Why Lindsay Clancy's Treatment Never Changed

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:17)
There's one more element to this I want to get to today. It's what she was diagnosed with, and it's another area that there's a lot of misunderstanding about and misinformation about out there, a lot of uneducated, uninformed conjecture out there about quite frankly. That's bipolar. Lindsay Clancy was treated for anxiety and depression for four months after her children died. A Columbia psychiatrist evaluated her for eight hours and diagnosed bipolar disorder with psychosis. According to her lawsuit, her defense is built on that diagnosis. Most people hear bipolar and they picture the Hollywood cartoon version of it, if you will. Big mood swings, up one day, down the next. And then there are elements to that, which might be true. But that's like the simplistic, super surface level of what's going on here. The actual line is a manic episode. Let's help folks understand what that is in plain English, Shavaun.

**Shavaun Scott** (1:17)
Yes, please.
Mania has a lot of misunderstanding. People always think it means the happy manic, right? Running through the street naked. Sometimes that happens. I've had been, when I work mobile crisis, I would be called out. Joe is running down the street naked. Can you come pick him up? I'm like, I may need some police support to catch naked Joe here.

**Robin Drake** (1:43)
Naked Joe?

**Tony Brueski** (1:45)
Naked Joe? There he goes again.

**Shavaun Scott** (1:47)
Yeah, that was kind of it.

**Robin Drake** (1:49)
I'm like, I'm naked my big wheel when I was six years old, going down the middle of the highway too. I think I must have been manic.

**Shavaun Scott** (1:54)
What?

**Tony Brueski** (1:56)
That's a whole other episode, I think we just found out right there.

**Robin Drake** (2:00)
I'm naked my big wheel when I was six, man. We did a lot of crazy shit. Anyway, sorry.

**Shavaun Scott** (2:04)
But the thing that people don't understand is that mania can also man. It's basically the brain is going too fast.
You can also have extreme irritability, and sometimes people commit crimes because they get so angry, they may be in road rage incidents, and that can be from a manic episode. They're not the happy manic. The other thing about it, you can have mixed episodes where people are experiencing the racing thoughts, some delusional thinking, they may be hearing voices, and they may also be depressed and feeling a tremendous amount of, I can't go on, I should just die, there's something terribly wrong with me, and you can have in a mixed episode, which this looks a lot like a mixed episode to me, you can have both things happening simultaneously. She has a lot of energy, I can do the 5K, I can clean my garage, I can do activities with the kids, and then having this other, this crash, which looks very much like major depressive disorder. So you have to really consider, particularly if you start an SSRI, you have to really watch, okay, I've diagnosed depression, but if I see insomnia escalating after we have a week on an antidepressant, an SSRI, we really need to look at, is this mania? And as I said, the brain is sick. It is not operating normally. It is not regulated. So you can see a lot of changes in the person's normal baseline.

**Tony Brueski** (3:48)
How difficult is it to diagnose bipolar?
Her psychiatrist testified that she considered bipolar disorder in December of 22 and ruled it out because Clancy had, quote, never had mania. She described what she was looking for, euphoria, very high energy, grandiosity.
And then even when it was somewhat suggested, one of the doctors did testify that they had kind of put it out there as a bit of a suggestion, the initial reaction pushback from Patrick of my wife doesn't have it. Well, I don't fucking care what you think. This is a doctor. You're not. And I don't care what Lindsay thinks either. She's a doctor. You're not. If someone's observing this, it matters. And there's meaning behind it. But I guess why did they not get there? Were there not enough questions being asked? Because they're certainly running the marathon at two weeks after giving birth seems kind of like a big red flag.

**Shavaun Scott** (4:45)
It's a red flag. Yeah.

**Tony Brueski** (4:46)
I mean, so what?
Walk me through that. When you suspect that someone might have it, is this something where you got to observe for a longer period of time to really get there? And what kind of, I mean, reality is this? I'm not surprised. I'm not trying to denigrate Patrick for saying my wife doesn't have that. I'm sure that's probably the common reaction from a lot of people and their partners of that's not what they have. But what is it like being the doctor in there when you're suspecting this might be what that is from suspecting to actually saying and getting there as this is the official diagnosis and then having the family and the patient understand, here's what you got going on and this is how it needs to be treated.