Nicole Cowley

I usually agree with you—on suicidal empathy and other issues—but you’re grievously wrong here. As someone who experienced psychosis for six months 20 years ago (brain allergy), I assure you that Lindsay Clancy is completely blameless. Just as terrible: No verdict, law or headline will ever prevent a person in psychosis from succumbing to its symptoms, any more than a grand larceny conviction in today’s news will keep an old lady with Alzheimer’s from driving off in her neighbor’s car tomorrow. True psychosis (with anosognosia—loss of awareness) is an absolute tyrant. There’s an unbridgeable gulf between people in psychosis (who don’t know what they’re doing, on a profound level) and psychopaths (who may be mentally ill, but who are aware of their crimes and don’t care about the pain they cause). A psychopath can cover his or her tracks and elude police for years, without drawing public attention. A person suffering a psychotic break cannot. Count your blessings that you’ve never experienced psychosis. There’s no way to communicate the tongueless, eye-bulging horror of realizing, as my brain knit itself back together, that I’d been delusional and lost my moral compass for several months. Unlike Lindsay, I never had an impulse to physically hurt anyone. But among my many delusions I did have one hostile thought, without realizing it. I might very well have harmed people eventually, if my symptoms had continued to snowball. Experts I’ve talked to agree. I had no more power over my worst psychotic symptoms than I did over my sudden habit of crossing streets without looking. Did I “make a choice” to wander into traffic (endangering myself and others)? Did I “make a choice” to suddenly forget things I’d always known? Did I “make a choice” to have paranoid delusions? No. Clearly neither did Lindsay, who by all accounts was a doting mother, good friend, dedicated nurse and stable person with zero signs of mental illness for 30 years. (Her husband said unequivocally, “My wife is not bipolar.”) Then she entrusted her health to half a dozen doctors who wrote her—in a 4-month period, and often without consulting one another—30 prescriptions for 13 different medications, several of which are known to cause psychosis. Simply because she had some postpartum symptoms after her third child. Fortunately I learned the cause of my psychosis, after two potentially fatal misdiagnoses of bipolar disorder. Within months my clarity returned, without medication. But slowly realizing each of my many delusions—especially that one hostile thought—nearly drove me to suicide. I sobbed convulsively almost every waking moment. I cried even in my sleep. I’d wake up to find my pillow soaked through with tears. It’s no mystery why Lindsay crushed and swallowed pills, slit her wrists and throat, and hurled herself out a window. And then repeatedly requested a Do Not Resuscitate order. Anyone insisting that she “wanted out of family obligations” is weaving a fantasy. By all accounts it was her dream to have a large family—a dream she was fulfilling. Her critics’ fantasy is understandable. It’s less terrifying to believe she’s a monster than it is to face the fact that with a sufficient alteration of brain chemistry, anyone might hallucinate and do something unspeakable. It’s a massive rip in the moral fabric of the universe. It’s too awful to contemplate. Nevertheless it’s true. That criminals exist who feign mental illness, or use it as an excuse, doesn't make genuine psychosis any less real. Or any less valid as a legal defense. Her doubters insist that she was clearheaded and calculating when she sent her husband on errands that night. They claim that because she seemed normal all day, and sounded normal on the phone with him, she was in her right mind and consciously plotted to kill her children. They’re wrong. Just because the old lady waits till her neighbor’s back is turned before she sneaks behind the wheel of his car, it doesn’t mean she’s in her right mind. And no sane person or fair jury would want her thrown in jail for theft. It’s a grave misconception to think that a person can’t appear normal before, after and even during a psychotic break. I did exactly that for the first three months of my six-month psychosis. As I drifted in and out of acute episodes, I worked, socialized, went to the gym, made plans, and traveled across the country for a wedding—where I came this close to wandering off into the mountains of Telluride, hoping to vanish forever. No one knew. In the midst of my most delusional thoughts, I seemed normal to almost everyone. I also seemed normal to myself—except for rare, brief, horrifying moments of awareness. Like Lindsay, I reached out for help in those moments. Just a week after my first delusion, I told a client I had to drop them because “Something is happening to me,” “I’m crossing streets without looking,” and “I think I’m making people uncomfortable.” Two months later, besieged by worsening delusions and panic attacks, I finally did leave. Only then, three full months after my first paranoid episode, did it dawn on my family and friends that something was wrong. In the fourth month, I had another window of awareness. Like Lindsay, who twice called a suicide hotline, I became suicidal. A relative suggested I call a local psychologist, who was compassionate enough to see me right away. But by the time I reached his office, I’d forgotten what my moment of insight had shown me. Through my fog I could only recall a few manic episodes and panic attacks. I had zero recollection or consciousness of my delusions, semantic deficits, perseverations or recent lapses into near-catatonic states. Which led to a terrible if understandable misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, and a referral to a psychiatrist for medication. Likewise, Lindsay was probably oblivious to her worst symptoms—not lying or concealing them, as many have theorized—when she met with certain doctors for treatment. That’s the nature of psychosis. She says a voice commanded her: “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself.” Why doubt her? For months she and her husband had reported to doctors her days of sleeplessness, her dissociations, her struggles to determine what was real, and eventually her “intrusive thoughts.” All of which are either triggers or markers of psychosis. Her critics point out that she was never diagnosed with postpartum psychosis before she killed her children in January 2023. Which is precisely the point. Why was a woman who was “not in touch with reality” (according to a nurse practioner’s note in November) deemed fit to judge her own reality? She did everything a victim of psychosis should do when in their right and moral mind. Which is the only criterion by which she should be judged. The system she turned to in desperation failed her. Experienced psychiatrists are troubled by (it bears repeating) the 30 prescriptions for 13 medications that she was prescribed in a four-month period: youtube.com/watch?v=WUSH0D9L… To her critics who complain, “What about her innocent children? They’re the real victims.” Of course her children are the most tragic victims in this most unthinkable of tragedies. The mother who gave birth to them, nurtured them and adored them relives their suffering—and feels their forever loss—more profoundly and with greater horror than you or I could ever imagine. She’s living a nightmare. She’s lost her children in the most horrific way, she’s lost her husband, and she’s probably paralyzed for life. And instead of every heart bleeding for her, half the world is at her throat. There but for the grace of God we all go. Have pity.