Surviving Postpartum Depression

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

The Lindsay Clancy trial has been weighing heavily on me. I’m one of the people who made it out of a perinatal mental health crisis, and four years later I’m thriving with my beautiful, amazing daughter. But I remember exactly how close the edge felt, and watching this case unfold has brought all of it back.

Choosing solo motherhood

I chose to become a single mom by choice at 35, and had my daughter in June of 2022, at 36. I had planned and saved for years, so when she arrived I had real support around me. Family flew down, neighbors pitched in, and I’d arranged for a doula during labor and a night nanny for the first few weeks. On paper, I had done everything right.

When the anxiety started before birth

But stepping back a couple of months: in the last stretch of my pregnancy, the anxiety and fear hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d responded well to fluoxetine (an SSRI) in the past, back when it helped me through the grief after my father died in 2009, so that was the first thing we tried, and it was deemed safe given the risk-versus-benefit picture for where I was. But whether it was my eight-months-pregnant body, the hormones, or just the overall shift in my chemistry, I reacted poorly. The anxiety got worse. I was advised to take just a nibble of the 10 mg tablet to see if a lower dose eased the side effects. It didn’t. So I came off it, carried through the rest of the pregnancy, and was induced at 38 weeks. Like many inductions, mine failed (I only dilated about half a centimeter), and I had my daughter by emergency C-section at 38 and a half weeks.

What postpartum depression actually felt like

Then, even with a healthy baby and all that gratitude, something wasn’t right. I felt anxious in a way I couldn’t shake, this overwhelming, crushing sense that maybe I couldn’t do this. The intrusive thoughts started to creep in. So we tried medication again. Zoloft (sertraline). Fluoxetine again. Lexapro. Nothing helped, and everything seemed to make it worse: nausea, no appetite, the anxiety and depression deepening.

I was working with a virtual postpartum mental health clinic. I was in North Palm Beach and the clinic was up in Ocala, a few hours north, so staying home for their virtual program made sense. There were only one or two other moms in it at the time, and while the psychiatric nurse practitioner truly tried to help, nothing was landing. I started having thoughts of not wanting to be alive, thoughts that my daughter would be better off with another family. Saying that out loud still sounds wild to me. To most of the outside world, I wore a good mask. I looked like I was thriving as a single mom, capable and grateful and holding it all together, while inside I was in real pain. But that is the reality of postpartum mental illness: there is no rhyme, no reason, no rationale. The brain can go haywire. It almost feels hijacked.

Finding treatment that finally worked

(A note, before I forget: there’s now a drug developed specifically for postpartum depression, Zulresso, and later the pill form, Zurzuvae. Zulresso had only just come onto the market during my journey, and it required an inpatient infusion with a lot of hoops to jump through. As I write this in August 2026, I’m still reading anecdotally that people struggle to get it approved by insurance.)

A partial hospitalization program that let me bring my baby

Thankfully, there was another option. Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, where I’m originally from, has a perinatal mental health partial hospitalization program. It’s a day program, roughly 9:00 to 2:00, usually about two weeks, and you can bring your baby, because there’s a nursery and staff to help while you’re in group or one-on-one therapy. I flew up from Florida while my sister and sister-in-law cared for my daughter, so I could focus entirely on getting well.

The medication that changed everything

One of the first things the team did was figure out a medication that would actually work for me. The NP at the virtual clinic had ordered pharmacogenomic (GeneSight) testing, which, even now in 2026, gets mixed reviews on accuracy, but working with the psychiatrist at Women & Infants, we used it as one input to make a plan. I was terrified to try yet another drug when everything so far had made me worse. But I was also hopeful that a different class might be the answer. We landed on an SNRI: duloxetine (Cymbalta).

Within a few days, I noticed I wasn’t having the same reactions I’d had to the SSRIs. About a week in, I felt a shift, a real one, in my mood and my whole mental state. And being in group with other moms going through similar things, I finally didn’t feel so isolated. Even though I was a single mom by choice, there were partnered and married women there struggling just as hard, in their own ways. It helped more than I can say to sit in a room with other women and just talk, alongside the one-on-one therapy.

Why the Lindsay Clancy case hits so close to home

This is one of the programs Lindsay Clancy is noted to have attended, for a single day. I don’t want to misspeak about what happened, but from what became public, it seems the staff felt she needed a higher level of care than a day program could provide. You go home each evening and return the next morning, and that structure isn’t right for everyone. When I first saw the program named in the released legal documents, I was stunned, because my own experience there was so good. Sitting with both of those truths at once is part of why this case stays with me.

Coming home, and the four years since

Two weeks in, my psychiatrist recommended I stay a third week and bring my daughter with me. I’d already been through the full curriculum, so that week I got to simply be with her in a supported environment, still monitored, still soaking up the therapy and the groups. I was so grateful for any relief from those intrusive thoughts, to feel the fog lifting, gradually. We flew home to Florida when she was almost four months old. She started sleeping through the night. It felt like the beginning of the rest of our story. Four years later, we are thriving. Not every day is easy, but our life is beautiful, and I know how lucky I am.

I don’t use that word lightly. It was terrifying. I can’t imagine carrying those thoughts while also caring for other children. And honestly, I think if I’d had a partner then, I might have been too ashamed to say any of it out loud. For most of my adult life I called it “anxiety” because “depression” felt too stigmatizing to even admit to myself. In a strange way, not having a partner to manage those conversations with freed me to be honest.

Postpartum depression is a spectrum, and the stigma is real

So when I see people online say they had postpartum depression or anxiety and were fine, and that this is all being blown out of proportion, it drives me nuts. Our experiences are not the same. I’m not a psychiatrist, but there is clearly a spectrum to how postpartum depression, anxiety, and psychosis show up, the same way we distinguish baby blues from something that lasts longer and cuts deeper. I had support, just as Lindsay Clancy reportedly did. I also had moments of pure desperation, when I feared we’d never find something that worked and I didn’t know how I’d go on. I didn’t want to hurt my child. I also didn’t want to be here anymore. Both were true at once.

Yes, this is a public blog. Yes, I’m a registered dietitian, I’m finishing a PhD in psychology, and I’ve consulted for brands in the nutrition and supplement space for a decade. Someone could read this and decide not to work with me. But those simply aren’t the right people for me, and that experience four years ago made me stronger, more decisive, and better at everything I do. Being a single mother by choice did that. So did the humbling experience of feeling like my brain had been hijacked.

To anyone feeling judgment toward Lindsay Clancy: I hope it’s because you’ve never lived through the horror of postpartum depression or psychosis. If you have, you likely understand exactly what it means for your brain to feel hijacked, and how exhausting it is to try everything to feel better and have nothing work.

What has to change, and where to find support

I hope the awareness this case is generating keeps growing. We can’t bring these children back, and Lindsay Clancy’s life will never be the same. But we can be more supportive of postpartum women and break the stigma around perinatal mental health. For too many of us, a single form at the pediatrician’s office, the Edinburgh scale, is the only time anyone asks how we’re really doing. A good OB will ask too. But please, if something feels off, say so. You are not being dramatic.

Postpartum mental health resources

There is help. Postpartum Support International offers free resources, free support groups, and helplines, and can connect you to support near you. And you’re always welcome to email me, and I’ll do my best to point you toward the right resources.

This is sad. None of it should have happened. But it did, and now we have to be better: to build systems and protocols that practice an abundance of caution and give struggling mothers the support they need.

If you or someone you know is struggling postpartum, Postpartum Support International’s helpline is 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262). If you’re in crisis, call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) anytime.