I need some opinions.
I’m not saying postpartum psychosis isn’t real. It is. My problem is with how quickly explanation is turning into excuse.
There is a massive difference between being hormonal, depressed, overwhelmed, having intrusive thoughts, and being so severely psychotic that you genuinely cannot understand reality or know that killing your children is wrong.
That line matters.
When people start normalizing statements like “I’ve wanted to kill my kids” or “that could have been me,” especially to audiences of hundreds of thousands of people, I think we should be extremely careful about the culture we’re creating around personal responsibility.
If someone truly could not understand what they were doing because of severe psychosis, prove it to the appropriate legal standard and put them in secure psychiatric treatment.
But if someone understood what they were doing and knew it was wrong, mental illness shouldn’t become a shield from accountability.
We can care about struggling mothers while also remembering who needs our protection most: the children.
My concern isn’t about attacking women or denying mental illness. It’s about protecting the line between understanding someone’s actions and excusing them.
Once society starts treating those two things as the same, we weaken personal responsibility and the innocent people harmed are the ones who ultimately pay for it.
If think a just solution to the case if she is declared insane, is mental institution for a long time.
Clancy may have experienced genuine mental illness while still knowingly killing her children for reasons involving resentment, anger, or wanting escape from motherhood. Mental illness and intentional motive aren’t mutually exclusive. This could also factor into the case and is a concern of mine