I am a peer survivor of mental health system abuse. I understand something about what happened to Lindsay Clancy.

I have never been pregnant. I do not have bipolar disorder; and I have never experienced hallucinations — and I have steadfastly refused the more extreme medical regimens some people are on.

But as a peer, and as a survivor of this broken mental health system we have in this country, there are several things I understand about the Lindsay Clancy case — and about what happened in Scituate, Massachusetts.

Lindsay Clancy was a labor and delivery nurse, a mother of three, who in January 2023 strangled her children during what her defense argued was a severe episode of postpartum psychosis — the result of psychiatric medication mismanagement and a catastrophic failure of the postpartum mental health system to hear her when she said she was struggling. She is currently standing trial. She is not a monster. She is a woman the system failed.

I was abused by The Guidance Center in Flagstaff, AZ from 2024 to 2025. The harm I lived through centered around civil rights violations, 72-hour hold abuses, being restrained — and similar experiences; and those were bad. They shattered my sense of safety, and of a world I felt I could predict.

Much, much worse was the institutional gaslighting, distortions, lies, medical chart distortions, and character assassination that followed what they did. The hurt of those machinations, especially by someone I trusted, shattered me. It shattered any sense of safety or faith I had in others. I felt destroyed, broken, and doubting if I would survive this — let alone come back as an intact human being.

Like with Lindsay, my providers didn’t listen to me; didn’t hear me, and probably didn’t care all that much either. Like with Lindsay, my reports of struggles, my begging for help, and my capacity to accurately describe what I experienced were met with distortions, lies, and violence. This is what mental health system failure looks like from the inside.

There were times during that period when I had flashbacks so intense I wasn’t always sure where or when I was; and neighborhood people called the cops on me because my screaming nightmares woke up the entire area.

There were times when I was so dizzy and nauseous I could barely stand up; and I had some falls due to this — other times I couldn’t stop throwing up.

There were times when my body hurt so excruciatingly it felt like my bones were snapped in half, or pulled out of joints, and all I could do was gasp for air and beg whatever deities for help, even if it meant killing me dead right there, because the pain was that intense.

Mostly, nothing made sense anymore. Up was down, left was right — and my senses and reasoning were shattered. I didn’t know what I could trust, or who I could trust. There were no steady points, no places to hold on to, and more than once I thought I had lost myself entirely. I don’t think I was psychotic — although intense flashbacks are a form of severe dissociation — but I also know I could have been broken in that way too.

And in the middle of that, I had terrifying intrusive thoughts; a symptom I had not experienced before — or at least not that intensely.

Intrusive Thoughts Are a Symptom, Not a Character Flaw

This is when I scared myself enough that I knew I had to find another therapist, or I might not make it back from that amount of institutional gaslighting, silencing, and betrayal. I have never been so terrified in my life.

I am still struggling with trauma responses; no matter how much I try to control it, to get back some semblance of normalcy, some sense that the world I live in is not entirely hostile.

All I could do through this was hold on to myself with every bit of strength I possessed and beg for it to be enough.

This is what the “soft” abuses did to me. I didn’t have postpartum hormones flooding my system. I don’t have bipolar disorder; and I wasn’t pumped full of psychiatric medications. I wasn’t facing postpartum psychosis.

And it still nearly broke me entirely.

I wish I could go up to Lindsay Clancy, hold on to her and say, “I am so sorry, Lindsay. We failed you. We all failed you. I am so sorry.”

I talk about those soft abuses — the ones where the mistakes of the mental health field can cause so much hurt it turns deadly. And the ones the whole industry itself denies, and then blames entirely on the client.

For Lindsay Clancy — I am so sorry, Goddess, but we failed you.

For other survivors — it is time. We must stand together. We must work together as peer support survivors. We must shed the shame they tried to put on us, and demand that we all do better together.

And for the professionals, the industry at large — it is time to make changes. We will no longer allow you to go on as before.