Mass Hysteria in Massachusetts. Again.

In the good old days, before the Great Feminization, social media tribalism, and the instant fame of TikTok, most people felt disgust and horror at the thought of a mother killing her kids, let alone methodically leading each one down in the basement, then strangling them with an exercise band. This is the stuff of nightmares. Imagine your mother, the person you trust most in the world, telling you to “go to God, baby” as you felt your throat close and your life wither away. We’ve seen their faces, and we know their names. Everyone should be horrified, and yet, three years after the murders, Lindsay Clancy is not seen as a monster by hundreds of thousands of women all over the world but rather as their hero and a martyr for the agony and pain of motherhood.We are Lindsay! We stand with you, Lindsay!A triple homicide suspect whose fate was upended by one juror who withstood the pressure of 11 others to insist she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt has become, for women, another Me Too moment. Me too, Lindsay. Me Too.Why are so many women losing their minds over this case, insisting Lindsay isn’t guilty because either she was afflicted with postpartum psychosis and had no control over these acts or Patrick did it because Patrick “said it” and he wanted out of the marriage to go have an affair with the woman he’s now married to.I wish it wasn’t mostly women who are vulnerable to this level of group psychosis. But it is. Women are communal. They tend to form groups or tribes, out of necessity and human evolution. Every time I scroll TikTok, I see them. There they are, staring back at me, those crazy, crazy women, performing for total strangers, united only by one singular idea: Lindsay Clancy is not guilty.Welcome to Rock BottomLindsay Clancy has been cast as a typical heroine in a Lifetime movie, or the protagonist in one of the psychological thrillers so popular on Audible. I know this world all too well. I watch these movies as a guilty pleasure, and I consume so many of these books that I forget which ones I’ve already read.It looks something like this:This might explain why the less camera-ready child killers like Andrea Yates or Susan Smith never became a worldwide sensation. The plots play out almost the exact same way. The ambitious, successful, beautiful woman has a seemingly ordinary life until it is disrupted by a dark force. Almost always, this is an abusive, manipulative, lying, cheating man. But not always. Sometimes it’s a woman. Whatever it is, the protag is never to be rescued. She must always rescue herself. Men who are “good” are allowed to admire them from afar and serve them but never save them.Lindsay Clancy has fit neatly into this role, especially if you are one of the truly insane women who believe she didn’t do it, and there are a lot of those. How perfect for a Lifetime movie or a psychological thriller if we found out in the last act that Patrick really did do it and Lindsay emerges as the true victim.Their theory is that Lindsay only thinks she killed the kids when, in reality, Patrick did it. It’s just that Lindsay did do it. She admitted it. She told the Chaplain first. Then, she told her husband and a psychologist that a voice told her to do it. The voice never appeared before or since because the voice was actually the mother who wanted to kill her kids.If Patrick Clancy is guilty of anything, it’s being too kind and trusting of his wife. Their text message exchange the day of the murders:And a recent appearance at his church. Patrick Clancy and their entire family have forgiven Lindsay and believe this was the result of postpartum psychosis, which is why Patrick and Lindsay are both suing the healthcare providers who treated her. And it also explains why they stonewalled, testified for the defense, and refused to give any insight into what else might have driven Lindsay to murder that day.These are not the cries of someone who lost her children but the cries of a woman who remembers that moment she caused them so much fear, so much pain, and their deaths. If a voice ordered her to do it, why didn’t she just say no? Why didn’t she scream for her babies when she snapped out of it? Believe WomenI always thought it would be funny to put out a bumper sticker amid the Me Too movement that said: “Believe Children, Salem, 1692.” I’m not sure anyone would have gotten the joke. There aren’t many people out there like me who have read every book, listened to every podcast, and know everything there is to know about the Salem Witch Trials.One thing I know for sure, however, is that it wasn’t about “burning witches” nor was it about the patriarchy punishing women. These are lies that have never been corrected. The truth is that it was adolescent girls, not men, who had the power to decide who could live and who would die. <p