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Older siblings’ experiences with maternal psychosis are overlooked in both studies and support.

The United States lacks family-centered, integrated systems to support kids and parents affected by psychosis.

Early intervention in postpartum psychosis can prevent tragedies and enable recovery for families.

The Lindsey Clancy trial has led many mothers and their spouses to speak openly about their experiences of postpartum psychosis, yet the voices of people who experienced their mother’s postpartum psychosis as children has not yet been heard. Reflecting on this, it became apparent to me that research into the longer-term impacts of untreated postpartum psychosis focuses on outcomes for the infant and the importance of the mother-child bond after birth. Yet, studies do not explore the experiences of older siblings. The deaths of Cora, Dawson, Callan, Edson, and La’son led me to revisit my memories of witnessing my mother’s struggle with untreated postpartum psychosis after my sibling’s birth. In this essay, I explore how systemic failures to support both the parent and the child can lead to tragedy, and I argue for a paradigm shift toward family-centered, integrated care. My aim is to challenge the current status quo, highlight the need for early intervention, and advocate for the overlooked voices of people who grow up with parents experiencing psychiatric conditions.

I was one year older than Cora Clancy when my mom developed postpartum psychosis in 1976. She had developed bipolar disorder after my birth; thus, her susceptibility to postpartum psychosis was known to her doctors. Yet it still took two years after my sibling’s birth for adults to recognize how ill she had become. Over decades, I have wondered how it was possible that adults did not know or see what I was seeing continually as a child.

My mother’s symptoms started with suicidal ideation and hearing voices. Under the burden of her emerging illness, she divorced our father and was awarded custody of my brother and me. We lived with her alone as her experiences became more frequent and intense. How could adults not have known that our mom thought she had telepathic powers? How could they not know that she often thought that my brother and I were being killed by Nazis and that she would scream and cry pleading for our lives? Reflecting on recent testimonies of women who experienced postpartum psychosis has helped me reconcile why adults did not know. Over those two years, her symptoms moved from periodic waves of psychosis to the flood of a full-moon tide, so deep that the landscape of her mind was........

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