08/21/2026
I cannot stop thinking about the Lindsay Clancy case and Hayden Panettiere at the same time.
Two completely different stories. Two completely different outcomes.
But one painful thread connects them:
Women told people they were not okay.
Lindsay Clancy sought help.
Her husband sought help with her.
She saw multiple mental health professionals, went through emergency evaluations, was admitted for psychiatric treatment, struggled with severe insomnia, depression, suicidal thoughts and intrusive thoughts.
She was discharged from inpatient psychiatric care.
Nineteen days later, her three children were dead.
Now a courtroom is trying to determine whether postpartum psychosis played a role in what happened.
And then I think about Hayden.
Hayden did exactly what we constantly tell struggling mothers to do.
She spoke up.
She publicly talked about postpartum depression and later said Neutrogena tried to end its relationship with her after she opened up about it.
Think about the message that sends.
We tell mothers:
Speak up.
Ask for help.
Do not suffer in silence.
But when they actually do, are we really listening?
Or are we dismissing them, stigmatizing them, misunderstanding them, or making them afraid of what will happen if they tell the whole truth?
Now Hayden is gone at only 36.
Her cause of death is still under investigation, so I am NOT saying postpartum depression caused her death.
But after her death, the story of what happened with Neutrogena resurfaced, people became outraged, boycott calls started spreading, and suddenly the company is acknowledging that Hayden was made to feel unsupported and pledging support for postpartum mental health.
And I keep coming back to this:
Why does it so often take tragedy before we decide a struggling mother deserved to be heard?
Supporting maternal mental health cannot just mean posting “check on your mom friends.”
It means taking women seriously when they say something feels wrong.
It means healthcare providers recognizing that postpartum mental illness can look different from one mother to another.
It means creating a world where a woman can say, “I am not okay,” without fearing she will be judged, punished, dismissed, or branded a bad mother.
Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are not the same thing.
But both deserve to be taken seriously.
These stories should not become entertainment.
They should become a wake up call.
Because “mothers need more support” cannot just be something we say after tragedy.
We have to mean it before.
When a mother says she’s not okay, believe her the first time.
DISCLAIMER because apparently this needs to be said:
These are two completely different women, two completely different diagnoses, and two completely different outcomes.
At no point did I say Hayden Panettiere and Lindsay Clancy had the same experience.
At no point did I excuse, justify, defend or minimize the fact that three children were killed.
And at no point did I say postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are the same thing.
The point of this post is about maternal mental health and what happens when women are clearly struggling and reaching out for help.
Hayden spoke publicly about postpartum depression.
Lindsay repeatedly sought psychiatric help before an unimaginable tragedy occurred.
Those facts can exist in the same conversation without pretending the circumstances are identical.
You can condemn what happened to Lindsay's children while still asking serious questions about whether a mother in severe psychiatric distress received the level of intervention she needed.
That is not defending murder.
That is discussing prevention.
If your only takeaway from this post is, "But they're different," then yes.
They are.
That was never the argument.
The common thread is simple:
When a mother says something is wrong, we need to listen before the situation becomes a tragedy.
Comments are off because I am not turning three dead children, maternal mental illness and another woman's struggle with postpartum depression into a comment section circus.
