INSIDE LINDSAY CLANCY’S FINAL DAYS BEFORE THE TRAG3DY — EXPERT DESCRIBES A MOTHER WHO WAS “UNRAVELING INSIDE”… NEW DETAILS EMERGE IN COURT
EXCLUSIVE: A postpartum expert believes that Lindsay Clancy played the part of a mother who had everything together while, in reality, she was unraveling at the seams.
Lindsay Clancy seemed as if she had everything together before she strangled her three kids to death(Image: @Lindsay Marie Clancy/Facebook)
While Lindsay Clancy appeared to look as if she had everything under control, she was likely have been “unraveling inside” through postpartum psychosis, said an expert.
Dr. Nicole Kumi is a postpartum expert behind The Whole Mom, a maternal wellness organization specializing in perinatal transitional coaching. As a mother who went through her own journey with postpartum depression, she has worked to provide education, support, and information to mothers about the mental health aspect of postpartum to reduce the stigma of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
According to Kumi, it’s extremely normal for mothers to make it seem as if they have it together while struggling in the postpartum phase. “Sometimes that high-functioning, good mom appearance on the outside is a manifestation of anxiety and challenges internally,” she told The Mirror US.
Kumi said that many mothers aren’t aware that these feelings may occur naturally. She said: “We’re left to try to figure these nuances out, all while trying to maintain the doctor’s appointments, keep the kids alive, keep the housing running, going to work, being a wife. There’s all these different roles. And I think she did put on a performance, but we all do.”
Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse from Duxbury, Massachusetts, is on trial for fatally strangling her three children — Cora, Dawson, and Callan — in the basement of her home. Clancy’s attorneys claim the mother had a breakdown from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
Dr. Nicole Kumi is an expert on postpartum health(Image: Hello Nanny!)
However, the prosecution has attempted to cast doubt on claims that the mother was suffering from the illness, saying she deliberately killed her children. The prosecution alleges Clancy devised a plan to get her then-husband out of the house by sending him on an errand so she could commit the horrific acts.
Clancy documented her worsening mental health through several journals, detailing her feelings of guilt and anxiety over how she raised her children, particularly Callan, who was only 8 months old at the time of his death. Testimony from Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, revealed that the mother had suffered from postpartum anxiety following the births of their first two children.
Loved-ones were likely unaware of the “intensity behind what she was experiencing because she was channeling it into a place she could control, which was the schedule, the appointments, the home,” Kumi believes.
She added: “That was the one thing she had control over, and inside, she was falling apart. She was unraveling.”
Kumi believes that Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick, may not have understood what his then-wife was truly feeling before the tragic incident (Image: Greg Derr/Pool The Patriot Ledge)
Haunting notes read in court
Some of the notes Clancy wrote were read in court earlier this month. Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Timothy Chiappini read a note during his testimony that revealed some of the feelings Clancy had toward her children.
“I’m sad and depressed because I am not able to parent my third child like my first,” Clancy wrote on Oct. 25, 2022. The mother added that she wanted to treat all of her children like her oldest, Cora, but knew that it wasn’t a “feasible possibility.”
Clancy also expressed guilt over being unable to breastfeed Callan for as long as she nursed Cora and Dawson. “I feel not as connected with Cal now. I think I sort of resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby,” she wrote, adding that her feelings weren’t “fair” to her older children.
Clancy strangled her children: Cora, Dawson, and Callan (Image: Facebook/)
The mother expressed having an “internal conflict” because she had spent her whole life at that point wanting a lot of children. “I still don’t want Cal to be our last, but I have a lot of figuring out to do before I have another,” she wrote.
Kumi said that what Clancy was feeling is something that many other mothers experience. “There’s a judgment around, ‘you wanted to have children, why have more if you didn’t want them?’” she said. “There seems to be this thing of having intrusive thoughts or delusions, somehow invalidates the experience of wanting to become a mom. She wanted to become a mom; she didn’t want postpartum psychosis.”
According to Kumi, the problem lies with a lack of education surrounding perinatal mood and anxiety disorders while mothers are already pregnant. “We have 10 months during pregnancy, roughly, where we could be providing education to moms on more than just physical health,” she said.
She attempted to end her own life, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down(Image: Mark Chavous/Pool The Enterprise)
“We have a real problem here. We can’t keep discharging moms with their babies and then expecting them to ask for help when they’ve never been told what is wrong in the first place.”
“And I feel like that’s how it was with Lindsay. She knew something was wrong, but could not put her finger on it,” Kumi continued. “‘Was I anxious, was I tired, was I depressed, was I having these intrusive thoughts?’ I can’t identify it if I’ve never got any education on it.”
Both sides in the Clancy trial rested their cases on Wednesday, with testimony concluding. Clancy has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the January 2023 deaths of her children. She has pleaded not guilty.
After strangling her children, Clancy attempted to take her own life by cutting her neck and wrists before jumping out of a second-floor window, landing in the backyard. She is now paralyzed from the waist down.
If convicted, Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If not found guilty due to insanity, she will be committed to a state mental health facility.
SOURCE: https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/lindsay-clancy-postpartum-expert-1998634
If in the United States, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to 988 Lifeline..
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Any names, characters, places, or events are fictitious or used fictitiously.
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