There are few experiences as universal to human existence as pregnancy and childbirth, and yet its most difficult parts — perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) — are still dealt with in the shadows, shrouded in stigma. The fact is 1 in 5 new and expecting birthing people will experience a PMAD, yet among those who do many are afraid to talk about it, some are not even aware they’re experiencing one, and others don’t know where to turn for help. The fact is, when someone suffers from a maternal mental health disorder it affects not only them, their babies, partners, and families - it impacts our communities.
In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Sarah Parkhurst and Whitney Gay are giving air to a vastly untapped topic by creating a space for their guests — including survivors of PMADs and healthcare professionals in maternal mental health — to share their experiences and expertise openly. And in doing so, Sarah and Whitney make it easy to dig deep and get real about the facts of perinatal mental health, fostering discussions about the raw realities of motherhood. Not only will Previa Alliance Podcast listeners walk away from each episode with a sense of belonging, they’ll also be armed with evidence-based tools for healing, coping mechanisms, and the language to identify the signs and symptoms of PMADs — the necessary first steps in a path to treatment. The Previa Alliance Podcast series is intended for anyone considering pregnancy, currently pregnant, and postpartum as well as the families and communities who support them.
Sarah Parkhurst
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; Founder & CEO of Previa Alliance
A postpartum depression survivor and mom to two boys, Sarah is on a mission to destigmatize the experiences of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), and to educate the world on the complex reality of being a mom. Sarah has been working tirelessly to bring to light the experiences of women who have not only suffered a maternal mental health crisis but who have survived it and rebuilt their lives. By empowering women to share their own experiences, by sharing expert advice and trusted resources, and by advocating for health care providers and employers to provide support for these women and their families, Sarah believes as a society we can minimize the impact of the current maternal mental health crisis, while staving off future ones.
Whitney Gay
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; licensed clinician and therapist
For the past ten years, Whitney has been committed to helping women heal from the trauma of a postpartum mental health crisis as well as process the grief of a miscarriage or the loss of a baby. She believes that the power of compassion paired with developing critical coping skills helps moms to heal, rebuild, and eventually thrive. In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Whitney not only shares her professional expertise, but also her own personal experiences of motherhood and recovery from grief.
The Lindsay Clancey Trial — What Does a Struggling Mom Really Look Like to You?
•Previa Alliance Team•Season 1•Episode 229
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She scheduled the doctor's appointments.
She Googled slime recipes.
She packed lunches, answered school emails, signed permission slips, and showed up for her kids.
So...how could she possibly be struggling?
In this episode, Sarah and Whitney use the Lindsay Clancy trial to examine one of the biggest misconceptions in maternal mental health: we mistake functioning for wellness.
Why do we have such a hard time believing that a mother can be doing everything for everyone else while quietly battling postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma, or even a more severe mental illness? Why do we judge a mother's mental health by how well she cares for everyone else instead of listening when she tells us she isn't okay?
This isn't an episode about guilt or innocence. It's about challenging the assumptions that keep mothers suffering in silence and asking a question every family, provider, and community should consider:
What if we've been looking for the wrong signs all along?
Hello guys, welcome back to Preview Lions Podcast. This is Sarah, and I have got my favorite maternal mental health therapist slash attorney today for the Clancy trial. Whitney she's she signed up for jury duty and I'm pouring jury and we're here. I was not assigned, but I volunteered. We love to self-volunteer in this type A Inagram one life. And you know, even when not called upon, but in all um seriousness, guys, we are gonna talk about the Clancy trial. So if you are not in the mental space to hear this, pause, um, come back to it when you are, or just say, you know, I'm not in that, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_00
But just know we are gonna talk about postpartum psychosis, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, um, a lot of things that have already come to light within the trial. Um, I don't think that we will get super detailed in the gory side of things, but just know like it is heavy topics because we are talking about Lindsay Clancy and you know, the allegations of her killing her three children and a suicide attempt. And that is hard. So if you if you're not in the place, it is okay that you're not in the place. Protect yourself, protect your mental health.
SPEAKER_01
And it's it's a lot, and you know, it's like I've told Whitney, Lizards. I'll tell you guys, when it first came out, it brought me back. I mean, it brought me back to postpartum, it brought me back to um truly just the feeling of the struggle and her talking about brain fog, and she's desperately not wanting to feel this way. Right. And I even like
feeling like she could, and we've done an episode on this about feeling how she couldn't give the attention to her third child the way she was get she gave her first, and we did a whole guilt episode of that. Right.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. So the thing is, I think most of us moms really can relate to the journal entries that Lindsay had, you know, that she wanted to, I guess, get everything right. The nap schedules, the feeding schedules, you know, leaving a note for Patrick of say, hey, put Callan down at this time, all of that, like keeping track of everything and how she wanted to be the fun mom, but then she was also so ridden with anxiety of I have to get everything just right and just perfect. And you know, we also look at she was a labor and delivery nurse. And I do feel like, especially in medicine, but in these serving professions where sometimes you can be dealing with life or death, that type A, that perfectionism does come out very strongly in motherhood. And it's hard to accept, but we can't get motherhood right.
SPEAKER_01
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that was a struggle that she experienced. Um, obviously, we don't have a verdict, um, and I would never condone anybody killing their child, but I do think if we look at it from the scope of a psychosis, that if she did do it, she certainly was not thinking in Lindsay's mind.
unknown
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Because I have done therapy with a few women who have experienced postpartum psychosis, and one of them told me vividly that she went to the OB's office just a few days after delivery, and one of the tiles in the OB's waiting room was floating. One of the floor tiles was floating. She had that hallucination, and she looked at her husband, she said, I know that this isn't real, but that tile over there is floating in the air. And he goes, No, it's not. And she goes, Logically, I know that, but I'm seeing that right now. And when we look at Lindsay Clancy, she reached out for help frequently. One issue I really take, and this is one area that I think she was failed in, is the amount of medications and the variety of medications that she was prescribed. Um, I'm not a doctor, not a nurse, not a PA, so I don't have a degree in medical anything, but I do fear that maybe serotonin syndrome took place because she did not respond well to the Zoloft and it wasn't removed, more things got added to it, and all of that can overload the brain with serotonin, and that can feel and appear like serotonin syndrome.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you know, and I think what people are going, and there's a lot of feelings about this because again they people cannot see that a mom could be struggling, having intrusive thoughts, um, having experiences high with psychoses, like you know, but still take a kid to the pediatrician to um still build snowmans, still um be googling unicorn coloring sheets to yes, fluffy slime. You know, they can't, they're like, but could and it's like, you know, I never had psychoses. I had severe depression, I had PTSD. I still ever, you know, I kept a house, I or we had groceries, I made pediatrician appointments, um, I still planned trips, I, you know, tried new recipes, I Google those because and I, you know, the same thing when people say people who have um lost a loved one to suicide, right? And if you if you talk to them, and they'll usually say, uh he was, I had no idea. It's perfectly fine. It was out of the blue. Yeah, they were um, you know, they were happy, they were just running, they ran their marathon last week, or they, you know, they did this, or like, and so people say that frequently about just suicide in general, but then over here in the bucket when it comes and now she's a mother, psychoses or taking her own life, right? Because we know maternal suicide is a large um topic and conversation in maternal mental health world. So it's like people are okay with someone that's not a mom, of like, well, that label of I didn't know, I couldn't, you know, everything seemed fine, but oh well, but how can that be true with
Right. Well, and I can remember my very first medical social work job, and one of the nurse practitioners really helped me gain good perspective on this. Is if you see the mom that comes in and like she's well dressed, like hygiene on point. She's appropriately dressed, like she's answering the question, she's on it, on it, on it. She's 10 minutes early to the appointment, things like that. We see that high functioning that lends itself more to the anxious spectrum of things, of I have to be on it. And if I do all the things right, everything will go right. That is the perception that anxiety gives us. Depression is more of you have a hard time getting out of bed, that lack of motivation. Maybe hygiene isn't so great. You know, maybe they just rolled out of bed and they're 10 minutes late to the appointment, things of that nature. And so we look at Lindsay and we see she was taking the kids to the pediatrician. She wanted to be the fun mom, she wanted to be on it. So I see a lot of postpartum anxiety in her. Um, I know that there has been some discussion of like there were days where she couldn't get out of bed. And you know, we see that those were days that she reached out to her mom and she was like, I need help. Yeah. And her mom was like, I've get I'll be there. I will be there. Just hold down the four and I'll get there in an hour or however long you know the drive was for her. And so we see some of the depressive side of things, and we see that Lindsay told people, told her mom, told Patrick, told her mother-in-law, told providers, I'm having thoughts of hurting myself and the kids. I don't like this. This isn't normal, this isn't me. She knew she knew and she sought out help, and it really hurts my heart because one, I think she was over-prescribed, way too many things all at the same time. Don't feel like that was appropriate at all. And then I want to say that she went to a facility, but they wouldn't admit her because she didn't meet criteria.
SPEAKER_01
She called the suicide hotline, I think, twice. And she didn't have a plan. But to me, again, I you know, everybody, it's like you can't teach someone how to swim when they're drowning. Right. Um, and she got to the drowning point. Um, and it's and I think a lot of moms again have asked for help. And right, you know, psychoses is rare. We know that. That is it is one to two in a thousand. Um, but a mom suffering with her mental health, depression or anxiety, or having PTSD from a traumatic birth, that's not rare. That's you know, one in three, if not more, you know, right. And so again, we're seeing right in front of our face. Right. Mom asked for help, the system failed her. Yes. I, you know, aside the fact of things not making sense to me in in this case, right? I see where I mean failed.
She was failed. Failed, and you the thing that really just gets me is like, okay, so you she said this to her husband. I'm struggling, I'm struggling, I'm struggling. And he still goes to ski trips, he still goes to brunch, he still goes runs marathons.
SPEAKER_00
So it's like, okay, you failed her, and right, you failed your kids because you're a support person, you're a family member, you're a friend, and you're hearing this. When a mom reaches out and she says she is struggling, don't panic, don't judge, be with her. Be with her, don't leave her. Say, how can I best help you? Can I bring you a meal? Do you need me to come sit with you? Do you need me to come take your older two kids to the park or something? Like, what is the best thing I can do for you? Do you need me to go to your doctor's office with you and help advocate? Like, what do I need to do for you in this moment? Because I will do all of it and hold your hand. Yeah. Do not leave that wrong.
SPEAKER_01
I was gonna say you don't go off and just do what your hobbies and interests are. Right. It's it that that that really, I was like, wow, no, you did fail her. You felt her there big time. And another thing about this is it's just like, okay, how again are we we are saying what a good moment is? Or it's like, okay, so she can make all the appointments, she can do all the fun stuff, she can do the science thing, but that but we're again not comfortable with the fact that she could be suffering while she does that. Right. Competency, it's judged by if we're able to make the appointments and carry the mental load.
SPEAKER_00
Right. Well, and I think back, this has been many, many years ago. Uh, Robin Williams, when he died by suicide, everyone was shocked by that. And you think about it, he was the joker. Like he made jokes, he made people happy, he laughed, he smiled, but no one saw that coming. And I feel like so much of that could have been Lindsay where she was making the appointments, she was being the mom. She was trying to be the mom she wanted to be. She was trying to fake it till she made it.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And like, I get it because you know what? How many of us have done that? Probably all of us.
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00
Probably all of us. Like, I know that I put my own postpartum anxiety on the back burner because my husband was struggling with his own version of postpartum depression. I'm like, we can't go down at the same time. No, no, no, no, and thankfully I had an OB who caught on pretty quick, but not everybody has that.
SPEAKER_01
No, no, and I think too, where she the where they're at, right? In the Boston area. So many resources, right? And then you have moms in Alabama where we are in the southeast, um, where there's maternal deserts, and we do not have OBs hardly. We do not have mental health that is first in maternal. So I think, oh my gosh, this happened truly at one of the main hubs of care um for maternal mental health. And she was still failed. So, what does that say for the rest of the country? So I think it's I guess there's a lot with moms hearing this and seeing this going, okay, I was failed, you know, I still have some pretty deep cut wounds from this. Um, maybe it's even making you realize you you weren't healing, you have not healed from the things that happened to you at postpartum. Yeah. Um, it's still triggering, you know, to you um to hear these things. And you almost feel resentful at like again, the failures of motherhood and what we're expected to be and do, how we're judged. And again, like we said in last week's episode, the needle hasn't changed, it hasn't moved forward.
SPEAKER_00
Like, where has the growth and the progress been in all of this?
SPEAKER_01
And then you it's not fun hearing people talk about, well, you're a monster, if you think that.
SPEAKER_00
Right. I mean, and we wonder why moms don't want to reach out and get help. It's because of the fear of the judgment. It is because what if they call CPS on us? And for those that are maybe outside of the states, that's Child Protective Services in Alabama. It's called DHR. We worry about well, is my doctor going to judge me? Is daycare going to judge me? Is my spouse or my family going to judge me? Am I a failure of a mom because I have these thoughts? And a long time ago, we had an episode on intrusive thoughts. And y'all, every mom has an intrusive thought of some type. Whether it's your worry that you're going to fall down the stairs while carrying your baby, that's an intrusive thought. Now, is that the same as I want to harm my baby? No, it's not, but it's still an intrusive
thought. And when we start to see those creep in, when we start to see that the frequency or the severity of them is starting to creep up, that is when you need to get help. And if you reach out to your OB, if you reach out to a therapist in your area and you feel like you are just hitting a brick wall, call postpartum support international. Like, I don't know that I can advocate that enough because they can get someone there to help you.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And then, you know, the maternal mental health hotline, that is a free hotline. And we can we'll tag that in the show notes. You can also Google that. That has the Spanish line and it has English line. And why I think it's amazing that that was created. A lot of moms still don't know about it.
SPEAKER_00
Um, OB's office for that.
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there's not. And I also don't think that we have we're failing moms at like the get-go of pregnancy, where we should have like, and that's why previous such a big component of like we start in the first trimester with her because we want her in pregnancy, which you know, anxiety develops very early in pregnancy, depression can develop very early in pregnancy, right? And psychosis can occur in pregnancy. Oh, absolutely, it can. So it is a lot of moms are like, I never had a label to know what I was feeling. I thought it was a new thing, I thought I was crazy. So we failed her on even education, and we failed the caregivers and support team of her to, and we've and the medical profession's not really well educated on it. No, they're not, which that's so it's it's a whole system that has been whack-a-mole of trying to help moms, and it's not worked, right? And we're seeing live coverage, but one thing I think that should be encouraging to listeners is that a conversation is happening, and um God love her attorney. He is paving a way forward for moms to be brought to the forefront. But this is a time, if any, to email again, talk to your representatives, email them, call them, state, local, federally, um, insurance companies, get down their backs of saying, what are you guys doing?
SPEAKER_00
Like, what are you doing to help moms? And you know, kind of circling back to something that I said towards the beginning as far as like the over-prescribing of medications that Lindsay experienced. Here is my PSA as a maternal mental health specialist and former labor and delivery social worker. If you are prescribed any medication, but specifically we're going to look at antidepressants, anti-anxiety, antipsychotic, okay? If you take that medication and within 72 hours, you either have insomnia like Lindsay did for two days straight. That's not normal. That's not a newborn sleep schedule. Your anxiety or depression goes from maybe
a four out of 10 to a 10 out of 10, and all of a sudden you're having panic attacks. You can't leave your house, you're having thoughts of suicide, you're having thoughts of homicide, and all of this. Stop taking an ASAP. That is essentially an allergic reaction. Okay.
SPEAKER_01
Call your provider and meet.
SPEAKER_00
Call your provider stat, go to an ER stat. Okay. I need y'all to hear me when I say this that you can actually have like a mental health allergic reaction to those medications. If that happens, discontinue. Call your doctor. If it's weekend, after hours, whatever, go to the ER. Preferably the ER where your doctor has privileges to, so records can get accessed, but get to an ER. Also, if you've got an OB and then you've got a psychiatrist or a PCP on board and they're all throwing meds at you. Maybe don't take all of them simultaneously unless they agree and say, yes, I know that your OB gave you Zoloft. I'm also going to give you hydroxine for your anxiety, or I'm going to give you ambient for sleep or what have you. They need to know the other meds that you're on because we don't need to be taking 14 different medications for mental health at the same time.
SPEAKER_01
No, and I was, and you know, honestly, I saw a lot of um when I worked for the VA, a lot of my especially older little guys, um they they did not know, family did not know um what they were being prescribed by what provider. So I always tell people, I'm like, old school pen and paper, writing it down. Now we have like, you know, your phone, you can take pictures of your pills, uh bottles, and um you can put a note thing, but like you need to be the best historian for what you're taking and what did and didn't work because a lot of time providers they have a 10-minute window, they are not going to know that you're seeing the PCB down the street, your OBs over here on this block. They're not going to exchange records, medical records. The fact that we don't have a centralized medical record system is wild to me because you have so many opportunities for miscommunication, just on a day-to-day. Right.
SPEAKER_00
But when you involve medicine, interactions.
SPEAKER_01
Whoa. So he you and this goes for your child for your children too, you know, is you are their historian, you are their record keepers, and you bring that to every new provider that you encounter. And that's ERs, that's urgent cares, that's whatever. So that's that's
a big takeaway that I saw that happens daily to people. I mean, it could be two blood pressure medicines that now get started on grandpa because we're not talking. So people are like, well, how did that happen? It's like it happens every day for normal medicine.
SPEAKER_00
It's not hard for it to happen, unfortunately. But I will say this if you have a portal access, you can even screenshot your med rec or your medication reconciliation form. Screenshot that and bring it with you.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, you'll never regret having information on you. Um, that is that's the best. You can't assume someone else is gonna do it for you. But guys, we will do another episode once the trial is said and done. Right. Um, and hopefully we'll be able to say there's some positive movements that are coming from it. But um, it's tragedy.
SPEAKER_00
Maybe we can create a purpose in this.
SPEAKER_01
And that's all we can do is we can be educators, advocates for ourselves, and for other moms. And um, and just share your story. That's what I keep saying to people. If you've experienced anything or a loved one has, share your story.
unknown
Right.
SPEAKER_01
All right, Whitney. We'll get back to our jury seats now since we took a little pause to do the podcast. Yeah, we we gotta go back to court, y'all. All right, we'll be back next week. Maternal mental health is as important as physical health. The Preview Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables like anxiety, anger, and even apathy. Hosted by CEO, founder Sarah Parkers, and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay,
each episode focuses on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges as well as access tips and suggestions when dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.
