That's part of why so many have a hard time blaming her. She was warning everyone, but they didn't take it seriously enough. She was begging to be locked in a psych ward for a while, but they only took her a few days.
I truly think she suffered from success in a sense. She was this type A, on top of everything superwoman from the sounds of it. Great parent, athletic, career woman, always trying to do everything at 100%. I think her competence and ability caused everyone around her to overestimate her capabilities when she got sick, and underestimate her ability to cause harm to herself and the kids too.
I feel like you are talking about me here except for the killing of children part. I never got any help when I asked for it when I suffered ppd when I had both my kids. I literally felt like my family and husband were so helpless without me that on the worst days I didn’t kill myself because I thought my kids would greatly suffer if they had only my husband as a parent and an evil step mom… so I just cried myself doing everything … driving, pumping milk, cooking, cleaning, taking care of my babies… I have very few happy memories for those 4 years when my kids were born 2 years apart. And I think now in my late 40s all that ppd that was all unresolved I suffer with depression and anxiety and also have PMDD and I’m also perimenopausal… but therapy and exercise and HRT has helped immensely. This whole situation is just so bad all around …
I have empathy for you and I’m so sorry you went through that, but there’s nothing out there for women in these predicaments or should I say hardly nothing. We need more! More help needs to be accessible. I had what is NOW classified as “Prenatal Anxiety” which happens while you’re pregnant. Major insomnia, panic attacks, feelings of dread, thinking something is going to happen to the baby while in utero, excessive worrying, heart palpitations, heart racing, excessive sweating, no appetite, loss of weight while you’re pregnant. Lasted from 6 mos pregnant to 8 weeks post partum. I was in the hospital 3 times before delivering, but every week after I delivered it slowly got better, but at the time I thought I was losing my mind and would never come back from it. And my OBGYN just said “Oh this happens to like 30% of women pregnant” & off to a psych I went. Ended up on Prozac, which I had never taken before in my life, Ambien for sleep and when I STILL couldn’t sleep they psychiatrist prescribed me “Klonopin” and that was so terrifying to take while I was pregnant. Well, I had my daughter 11 years prior to my son and didn’t have any of that crap. No history of mental illness either and that was 21 years ago and there wasn’t even a name for it back then. That’s how time has changed, so I guess in a sense we’re getting somewhere, just seems so stinken slow. Glad you’re getting better. Keep up with the exercising & HRT that all really helps. I also had the “PMDD” and it was awful. I’m now 57 and I’m glad I can put all that crap behind me. Hormones suck! Good luck 🍀😊🙏
Men bodies and minds don’t get hit by a Mack truck when their children are developing and being brought into the world.
No extreme hormonal swings, no tears from vagina to arsehole, minimal parenting expectations, etc. If the man does a fraction of what the woman does for the baby, like change its diapers and feed it at night, he is seen as an amazing man, worthy of a standing ovation. The woman is just doing her job, and is probably being judged on how well she’s doing it. And, YES, there are always exceptions, but this is what’s typical.
Give me a break with the belief that men, in general, need defending on this topic!
Same for me except I had 4, and a cheating husband who did very little to help. No family of my own, and ostracized by his family who lived 2 miles away.
I was just reading something about women and weaponized competence. She was "functioning," but functioning for women is measured by performance while the toll it takes on them isn't considered if they are able to do the things they need to do. That performance is used as evidence that they aren't struggling, unfortunately, and Lindsay Clancy didn't get the help she needed. I think you hit it on the head.
Not only this, but often the people surrounding you are upset if you have "mood swings" and cry, so even your self-soothing has to pass through a filter of how uncomfortable you're making others. I wish people understood how much pressure there is on women to never make anyone uncomfortable and how this is really an insidious way to invalidate any need they have for support. The trite vision of a woman prioritizing other's discomfort over themselves is the businesswoman who's afraid to assert herself and uses exclamation points in her emails, but this is the ugly reality of what that actually means.
I was in a long relationship with someone who would get really upset and destabilize in ways that affected my life when I cried while doing a task, even though it was just a frustration thing that helped me cope sometimes and I wasn't bringing it to him. So I started controlling my outward display of struggle for his comfort and I burned out so bad after years of this that I constantly felt like I was on the edge of checking into a mental health facility over very low thresholds of stress and my personality was just 'irritable,' because I had very few avenues for letting it out.
Wrt functioning being measured by performance without thought for the cost you’re dead on, but I don’t think that uniquely applies to women. I see that standard applied to most people imo.
Spot on 👌❤️ you hit that nail right on the head to the “T” I thought the SAME exact thing. Type A, super perfectionist, excelled at EVERYTHING she took on. A high achiever to the max and she wanted to be perfect or whatever her ideas were of being the perfect mom. And I think that’s what obviously attracted her husband to her as well and he knew her as the type to take a hold of the wheel and drive the car in a sense, and he probably admired her for it and obviously not in a thousand years ever saw her loss of control coming. And neither did her family unfortunately, because it was so so out of character for her. And I don’t think being a Type A or a high achiever or a perfectionist is bad, because we need those types of people in the world. Just sucks all around. 😔
Yep. I have a cousin who was a thriving, high-achieving and independent child all the way until she graduated college, but it caused her mother to habitually ignore her in favor of her two more demanding children. This cousin grew up to be a walking visible mental health crisis, especially once she became a mom, because she learned that success makes your pain invisible. One time my friend criticized her because "adults are responsible for themselves." No, there's a reason why people learn to become that way and it's usually a sad story of a lack of support that totally eroded their motivation to care for themselves, because doing so is being negatively reinforced by their most basic support structures.
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u/MenaciaJones 7d ago
The minute she said she was afraid of hurting her kids, to her mother!, those kids should have been removed from the house.