I can’t stop thinking about Lindsay Clancy. It is consuming my extra thoughts at the moment… And talking to other mothers, I know I’m not the only one.
I have four children. Four completely different journeys into motherhood, each magical and exquisitely difficult in its own way. And when I think back to those postpartum months, I remember versions of myself that feel completely foreign to me now.
I cried for no reason at all. I became convinced my closest friends didn’t like me. I felt excluded and paranoid. I could feel completely disconnected from my husband, even though he was right there and wonderfully present.
Those feelings didn’t feel irrational at the time. They felt totally real, and incredibly painful.
That’s the part I keep coming back to while watching Lindsay’s story unfold. How terrifyingly convincing our own minds can be when we are exhausted, hormonal, vulnerable and trying desperately to hold everything together.
And boy oh boy, did I try to hold it together.
I’m fine.
No problem.
I’ve got it.
How many times did I say those things when I absolutely did not have it?
I made my struggles smaller. More manageable. Easier for everyone around me to digest.
Why? Was I protecting my husband? Did I think he couldn’t handle how difficult it actually was? Did I think admitting I was drowning somehow meant I wasn’t grateful for my beautiful life or healthy children? I seriously still don’t know.
But watching Lindsay’s most private thoughts and darkest moments picked apart publicly has forced me to remember just how vulnerable I once felt. And I think that’s why this case feels so personal to so many women. It isn’t that we believe we could have done what Lindsay did.
And supporting her does not mean we ignore Cora, Dawson and Callan. The three children who lost their lives as their mother begged for help. It’s that somewhere in Lindsay, mothers recognize a tiny piece of ourselves.
The unraveling. The loneliness. The unbearable exhaustion. The feeling that something inside you has shifted and you can’t quite explain it. The shame of struggling during a time of incredible joy and familial strength. The looming question: Am I strong enough for this?
Thankfully, most of us found our way through. And that realization is strangely painful too: we were the lucky ones.
Because Lindsay sought help. She did everything right! People knew she was struggling. There were doctors and medications and people around her.
And somehow, she still wasn’t reached in time.
Today, through Lindsay and her children, motherhood and the postpartum journey is demanding respect. The reckoning is here.
Because if a mother can be surrounded by people and still be that alone, then we have profoundly misunderstood what postpartum care is supposed to mean.
I don’t know what the jury should decide. That is above my pay grade. I’m just a mother who has done this four times with a profound understanding of the process. The complex nature of childbirth, motherhood and the postpartum experience needs to be respected and appreciated by partners and caregivers.
I gotta believe that’s why women are standing beside Lindsay now. Maybe we’re also standing beside the versions of ourselves who said, “I’m fine,” when we weren’t.
The women who made it small… The women who didn’t want to be difficult. The women who loved their babies beyond measure and still sometimes felt completely lost inside motherhood.
And maybe what I wish I had understood then and what I want every mother I love to understand now is that you don’t have to make it small for me. You don’t have to tell me you’re fine.
Tell me how bad it is. Tell me the thing you’re ashamed to say. Tell me you’re scared. Tell me you love your baby more than anything in the world and you hate this moment.
I’m here. WE, The mothers in arms, are here.
You don’t have to make it manageable for me. I can handle it.
Maybe if we can start saying that to each other and meaning it…something changes for all of us.
Maybe that’s where we begin.
