Today: “Premeditated but Psychotic?”
Clancy was reportedly on a poly-pharma cocktail. Those drugs reportedly included the antidepressant mirtazapine, the mood stabilizer lamotrigine, the antidepressant trazodone, and quetiapine, a drug used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. I believe that one can still be in a protracted psychotic state and premeditate harm to self or others. That is consistent with reports that the jury deadlocked 11 to 1, resulting in a mistrial.
I so hope that we as a culture can now learn to stay more alert and to recognize red flags. If a parent, or anyone in any family, seems disoriented, hyper-anxious, or mentions suicide, homicide, intrusive thoughts, and voices, please take them very seriously and help them get support immediately. Call for help and intervention; don’t ever worry about offending or insulting them. We cannot change the past, but by respecting our essential biological need for restorative sleep, managing medication carefully, and surrounding new families with sufficient community support, we can help protect both parents and children, and all of us, from ever reaching a breaking point. I pray that this never happens again, and I pray for all the families affected.
In loving memory of Cora, Callan and Dawson Clancy
Photo by Soheil Kmp on Pexels
Links for Further Information
- Teen Suicide Prevention: A Holistic Approach
- PBS NewsHour: What the Lindsay Clancy Trial Reveals About a Broken Postpartum Mental Health System
- The 19th: Lindsay Clancy Mistrial Puts a Spotlight on Motherhood and Mental Health
For Informational Purposes Only: Somatic Sleep Coaching provides peer coaching and support related to sleep management but does not offer medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any recommendations or information provided by Somatic Sleep Coaching should not be construed as medical advice, and you should not alter, start, or stop any medication or treatment regimen based on such information without first consulting a qualified healthcare provider.