The Lindsay Clancy Case Has Turned People Insane

I don't want to talk about the whys and wherefores. I don't want to talk about whether she did it, whether she was insane at the time, whether her husband did it.

I have my personal opinions of course, but that is not the point of this post today.

This trial has proved, beyond any other before it that cameras do not belong in a court room.  Reporters, yes.  But the wave of insanity, pardon the pun, that has come around with this case is like nothing I have ever seen.

Everyone has an opinion.  But respect, and thought of those three poor children who died, who were murdered; seems to have gone out of the window.

Opinions have been decided, camps have been formed and honestly. at this point, everyone has lost track of what is important.

This case is about three children.  Three children that should not be used as a political football.  Three children that are being used to push agendas.

There are those of course who have looked at the evidence, looked at the testimony and have formed their own opinions.  That is their right.  That is our right.  But people have taken this case and blown it so far out of proportion that everything else has been lost.  

No one, except Lindsay Clancy and possibly Patrick will ever know what actually happened on that awful day.  The jury will make the decision from a legal stand point.  

But the focus of this case has moved away from the actual case itself and has moved into two main camps.  Both to be honest at their extreme points have lost all reason.   They have moved the case into men versus women.  Women versus men.

On the one side you have women protesting at the Court house.  Wearing pink shirts and decrying "We could all be Lindsay".  No, we couldn't.  Post natal depression turning into psychosis is rare.  

Statistics tell us that it affects 0.1% of women.  This rises to 20% if you have bi-polar 1 disorder or schizoaffective disorder after a first baby.  If you have had previous post natal psychosis with a pregnancy, this rises again to 50%.

So a woman can have experienced post natal depression with a previous pregnancy, as is the case with Lindsay, and still only at 0.1% risk of psychosis.

Is post natal depression awful?  Yes.  It can be.   But it can also be treated.  With medication.  With counselling.  With support.  But it is not the same as post natal psychosis and it is disrespectful to say "I could be Lindsay" when you truly have no idea of how far down that rabbit hole can take a person.

The women that are attending the Court, protesting, claiming to know how she felt, really have no clue and again, it is wholly disrespectful.  To her, to the proceedings and to those children.

Then you have the other side.  The people, both men and women, though more of the former; who claim that if Lindsay Clancy "gets off" and by this they mean is found not guilty by way of insanity; that it opens a flood gates for all women to kill their children and get off scot off.

Firstly, if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, that is not getting off with anything.  She will be placed in a mental facility.  As a side note to this, I believe that anyone, men or women who receive their verdict should be placed in a mental facility for life.  If you have taken a life, you do not, should not, get a second chance.  That does not mean however that those people belong in prison.  They belong in a secure mental facility and should stay there.

There are nine women and three men on the jury.  Apparently that means that the women will be biased, as if women do not have logical thought and reason.

There are calls for women to lose the vote if Lindsay Clancy is found NGRI.  That women should not serve on jury trials.  That women should not hold important positions.  That questions should be asked in job interviews.  Because "hormones" can kill.

This is far more than hormones.  This is psychosis.  Rare.  But real.

If you have killed with intent, you deserve prison.  But claiming that a woman experiencing hormones can be capable of murder is, and again pardon the pun, insane.

This trial has shown that the internet, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter have no place in showing trials.  It has brought out the absolute worst in people.  A trial belongs in the court room, not on social media.

Neither men nor women are coming out of this looking good.  From the "I could be Lindsay" crowd to the "women can't be trusted, take us back to the 18th century crowd".

Three children are dead. They died horrifically. however and whoever did it.  But they have been lost in this trial and the social media furor.  It is time that they were found.

Why Perimenopause Set Me Free

 I have always been a person who internalised their emotions.  Not just internalised, compartmentalised.

What I have come to realise since hitting perimenopause is that I am no longer that person and letting my emotions out is something that I am not used to.  At all.

When you internalise and compartmentalise your emotions, it becomes all about control.   You become fully in control of your emotions in respect as to who you let see the real you.

When I was at my lowest part of my life barely anyone knew and if they did; they had truly no idea how far down the rabbit hole to depression- and yes, suicidal thoughts - I had fallen. 

Because I did not let them see.

There were reasons, and more reasons, as to why I became this way.  But that is the way I was.  For decades. 

On the outside, I was happy. Smiling.  Easy going.  On the inside, I was far from that.

The brain is a clever thing.  But it can also deceive you. 

Because it turns out that if you try to convince the outside world for long enough that you are happy and not sad, you start to believe your own lie.  And when you do that, something else happens. 

You stop feeling. 

Not completely. You still function. You still laugh. You still go out. You still have conversations and live your life.

I remember with absolute clarity one day - thankfully a good ten years ago – when I realised that I was not feeling.  Because that one day, the world decided to let me. 

I was walking down the street with my dog, sunshine on my face, with a night out with friends ahead of me.  I suddenly realised that I felt happy.  That I was excited for the night ahead.  I felt it.

The next second after, it hit me.  I could not remember the last time I felt a positive emotion.  Actually felt one.  It felt like I had been living in a dark cave for over a decade and had crawled out, finally escaping into sunlight.

That day was the first day, of many, of the path back to myself.

I regained my ability to feel again and I am truly happy in my life, yet I still try to hide my emotions.  I was still so tied to the idea that people shouldn’t experience me experiencing negative emotions.  I had to put my good side forward.  Even after healing so much of myself, that was a hard one to break.  It was locked in.

Then, perimenopause hit. 

Suddenly, the control was gone. 

Emotions hit where they pleased and there was no hiding them.  It was impossible.  When I am sad, it shows.  When I am angry, it shows.

Perimenopause gives no fucks frankly.  You feel when you feel.  If your body wants to cry, you are damn well crying.  If your body decides you are angry or frustrated, people know about it.

And you know what?  It is liberating as hell. 

Firstly, because I know that these emotions are hormonal.  They are not because of any pain or sadness.  That is behind me.  I’ve dealt with that.   Which makes feeling them is easier, because my body is doing what my body is choosing to do.  I am not actually sad, or angry.  It is my hormones.  It will pass.

My hormones are in control of me right now.  Not my brain.  Which means, the control that I desperately held on to for decades was gone.  I am free from the walls that I built.  There is nothing but dust left. 

What perimenopause has given me, surprisingly, is freedom.  Because I can no longer, and frankly do not want to, hide my emotions anymore; they are forced out.  Which means people see me and want to check that I am ok, I answer honestly.  I do not hide and say, “Oh I am fine!” and smile.

There is a lot of temporary stress in my life at the moment, which will be sorted and will pass, but is not helping my hormones.  So I am letting, for the first time in my life, my hormones rule me.

I let myself stress out and have a mini meltdown.  Because I feel better afterwards.  I let myself cry if I need to.  Because I feel better afterwards.  If I need to talk or vent I do.  Because I feel better afterwards.

Perimenopause has set me free from the constraints that I imposed on myself in showing emotion and my life is better as a result.

What life has taught me in the past few years is look for the positives and embrace them.  Because they are always there if you look hard enough. 

And surprisingly, this is the benefit of perimenopause.

It took away my control.  And gave me my freedom.

The Joy of Writing

 I have had my little blog for fifteen years now.

I have always loved to write, but this year is the most prolific of my life.  When you look through my blog over the years, I have written more in my earlier years, that is true.  But in terms of writing like I am now, thoughts and ideas flowing through my mind constantly; writing content that means something to me, that has never happened before.

My old content with fashion based with some opinion/thought pieces thrown in, and then I was a commercial writer for a time.  But now it is different.  My content is solely my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions and sometimes, my short stories.

I write as though I am talking to someone/a group of people.  I have always done this.  The number of people reading my content has gone up and down and up again throughout the years.  There was a time when I cared a lot about numbers and strove to get more readers, a better "domain authority".  Now, I don't care.  If one person reads the words that I write and enjoys them, I am happy.

I write now purely for my own enjoyment.  I am constantly inspired.  Blog post topics regularly appears and start to write themselves in my brain.   It feels, wonderful.

I like to look through my old content sometimes because it records a journey of who I have been.  The journey of the long search to heal, to find out who I am truly am to now, being unapologetically myself; is something that I am truly proud of.  And I should be.  I did this myself.

I love writing my short stories.  These are the only things that do not come to me that often, but when they do, I feel like they almost write themselves for me.

Writing for my is an outlet for my creative side and where I am the most "me" that I will ever be.  Words flow through my fingers unfiltered.  This is my happy place.  Well, one of them. 

How lucky I am now.  I have gone through most of my life with no happy places.  Now my life is full of happy places and I am grateful for each and every one of them.   My partner, my home, the people that I love, my blog.  All give me joy.

There can be no better thing than that.

Gen X - The Way We Were

 

The year was 1993.  D Ream brought out a song called "Things Can Only Get Better".  We all sung it.  We all loved it.  We all believed that things would absolutely get better.  Life was good. There was no reason it would not continue getting better.

Reader, how wrong we were.

Gen X is infamous for saying that the 90s (and early 2000s) were better.  Not just better, looking back, perfect.

You know the saying, "You don't know how lucky you had it?"  That is Gen X.

Everything was better.  Hope, dreams, aspirations; these were all things that seemed possible and attainable.  Our music was full of hope and joy and love.  Listening to music made you feel lifted.  Happy.  Like you were unstoppable.

We talked to each other, not just through our phones.  We danced all night and into the next morning without a phone or camera in sight.  We worked hard and we played hard.  We lived.

We were allowed to roam as children and were actually allowed to be children and play.  Not living our life through Ipads, phones and social media.

Whether our school lives were good or bad, we could come home and that was our sanctuary.  Our safe place.  Now children still come home, but they cannot escape social media, or the bullies.  There is no safe space from the online world.

We were free.  Actually free.  Life was on the up.  Do you remember everyone always used to say "It's a free country!" (That might just be a UK thing).  But it actually was.

Anything was possible.  And we believed it.

Now, you cannot escape social media.  

We have had the mess that was Covid, locking people away for years in what we now realise was a experiment by the ruling powers to see how far they could push us.  

The US has school shootings, practically every other week.  

We have had a terrorist bomb a concert and kill young girls, but were told not to look back in anger.

We have had the Epstein files released, with victims doxed, perpetrators at the highest levels of society, but without one prosecution.  

We have had hundreds of thousands of girls raped and tortured for decades, but we let more and more of the same kind of perpetrators into our country, while telling us that we are racists for objecting.

Music is no longer inspirational or uplifting.  Half the music in the charts are remixes of 90s dance music.  The rest talks about guns, violences, whores and sex.  It isn't music to make us happy.

In the 1990s we thought "what next?" because life was good and we wanted to see where life would take us.  In 2026 we now say "oh god, what next?"  Because there is ALWAYS something around the corner and these days, it is never good.

So other generations, don't judge Gen X.  We had what was a perfect decade or so of life.  And we lost it.  We feel sorry for you because you will never experience it and we feel sorry for ourselves because we had it, and never will again.

The Curved Opinion Short Stories Part 9: A Familiar Face

Story Prompt - Your character witnessed her father's murder when she was 5 years old, and now, at work, she wonders why her co-worker looks familiar.

Photo by Juan Ordonez on Unsplash

 I remember the day like it was yesterday.  

Every Sunday, my dad and I would take a ten-minute walk to the local shop to get a newspaper for him, and a packet of cherry lips sweets for me.  It was a tradition, every Sunday, no matter the weather.

On the day in question, we went out much later than usual.  Dad had been in the garage for most of the day and had lost track of the time.  It was winter and the nights were setting in early.  He came into the house at 3.20pm apologising and telling me to get my coat and winter boots on.  I remember Mum say that she didn't want us to go.  Getting too dark, she had said.  You don't know who is out there.

Dad was a big man and scoffed at the thought.  He said "Come on love, have you seen the size of me? No one would dare!"  Dad was a tall man, with broad shoulders that he used to carry me on.  I  used to think that my dad was a superhero.  Unstoppable.  

By the time we were ready to leave the house, it was dark outside and the snow had become thick on the ground.  But with my dad, I felt completely safe.  I miss that feeling, because since that day, I have never felt truly safe again.

After leaving home and a few minutes of trudging through the snow later, we entered an alleyway which led to the main street.  There was a man entering at the other side.  It was unusual to see people in the alleyway, which was more of a snicket between two rows of houses.  I looked up at the man approaching, and saw something glistening appear in his hand as he removed it from his pocket.  His face reminded me a bit of a weasel.  

I heard my Dad loudly say "You!" in a surprised tone of what I now realise was recognition and then, a cry.  The other man barely stopped in his momentum, carrying on up the alleyway as my dad fell to the floor.

I did not understand at first.  Why my dad had fallen over.  Why the man did not stop.  Why there was red liquid starting to cover the white snow around my dad.  Why he was not moving.

I do not remember any more about that day.  Or many days of my childhood since then.  My dad died on the ground of the alleyway that day and a part of me died with him.  The police investigated, but the murderer was never found.  We knew found out why.  

Twenty years on, I still think about that day.  How could I not?  People tell me that they are happy that it happened when I was so young.  That I must not really remember my dad and what happened.  But I do remember and the memory of the blood seeping into the snow and his dead eyes, shock still registering on his face staring up at me from the ground will never leave me.

I still live with my mum.  Except now we live two towns over from our previous home.  We could not stay there. 

I was always a happy child, friendly and trusting; but after the incident I changed.  These days I am quiet, reserved.  I tend to keep to myself.  As a rule, I don't trust people.  Because a person killed my dad and I don’t know who it was or why they did it.

I started working at the bank five years ago as a junior.  Now I am a banking clerk, studying alongside and slowly, making my way up.  I am known to be a hard worker.  But not that friendly.  But I am reliable and get the job done and that is all my bosses care about.

The reason I tell you my story today is because of yesterday morning.  I went into work as usual and was told that there was a new accounts manager.  Tom Allen they said he was called.  I thought nothing of it.  Accounts managers tended to come and go.  I suspected that he would be no different.

We met in the break room at 10.15 when I was making my coffee.  “Lucy! Come and meet our new recruit”.  I went over to the manager who was sat with an older looking man who sat opposite.  “Lucy, meet Tom, our new accounting manager”.  I turned to look at him, a practiced small smile on my face and my hand outstretching to shake hands but then, I froze.  Everything stopped.  I think time may have even stopped for a second.

It was him.  I was sure of it.  That weasel face.  It was him.

I managed to recover and hide my shock, although I retracted my hand.  “Hi, I’m Lucy.  Sorry, I think I zoned out for a second there!  Welcome to the bank".  Surely, I was mistaken.  After all, it would be impossible.  Yet, I looked into his eyes, those weasel eyes and saw something there.  Recognition.  He recognised me too.

He stared at me, a little too long, as I had done.  “No problem Lucy, it is a Monday after all.  Not a heavy weekend I hope, hahaha!”  He smiled up at me, but the smile did not reach the eyes.  His eyes were searching mine.

Greetings done, I went back to the coffee machine to get my coffee.   I could feel his gaze burning into me as I left the room.  The manager would ignore my awkwardness.  They knew I didn’t socialise or chat. 

By the evening when I got home, I had managed to convince myself that he was not him.  That he was not my father’s killer.  He was just another weasel faced man who looked familiar.  There was no way I could recognise him after twenty years.  Right?

Then we come to today.  I had managed to avoid Tom all day.  Although I knew that another meeting was inevitable.  Yesterday had all been in my head.  Of course it had.  My colleagues knew that I was strange, but damn, I needed to get a grip!

But then, 5.00pm rolls around.  I started to gather my things and my handbag when I heard someone come up behind me.  Close.  Too close.  “Lucy!”.  It was him.  Fuck.

“The manager tells me that you get the train home.  Not safe for a girl like you.  How about I offer you a lift?”  I look up at him.  He is smiling, but his eyes were pointed.  Staring, as if right into my soul.  Stop it, Lucy.  He is just being friendly.

“No, I am ok Tom, I enjoy the train, but thank you for the offer”.  I get up and put my coat on.

No, he says.  “I insist.  It is dark outside.  Too many alleys between here and the station.  You don’t know who you might run into”.

The world stopped right there.  My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest.  It was him.  And he knew.  He knew that I knew.

Fight or flight.  Fight or flight.  I couldn’t fight.  He would say I had attacked him.  What could I say?  He killed my dad?  On what grounds? He looks like him?  He mentioned alleyways?  No.  I had to be clever.

I looked right back at the him.  With the steel in my heart that had started to form all those years ago.

“Oh don’t worry Tom.  I can take care of myself.  Believe me.  Night though.  Have a good evening”.

I walked, not ran out of the building.  I was calm.  For the first time in what seemed like, what was, forever.

I knew three things. 

The first, that that man, Tom Allen, had murdered my father.  I did not know why.  And I could never prove it. 

The second, I knew that he could kill me.  That he was willing to do so.  But I was not that little girl anymore.  And the piece of me that he stolen that day was my heart.  I felt nothing.  I had not felt emotions in years.

I have always been the quiet girl.  Unassuming.  Pleasant but not friendly.  Under the radar.  But, I had started karate when I was ten.  I was a black belt by fifteen.  From there to present day, I studied Krav Maga.  My current instructor calls me the lethal ninja girl.  

I knew that I wanted to be able to protect myself.  I wanted to be strong.  So much stronger than I looked.  I wanted to be ready.  For the day, if it ever appeared, when I came face to face with a monster.  The monster.

The third thing I knew was that I was going to kill him.