When the System Doesn’t Listen
The Lindsey Clancy trial has brought up something I haven’t been able to shake.
Before I say anything else, I want to be clear.
This is not a defense of anyone’s actions.
Nothing in this piece is meant to excuse violence or remove personal responsibility. Accountability matters. It always will.
But I also believe that if we genuinely want to prevent future tragedies, we have to be willing to examine every part of the story…not just the ending.
That includes our mental health system.
Because sometimes the people desperately asking for help are the very people it fails.
There was a time in my life when I truly believed I was broken.
For years, I lived with symptoms that consumed nearly every part of my life.
Severe depression.
Anxiety.
PTSD.
Insomnia.
Impulsivity.
Anger.
Crippling irritability.
Mood swings that made me question who I was.
Suicidal thoughts that scared me because they didn’t feel like me, yet they were there anyway.
I wasn’t hiding these things.
I wasn’t pretending to be okay.
I was doing exactly what we’re told to do.
I reached out.
I made appointments.
I went to therapy.
I took my medications.
I kept showing up.
Over and over, I sat across from psychiatrists saying the same thing.
“I’m not getting better.”
I wasn’t asking for miracles.
I was asking someone to believe me.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Once that diagnosis was in my chart, everything seemed to revolve around treating bipolar disorder.
Medication after medication.
Combination after combination.
Dose increase after dose increase.
When one medication didn’t work, another was added.
When that didn’t work, another was layered on top.
If I remember correctly, I cycled through well over fifteen different medication combinations over the years.
Some made me numb.
Some made me exhausted.
Some made me feel disconnected from myself.
I specifically remember Seroquel.
I remember dragging myself through the day feeling like I was moving through wet cement.
I remember thinking,
There has to be something we’re missing.
But every time I questioned it, I questioned myself a little more too.
Because when you’re the patient…
When you’re the one struggling…
When you’re the one whose brain already tells you that you’re the problem…
It’s incredibly easy to begin believing everyone else instead of yourself.
Maybe they’re right.
Maybe I’m treatment resistant.
Maybe I’m too complicated.
Maybe this is just who I am.
Maybe this is as good as life gets.
Those thoughts become dangerous.
Not because they’re true.
Because you eventually stop questioning them.
Looking back now, I don’t think what hurt me most was trying medications that didn’t work.
Medicine is complicated.
Psychiatry is complicated.
Diagnoses evolve.
That happens.
What hurt was feeling unheard.
There is a difference between a provider saying,
“Let’s keep trying until we understand what’s happening.”
and
“Let’s keep increasing medications because your diagnosis says this should work.”
One approach is curiosity.
The other can become assumption.
Patients know when they’re being listened to.
We also know when we’re simply being managed.
Years later, everything changed.
Not because someone discovered a miracle medication.
Not because someone “fixed” me.
Because someone finally slowed down enough to ask different questions.
Someone looked at my history instead of only my symptoms.
Someone considered trauma.
Someone considered ADHD.
Someone considered that maybe my experiences didn’t fit neatly into the diagnosis I had carried for years.
My diagnosis changed.
My treatment changed.
Today my medication regimen looks completely different.
I take ADHD medication daily.
I take a mood stabilizer every other day.
No antidepressants.
No antipsychotics.
But the biggest difference isn’t actually what’s inside my pill organizer.
It’s the people sitting across from me.
Today I have providers who invite feedback.
Who don’t become defensive when I say,
“This doesn’t feel right.”
Who understand that I live inside this brain every single day.
That relationship changed everything.
I still think about who I could have become….
Sometimes I cry when I think about those years.
Not because I’m angry.
Because I wonder.
What if I had never found the right team?
What if I had accepted that I was simply broken?
What if I had stopped asking for help?
What if I had believed the hopelessness instead of questioning it?
Those aren’t dramatic questions.
They’re real ones.
Because hopelessness has a way of shrinking your world until you can’t imagine another version of yourself exists.
I know that feeling intimately.
Two things can be true.
This is why cases like Lindsey Clancy’s stir so much emotion.
Not because I have answers.
Not because I know everything that happened.
I don’t.
The courts exist to determine legal responsibility, and much about her medical condition and care has been intensely debated. I can’t speak to the facts beyond what becomes part of the public record.
But I do know this:
Two things can be true at the same time.
People can be responsible for their actions.
And systems can fail people.
Those ideas are not mutually exclusive.
We don’t make mental health care stronger by pretending every diagnosis is accurate.
We don’t improve treatment by assuming medications work simply because they were prescribed.
We don’t save lives by discouraging patients from speaking up when something feels wrong.
I wish every psychiatrist…
Every therapist…
Every primary care physician…
Every nurse practitioner…
Every family member…
Every friend…
Understood how much courage it takes to say,
“This isn’t working.”
Those four words are not noncompliance.
They are not defiance.
Often, they are hope’s last attempt to stay alive.
If you’re reading this…
If you’ve spent years trying medication after medication…
If you’ve questioned your diagnosis…
If you’ve wondered whether you’ll ever feel like yourself again…
Please hear this.
Don’t stop advocating for yourself.
If something feels wrong, say so.
If you don’t feel heard, seek another opinion.
If your provider dismisses your concerns repeatedly, you deserve someone who will partner with you in your care.
Mental health treatment should never be about making you fit a diagnosis.
It should be about understanding the human being sitting in front of them.
The medications matter.
The diagnosis matters.
The therapeutic relationship matters.
Being believed matters.
Being listened to matters.
Sometimes…
The difference between hope and hopelessness is whether someone finally hears you when you whisper,
“This isn’t working. Please help me.”