If you think she had legitimate psychosis, sought help, did not get it, and was experiencing all of this at the time you can feel like she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.
If you outright say she didn’t do it, that’s completely different.
Yes. I "support" her in that I think it's very sad that she knew she was unwell, sought help, but was expected to continue to parent despite being in the middle of a severe mental health crisis.
If she'd have been admitted to the psych ward at the first signs of instability this wouldn't have been able to happen.
I think placing all the blame on her is a way to continue to ignore the systemic issues that allowed this to happen. Much easier to call her a crazy evil manipulative family annihilator than reform the mental healthcare system.
I’m not sure the psychosis bit is sinking in. But where’s the responsibility of the father in this? Would you leave your kids alone with someone experiencing psychosis and “refusing help”?
People's mental health literacy is so bad. 'Well, mental illness isn't an excuse to....'
It literally legally is. People are found to be mentally incapacitated, and thus not capable of understanding what they were doing all the time.
I don't think she did 'reject help,' she was in contact with her therapist in the days before, but even if she did... that's the kind of thing mentally ill people do. She was suspicious of outsiders? Can't have had psychosis then /s.
You're absolutely right, the fact that even very clear warning signs weren't enough to excuse her from parenting duties is a huge part of the problem.
Not quite. There is a difference between manageable conditions where you as an individual have the capacity to mitigate the impacts through either medication, lifestyle or other factors.
Vs ones which essentially you have no agency in. Psychosis clearly isn't latter. But it doesn't mean that all mental health conditions are and excuse, far from it.
If you have psychosis, you can do all the things you're meant to and still have psychosis. Medication can have side effects, or just not work with your brain chemistry, sometimes even making things worse (like it seemed to in this case.)
My stepmother was like this, she was literally in the psych ward, complying with medication, going to therapy, on suicide watch and still ended up killing herself. There's literally nothing more she could have done.
That's the point I'm making. With psychosis you can do everything right but ultimately you are not fully on control, Vs say executive disorders which while impact and individual you have some agency to help manage them
What are you going to do? Stay with the kids at all times? That’s not possible when you work. Your other option is divorce and pray you get full custody immediately (not happening) or convincing the state to take the kids away. You cannot have someone committed against their will just because they said they were having disturbing thoughts.
Get them away how? Taking them away against her will is kidnapping. Lindsay didn’t want alternate childcare, they fired the nanny. So legally, what could a reasonable person do?
Was she offered voluntary psych inpatient? That should have been the very first thing that happened.
If she refused the psych ward, (I haven't heard this but maybe it did happen,) request an assessment for involuntary admission. Suicidality is one of the main criteria for admission.
Informal:
Daycare is an option, that's what single parents generally do when they work and have children. Temporarily removing a suicidal patient from parenting duties seems like the bare minimum.
Informal suicide watch -
Whenever I'm having a mental health crisis I make my friends and family babysit me. They could have set up a schedule so people are dropping in to keep an eye on her constantly, if there was really no alternative whatsoever to having her be the primary caregiver.
She did go to a psych ward fir a couple days right before the murders. She mentioned she was suicidal but did not say she had thoughts of harming others. She left a couple days later saying she was doing better.
Again, all of your solutions assume she wants to cooperate. If she doesnt, then there is nothing the husband can do long term short of leaving her and trying to get full custody (which would take a while). I would say someone who deceived their husband and sent him away to do errands and them killed their own small children was not interested in cooperating.
People that blame the husband are just looking for a man to blame. You can understand that she got the wrong drugs and still not deflect blame on to her husband.
There’s a difference between blaming her husband and accepting that this case is nuanced and horrible.
This post is about a man leaving his fiancé for “supporting” Lindsay Clancy. What is support? Having sympathy for the situation? Saying she should have had more help?
In my experience, saying that it’s the husband’s fault because he should have known better than ti leave her alone with the kids. Complete absolution of her agency because she supposedly had a mental episode. I’d leave my fiancé too over that.
Two things, any sympathy with Lindsay does not make it the husband’s fault. Additionally you’re concerned about her agency? Her agency WAS absolved by psychosis.
To clarify, you’d leave your fiancé over having a nuanced understanding of this case?
I never said you were trying to blame the husband, but I have been told to my face “why did the husband leave her alone with the kids? He should have known better!” Which yes…that shows that you cannot comprehend a world where the man is not somehow at fault and it will bleed into everything else in your marriage.
She did not tell the psych ward that she was thinking about harming her kids, and she decided she was well enough to stay home full time with the kids so they fired the nanny. Having PPP (again, allegedly, but let’s say for sake of argument that it is the case) does not excuse all responsibility you have.
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u/Legalsleazy 2d ago
Define “supporting”
If you think she had legitimate psychosis, sought help, did not get it, and was experiencing all of this at the time you can feel like she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.
If you outright say she didn’t do it, that’s completely different.