As an experiment to see how easy it is to get prescription drugs in America, I saw nine telehealth psychiatrists in 13 days. The result was 12 prescriptions representing over 300 pills: antidepressants, anxiolytics, alpha-blockers, sedatives, antihistamines, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotics. I never set foot in a doctor’s office. I never identified with a mental illness. I never spent more than 30 minutes with a doctor.
Like many 22-year-old women, I sometimes stay up too late and find that I’ve disrupted my sleep schedule and can’t crash when I want to. And like many 22-year-old women, I have an Instagram feed flooded with advertisements for therapy and psychiatric drugs offering to fix the imperfections in my life. Telehealth apps promise easy download, quick diagnostic quizzes, insurance compatibility, and (most importantly for a post-COVID generation) doing it all from home. 
One night I pulled out my phone and searched &#8220;insomnia treatment&#8221; on Google. I was immediately directed to “Get Ambien Fast Online” from Klarity Health, a telehealth company founded in 2020 to be a “trusted destination for mental health, weight loss and primary care needs.” I booked an appointment for 9 a.m. the next day. 
The session lasted 12 minutes. I told the doctor I wasn’t falling asleep as quickly as I would like, and he assured me, “You will sleep well tonight,” after prescribing me 50 mg of Trazodone and 5 mg of Ambien. I had the drugs in hand two hours later. I paid $1.76 at the pharmacy, where I was not asked to show an ID. 
The psychiatrist must have asked about my lifestyle, medical history, and objectives for treatment, right? Wrong. The appointment lasted less than 15 minutes, and the doctor made $280 off my insurance company. Apparently his schedule doesn’t leave much time for chitchat. 
What did he give me, anyway? Ambien is a sedative-hypnotic that works by binding to GABA-A receptors in the central nervous system, enhancing the effects of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the brain&#8217;s main inhibitory neurotransmitter. Ambien rapidly slows down nerve activity in the brain, inducing sedation. It is known to cause dangerous sleepwalking episodes, a side effect that became well-known after a class action lawsuit in 2006. My doctor neglected to mention any side effects. 
Trazodone is a serotonin antagonist and reuptake inhibitor (SARI) that works by blocking specific serotonin receptors and stopping nerves from reabsorbing serotonin, thus producing an excess. Serotonergic antidepressants like SARIs and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were popularized after the theory that depression was caused by a dearth of serotonin in the brain was posited in 1967. The theory (which was never supported by empirical evidence) was finally discredited by a British psychiatrist’s comprehensive umbrella review in 2022, but not before a billion-dollar drug industry was founded on its guiding premise. Trazodone in particular is known to cause sleepiness, which explains why I was prescribed an antidepressant for insomnia. My subsequent appointments would reveal that doctors don’t need much of an excuse to throw antidepressants into the mix. 
Dealer’s choice
I signed up for eight more appointments over the next two weeks through the telepsych companies that seemed to spawn endlessly on my social media feed: Rula, UpLift, Sondermind, A&amp;M Wellness Resources, Brightside, ZocDoc, Talkiatry, and TalkSpace. The average length of a session was 20 minutes. When asked to describe what brought me into the virtual office, I would say that my sleep is inconsistent, I get anxious when public speaking and in crowded rooms, and I wish I had more energy. One doctor asked me if I was depressed.
“I don’t think so, not anything I wouldn’t say is normal melancholy,” I said with a shrug.
“Melancholy is not normal,” she rebuked. “Have you felt sad in the last two weeks?”
I admitted that I have. She wrote a prescription for Seroquel, an antipsychotic developed to treat schizophrenia. Without ever using the word depression in later sessions, I was prescribed five different antidepressants.
My total prescription haul includes: Ambien, Atarax (prescribed twice), Buspar, Desyrel, Effexor, Lexapro, Propranolol, Seroquel, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, and Xanax. According to my doctors, I have depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, insomnia, and — potentially — PTSD. (I was assured I have all the symptoms; I was just short a traumatic event.) I was never sent away from a first session without a prescription. Not one doctor told me how long I would be taking drugs. 
While I was offered Ambien and Xanax hastily (the latter in a record-setting four minutes), most of my doctors were wary of prescribing anything associated with a euphoric high and instead opted for medications associated with chronic numbing. Serotonergic antidepressants are known to cause severe sexual dysfunction, blunted emotions, cognitive impairment, and suicidal ideation. My anxiolytics and antipsychotics share most of the same side effect portfolios but add movement disorders, weight gain, amnesia, and more: in sum, the SSRI zombie effect. 
If everybody’s sick, nobody is
It may be appropriate in some cases to burden a seriously distressed person with these risks in the pursuit of short-term stabilization. But I was written these prescriptions without expressing any serious distress. My intermittent sadness, fatigue, restlessness, distractibility, or nervousness were enough to warrant mental illness labels and chemical intervention. 
The mental illness paradigm has become totalizing, and that is no accident. An estimated 23.4% of Americans carry a mental illness diagnosis, and one in six is currently on an antidepressant. BetterHelp advertises on Instagram that “62% of Americans can’t sleep” and “66% of Americans can’t stop worrying.” The implication? You’re probably one of them and need to see a doctor.
If we are openly suggesting that a majority of Americans may need psychiatric treatment, we have adopted a dysfunctional worldview. Unwanted feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and habits are not signs of a medical disorder. They are part of being human. 
Psychiatrists have been discontent with a narrow sphere of influence. Rather than concerning themselves only with neurologically sick individuals with biologically measurable symptoms, they have pushed treatment on the masses.
They did it by convincing us that personal distress is a medical problem with a medical solution. They told us it was their business to discover (and sell) inner peace. My doctors didn’t think twice about writing me prescriptions because they evidently believe that everyone experiencing dissatisfaction needs one of their cures. Never mind the fact that dissatisfaction is a universal human problem. Melancholy is, in fact, normal. Doctors cannot offer salvation from meaninglessness, pain, anxiety, or guilt. That requires more than biohacks. 
Today SSRIs are trending. Tomorrow, the new home-order Ketamine nasal spray may take off. Apps such as Joyous and Mindbloom are already advertising Spravato on Instagram for “treatment-resistant depression” — functionally defined as anything your SSRIs didn’t cure. This is the entrepreneurial spirit governing our inner lives. Without a limiting principle for medicalization, anyone can have a bed in the virtual psych ward.
***
Gabriella (Ellie) DiPrima has a background in philosophy, economics, and psychology that she applies to political work and freelance writing.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Three Hundred Pills In 13 Days: Welcome To Telepsych

antidepressant

health

mental health

opinion

psychiatric medication

telehealth

More and more moms are getting diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) alongside their children, saying that when they saw what their kids were going through, something just clicked.
The New York Post shared the <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/25/health/moms-are-being-diagnosed-with-adhd-because-of-their-kids/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_source=twitter">story</a> of one woman, Cassie Blakely, who was diagnosed at 37 — all because she recognized things from her own childhood as her daughters went through the process of getting answers for themselves: &#8220;I realized through them &#8230; watching both of my daughters struggle kind of felt like my own childhood was being repeated in front of me.&#8221;
Blakely is one of many adults living with ADHD — which is officially classified as a <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd">neurodevelopmental condition</a> that can change how the brain is able to regulate things like focus, attention, impulse control, and physical activity — and the number of adult diagnoses has grown dramatically in recent years, nearly doubling between 2018 and 2023 to over 15 million.
So why the explosion in diagnoses? Many of the adults being diagnosed in recent years grew up in the 1980s and 1990s — when such diagnoses were relatively scarce, particularly among women. In the 1980s, approximately one child in 20 was diagnosed with the condition — but current numbers are closer to one in nine.
The major factors driving increased diagnoses among children include greater awareness of the condition itself, better diagnostic tools, and a broader range of indicators that can trigger further examination.
For example, in the 1980s, the typical ADHD case was most likely a boy who routinely displayed behavior that was disruptive enough to land him in the principal&#8217;s office at school.
But because girls with ADHD typically present with different symptoms — they&#8217;re often inattentive rather than disruptive — they were simply labeled as &#8220;lazy.&#8221; Teachers and parents would lament that the girls were smart, but still somehow failing to live up to their obvious potential. Girls who were dismissed as daydreamers or space cadets were struggling internally with other ADHD symptoms like executive dysfunction — meaning that they could fully understand how to execute a task but feel paralyzed when it came to either starting the task or seeing it through to completion.
<a href="https://www.calgaryadhd.com/post/why-your-adhd-was-missed-in-the-80s-it-wasn-t-just-neglect">Diagnoses were also missed</a> in part because the parenting landscape was very different in the 1980s and 1990s. The Baby Boomers were raising children during those decades, and most of them had been raised by World War II veterans and survivors of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, meaning that they had all been taught to tough things out — and expected the same from their own children.
Inattentiveness or daydreaming — which today might be flagged as a sign of executive dysfunction — was written off as laziness. Physically acting out was often, at least at first, attributed to a lack of discipline or respect.
Children were different in those decades as well — raised primarily without technology, they were often expected to entertain themselves and encouraged to solve their own problems. Many found ways to mask their ADHD symptoms, either by becoming perfectionists or by procrastinating and relying on adrenaline surges to help them get things done at the last minute.
So what is the <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/03/adult-adhd-diagnosis">benefit</a> of getting a diagnosis years later? Many of the children who slipped through the diagnostic cracks in the 1980s and 1990s grew up feeling like they had done something wrong. After years of being called &#8220;lazy&#8221; or being told that they just needed to work harder, they can finally get some answers that explain why their brains did not function the same way other kids&#8217; brains did.

Stressed mother working from home while taking care of daughter

What’s With All The Moms Getting Diagnosed With ADHD?

What's With All The Moms Getting Diagnosed With ADHD?

adhd

parenting

Earlier this week, we discussed this case of Lindsay Clancy, a horrifying case in which a woman was, in my opinion, obviously suffering from postpartum psychosis and then killed three of her children and tried to commit suicide.
It&#8217;s a horrifying case.
There are differences between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. They have the same basic cause, but very, very different effects.
There are a bunch of women who are now taking advantage of the fact that there is sympathy for a woman who had serious psychosis, destroyed three lives, and then destroyed her own in the most horrible fashion. These women are trying to claim that they have the same issues that Lindsay Clancy did.
If you do, you should be hospitalized immediately.
That&#8217;s the reality. You should be in a mental hospital. Lindsay Clancy should have been in a mental hospital because she had postpartum psychosis, which made her dangerous to herself and others.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2490?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
If you are saying you are the same as Lindsay Clancy, that is because you are truly self-serving and narcissistic — or you&#8217;re dangerous. Those are the only two choices. That’s because if you&#8217;re pretending you&#8217;re the same as the person who killed her three kids with an exercise band and then tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrist and jumping out of the second story window, then either you really ought to be under professional care 24 hours a day in an institution or you are a bad person, because what you&#8217;re doing here is not the same thing.
Conflating these things is not rational, reasonable, or sympathetic. If what you&#8217;re trying to say is, “I&#8217;m suffering from postpartum depression,” you can do that without identifying with the woman who must wish she had never suffered from it.
TikTok is rotting brains, absolutely rotting brains. A woman released a TikTok in which she wrote, “Same, Lindsay.”
“Same, Lindsay” is not a trend. If you put out a video that says “Same, Lindsay,” we should immediately investigate you and put you in a mental hospital because one of two things is happening: Either you are saying that you feel the same way Lindsay Clancy did right before she murdered her children because she had postpartum psychosis — in which case you need to be looked at under professional care full-time — or you are searching for empathy from people who are bereft of any sense of rationality.
This is bad, self-serving, narcissistic — and it&#8217;s trash. It&#8217;s a trash thing to do. TikTok is making people stupid, narcissistic, and ridiculous. These videos are ridiculous.
Allie Beth Stuckey tweeted, “Your wife probably shouldn&#8217;t be on TikTok.”
Yup. If you&#8217;re taking a video of yourself saying, “Same, Lindsay,” with you crying, with you so depressed that you feel like you can&#8217;t handle things, what are you doing on TikTok?
Shouldn&#8217;t you be doing something else to make yourself happy? This is not where happiness lives. This self-centeredness is disgusting. It is gross and vile and morally wrong.
You&#8217;re making a category error again. Postpartum depression is real. Get the treatment you need.
Postpartum psychosis is real, and you should probably be in an institution until you are properly medicated and you reach a point where we know that you&#8217;re not a risk to yourself or others.
But if you&#8217;re a person who&#8217;s suffering and you don&#8217;t have either of those things, it’s wrong to identify as what you are not.
And if you are a person who has postpartum depression and you are likening yourself to the woman who murdered her children, what are you doing?

IMG_6178

TikTok Trend Rotting Our Culture From The Inside

lindsay clancy

postpartum depression

postpartum psychosis

tiktok

For decades, fraternities have been easy targets. Movies and headlines paint them as dens of hazing, heavy drinking, and “toxic masculinity” among young men. Frats don’t have the best reputation these days. But these stories overshadow the significance of fraternities: Men who join go on to build successful careers, form lifelong friendships, and develop the kind of resilience and leadership our young men desperately need today. 
As we confront the “boy crisis” of widespread loneliness, plummeting mental health, declining college enrollment rates among males, and a profound lack of purpose, perhaps it’s time to rethink our reflexive disdain for these 250-year-old institutions. A bold new campaign aims to do exactly that.
Earlier this year, the Fraternity Forward Coalition, an alliance of some of North America’s most established men’s collegiate fraternities, <a href="https://fraternitiesknowmen.org">launched</a> “Fraternities Know Men.” This multi-platform national effort positions the fraternal movement as the leading voice on the crisis facing young men — and, crucially, as the source of proven solutions. 
Its timing could not be more urgent. Young men today grapple with social isolation, digital distraction, and a culture that often treats traditional male spaces with suspicion rather than appreciation. 
According to a March report <a href="https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/americas-demoralized-men-part-1">released</a> by the Institute for Family Studies, about 70% of young men agree that “manhood is viewed negatively by the broader culture,” and the same share say “it has become harder to know what it means to be a man today” compared to recent decades.
Building off that, a more recent <a href="https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/americas-demoralized-men-part-ii-lost-pathways-greater-struggles">report</a> from IFS found that over half of young men feel lonely or isolated at least some of the time. Both reports were based on a survey of 2,000 young men aged 18-29 conducted with YouGov. 
Yet these same young men haven’t abandoned a positive vision of masculinity: Nearly nine in 10 young men in the IFS survey associate manhood with strength, responsibility, and a willingness to sacrifice for others.
Fraternities help actualize these visions of healthy masculinity. An October 2025 poll of more than 1,000 young men showed that fraternity brothers are 12% more likely to report positive mental health than non-affiliated men. They are 29% more likely to have a male mentor. They are 28% more likely to have three or more close friends. They spend less time glued to screens — 14% less likely to log more than six hours online daily — and 32% more likely to socialize in person for at least six hours a week. 
These aren’t tiny benefits: In a time when boys are falling behind in school, struggling to form bonds, and facing higher rates of suicide and despair, the data show that fraternities deliver belonging, accountability, and purpose.
“Fraternities have been helping develop college men for 250 years, and the data confirm the opportunities fraternities offer are relevant and needed,” says Wynn Smiley, Fraternity Forward Coalition board member and spokesman. “While society is starting to wake up to the challenges facing young men, fraternity chapters have been on the front lines offering direct interpersonal and leadership skills that help men thrive.”
Critics will still point to well-publicized scandals — pledges at Penn State were recently <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/penn-state-cocaine-bust-nets-14-arrests-over-alleged-pledge-coke-cutting-indoctrination-rituals">revealed</a> to have been allegedly tasked with joining a cocaine ring — and no one should excuse genuine misconduct. But broad-brush condemnation has come at a cost. We have dismantled or diminished many of the very institutions — such as fraternities, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/boy-scouts-want-to-include-everyone-but-now-no-one-wants-to-join">scouting</a>, and boys’ sports teams — that once channeled male energy into productive, relational growth. The result? A generation of lost men. 
Restoring respect for fraternities doesn’t mean ignoring problems, but instead recognizing their unique capacity to bring young men together. Alumni networks open doors to careers. Chapter houses enforce discipline and service. Brotherhood provides the male mentorship and friendship that so many boys lack at home or on campus. 
The boy crisis isn’t an abstract policy debate; it touches families, workplaces, and communities. It affects everyone, including girls and women. Boys who feel purposeless become men who struggle to lead, marry, or contribute. They seek acceptance and role models in all the wrong places, increasingly from opportunistic influencers online. 
Fraternities have quietly been countering that crisis for generations. The Fraternity Forward Coalition’s campaign asks us to stop caricaturing them and start listening to the evidence. Young men don’t need more lectures about “toxic masculinity.” Rather, they need spaces where they’re understood, challenged, valued, and celebrated for becoming better versions of themselves.
I believe it’s time to revamp our perspectives. Fraternities don’t just know men; they help them become the men our society needs. Supporting this campaign, encouraging campus administrators to embrace rather than destroy fraternal life, and simply telling our sons and society at large that brotherhood and male spaces can be a force for good are small steps with big returns.
The crisis is here, but the data are clear: Fraternities have an established track record of helping young men flourish. Let’s stop ignoring one of the oldest, most effective solutions to the male crisis we have. 

***
Lisa Britton is writer and commentator specializing in issues affecting boys and men.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The ‘Toxic’ Male Tradition That Could Be Exactly What Young Men Need

college

fraternity

lifestyle

masculinity

I know Rep. Nancy Mace. She’s a nice lady, but has always been a rather attention-seeking political personality. 
This goes all the way back to 1999, when she successfully integrated The Citadel – the men’s military academy. Then she ran for Congress, where she has been rather performative while in office. 
She made big headlines over the weekend because she decided to do a body reveal on national TV. According to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/16/us-news/rep-nancy-mace-reveals-new-tattoos-as-she-launches-youtube-show-after-losing-political-career/">New York Post</a>:
<blockquote>Back in February, she said she got nine tattoos in rapid succession to mark the exodus of staffers from her office <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/11/02/news/nancy-mace-memo-dubs-her-thought-leader-pushes-self-promotion-report/">who badmouthed her to the press</a> and the <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/12/08/news/rep-nancy-mace-splits-with-fiance-discussed-her-sex-life-in-office-report/">breakup with her fiancé</a> — among other bad experiences. The 48-year-old also described it as a way to “reclaim” her identity and body. “So my story is I am totally broken,” she bluntly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/02/27/nancy-mace-trauma-election-governor-00799867?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nname=playbook&amp;nrid=0bdff907-15ed-4eef-bfd3-524d1cf43cd3">told Politico</a> earlier this year. “I have PTSD over what I’ve been through.”</blockquote>
That&#8217;s a lot of tattoos. I admit I am not a tattoo fan, as you might have guessed. The book of Leviticus is not a fan of tattoos. 
I do think there are certain circumstances in which tattoos are more understandable than others: if you are a member of the military, if you&#8217;re a member of a police force, or if you are a rock star.
If you are a sitting congressperson and you show up with Hells Angels-looking sleeves, it&#8217;s a little weird. It&#8217;s a sign of something. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2487?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
One of those tattoos is the opening line of Virginia Woolf&#8217;s famous novel &#8220;Mrs. Dalloway,&#8221; which is weird because if I were going to get a tattoo, it&#8217;d be the first line of &#8220;A Tale of Two Cities&#8221; by Charles Dickens, which is 119 words and I would wind it all the way around my torso multiple times.
Or maybe something from Faulkner, a 1,300-word opening.
Or maybe the verse from Leviticus where it says “Don&#8217;t get tattoos.”
In the profile with <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/02/27/nancy-mace-trauma-election-governor-00799867?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nname=playbook&amp;nrid=0bdff907-15ed-4eef-bfd3-524d1cf43cd3">Politico</a>, there was this exchange:
<blockquote>Politico’s Michael Kruse: “How’s it going?” I asked her.  
Mace: “That’s a very loaded question.”  
Kruse: “How are you feeling?” 
Mace: “Cautious. It’s a very, I would say, cautious time for me, because I have a lot going on, and I have a lot of folks that are trying to stop me.”</blockquote>
Kruse wrote:
<blockquote>By this point in late January, I had been talking to Mace, and to others around Mace and about Mace, for hours and hours, for months and months. I wanted to know what so many wanted to know and still do. What is happening with this woman? What is happening, or has happened, to her? Why does she say the things she says? Why does she act the way she acts? Is she … OK? Mace is a 48-year-old twice-divorced mother of two. She often walks with a gun. She sometimes shops in a wig. She always sleeps (the little she sleeps) under a 20-pound heavy blanket she thinks isn’t heavy enough. She says she does what she does because of “an engine” that she “can’t control” and that “just f*cking goes” and is “going to go and go and go.” She says she gets the tattoos that she gets because of “the pain that I need to feel.”
And in the wake of her shocking speech last year in which she on the floor of the United States House of Representatives accused her ex-fiancé and three of his business partners and friends of grievous sexual crimes against her and other women — in the spiraling subsequent litigation in which alleged abusers are suing Mace and other alleged victims and vice versa and a judge instituted a gag order for all parties involved and Mace has taken to representing herself — she at times has all but asked to get sent to jail.
She is, according to scores of ex-staffers and ex-friends, operatives and colleagues from both parties and a spectrum of people who know her and have known her for a long time, “unstable” and “unhinged” and “unwell.” “Something snapped in her mentally,” Charleston-based Republican consultant Chris Drummond told me. “I hope that she gets the help that she needs,” Charleston-based Democratic consultant Renee Harvey told me.</blockquote>
This is sad. If you are openly saying that you got tattoos in order to feel pain, there are lots of ways in life to feel pain. 
Over the weekend, my three-year-old decided to climb into a hamper. I don&#8217;t know why; he&#8217;s three. And then he lost his balance, keeled over, clocked his forehead on the floor, and got a bump. He felt pain. The difference is that those bumps will go away. He&#8217;s not going to have gigantic tattoos all over his arms. 
I feel like if you are a person in need of reclaiming your body and feeling pain, probably what you need is some psychiatric care, not the tattoos.
If one of your friends or a person you know did this, the responsible move is not to feature them on national TV. The responsible move is not to do gigantic profiles on them. The responsible move with people who are obviously going through pain is to sympathetically see that they actually get the treatment that they need. 
It&#8217;s not a matter of “personal choice.” Obviously, we live in a free country. Nancy has the right to do what she wants to do when it comes to getting her tattoos. 
I will say that she&#8217;s obviously going through something, and I really hope Nancy gets the care she needs because this is not healthy behavior.
That may be an unpopular statement. 
But it is not healthy behavior.

cracked mirror

When ‘My Body, My Choice’ Becomes Something Much Darker

house of representatives

nancy mace

politics

Medical examiner Kimberley Springer on Thursday, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/D6skXbDJJj8?is=rXN0RqOz_N9i8oBN">August 6</a>, walked a jury through an autopsy photograph of 8-month-old Callan Clancy, explaining his visible injuries. “&#8230;You can also begin to see petechial hemorrhages, which are dot-like hemorrhages underneath the skin, on the face,” she testified, aiming a laser pointer towards the screen. 
Callan’s mother, Lindsay Clancy, could be heard sobbing, her folded hands and dark hair veiling her face from prying cameras. Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, leaned toward her and whispered. A court officer moved toward her in the background. 
“In terms of the marks around Callan’s neck, and the petechiae around his eyes and face, did that give you an indication here of the mechanism of death for Callan?” asked the prosecutor. 
“Yes,” Springer continued, “it is consistent with a ligature strangulation.” 
Moments later, the court broke for recess. As she was wheeled from the courtroom, Lindsay’s body slumped forward in her wheelchair. She appeared unable to hold herself upright.
A mother in any other circumstance would never be forced to sit, stone-faced, through such gruesome testimony about her own child. In this case, however, it was Clancy herself who murdered Callan, along with her two other children, five-year-old Cora and three-year-old Dawson. 
The facts of the case are undisputed by the defense. On January 24, 2023, Clancy sent her husband, Patrick, to pick up takeout and medication for their daughter, Cora, leaving her alone with their three children at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. In Patrick’s absence, Clancy lured the children to the basement and, using rubber exercise bands, strangled them one by one.
Then, she climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. She locked the door, slit her wrists and neck with a kitchen knife, and threw herself from the second-story window. 
When Patrick returned home a short time later, the house was quiet — an oddity for a family with three young children. &#8220;Guys?&#8221; he called, expecting an enthusiastic answer. He first checked for his family in the children&#8217;s bedrooms, and then the upstairs bathroom for signs of bath time. When he reached the locked door of the master bedroom, he knew something was wrong.
Behind it, he found the room in disarray. Blood speckled nearly every surface, as though it had been sprayed &#8220;with a hose.&#8221; The bed had been pushed diagonally into the middle of the room. The far window was open, the screen pushed up, the pitch-black 40-degree night blowing in against the silver curtains. 
Lindsay left bloodstains on the shingled siding before landing on the frozen ground beneath the window, her head toward the house. The fall shattered her thoracic spine and multiple ribs and caused a Jefferson fracture in her neck, leaving her paralyzed. By the time she was found, her internal temperature had reached 82 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating severe hypothermia. 
The 911 call capturing Patrick&#8217;s discovery of his wife and children was deemed too graphic to release publicly. Lindsay heard the call in court, as did the unusually large panel of 18 jurors.
<div id="attachment_1154293" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1154293" class="size-medium wp-image-1154293" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2288493419-300x169.jpg" alt="Lindsay Clancy" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2288493419-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2288493419-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2288493419-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2288493419.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</div>
The questions before them are more complicated than whether Clancy killed her children. Instead, the case asks the jury to grapple with some of the most difficult issues in criminal law and medical ethics: Did she possess the mens rea (or guilty mind) required for first-degree murder? Did postpartum psychosis absolve her of legal responsibility for her actions?
And another question the verdict cannot answer: did the medical system fail her long before she killed her children? 
The warning signs
By all accounts, Lindsay Clancy was a “wonderful mom.” 
The sentiment was repeated ad nauseam by countless of the prosecution&#8217;s own witnesses over the first nine days of testimony, including her ex-husband, father-in-law, nanny Elaine Rossi, co-workers, pediatrician, and close friends. 
Lindsay “loved our children,” Patrick <a href="https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/07/Clancy-Civil-Lawsuit.pdf">said</a>, and “never took her frustration out on the kids.” She was dedicated to being a mom, he recalled, and “worked twice as hard as most,” rarely taking a break to rest. 
However, after the birth of her third child, she experienced what defense experts assert was a bout of postpartum mania, waking every day at 4 a.m. to run three miles, ride her Peloton for 30 minutes and do another 30 minutes of aerobics. Just five weeks after giving birth, she ran a five-mile race.
The mania was followed by sudden and severe anxiety and depression. Recognizing that something was very wrong, and trusting in the medical system as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, she reached out for help. Psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Tufts prescribed Zoloft, to which Clancy had a serious adverse reaction: she did not sleep for 48 hours, experienced racing thoughts and intense anxiety, and felt “awful.”
As Clancy asserts in her <a href="https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/07/Clancy-Civil-Lawsuit.pdf">civil suit</a> against the many healthcare professionals who treated her in the months following Callan’s birth, this was a “dramatic departure from her previous sleep patterns and was an obvious warning sign of medication-induced activation consistent with bi-polar disorder.” 
The risk is sufficiently well-recognized that Zoloft’s labeling includes a warning about the potential for these symptoms.
Clancy reported the reactions in October 2022 to Dr. Tufts, who simply discontinued the Zoloft and prescribed a cocktail of Ativan and Benadryl. She would consult with Dr. Tufts at least four times in the fall and winter months. 
The cycle continued with different providers. “Frustrated and scared,” Clancy checked herself into the South Shore Hospital emergency room and was later treated through the hospital’s Perinatal Behavioral Health Program. There, she was prescribed trazodone and Prozac, both of which she later reported had worsened her symptoms. South Shore psychiatric nurse practitioner Julie Paul discontinued those medications and started her on Ambien, Remeron, and Klonopin, after which she experienced dissociation. 
She was “unable to determine what was real,” and “unable to be alone.” 
She then contacted a new practitioner in Weymouth, nurse Rebecca Jollatta, who prescribed Seroquel, after which “Lindsay&#8217;s condition took a dramatic turn for the worse,” according to the civil suit. “She developed suicidal ideation and began experiencing what she described as &#8216;intrusive thoughts&#8217;—which were actually auditory hallucinations. The voice said, &#8216;I will not be the same. I want to die.&#8217;”
<div id="attachment_1154321" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1154321" class="size-medium wp-image-1154321" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-1246728332-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-1246728332-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-1246728332-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-1246728332-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-1246728332.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo by Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images</div>
In December 2022, her suicidal ideation worsened, accompanied by “thoughts of harming the kids,” which she reported to Patrick and to her mother, who drove her to the emergency room. She was admitted to a partial hospitalization program at Women &amp; Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. By then, she had lost 15 pounds in a month.
Over the course of her illness, Clancy repeatedly sought help — at least 40 times — from family and friends, suicide hotlines, emergency departments, inpatient programs and mental health providers. She continued reaching out even as her condition deteriorated, but some support clinicians turned her away because she “did not have a suicide plan.” 
She ultimately self-admitted to additional emergency rooms and inpatient programs, the last of which was at McLean Hospital. She was released after only five days so she could attend her daughter’s birthday party.
All in all, Clancy was prescribed 13 different medications, including benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and sleep aids, in the four months leading up to the deaths of her children. 
The defense’s central claim is encapsulated in Clancy’s civil suit: “The psychotropic medications Lindsay received appear to have paradoxically exacerbated her underlying psychiatric vulnerability, precipitating a state of manic psychosis characterized by compelling command hallucinations.” In other words, Clancy was experiencing severe postpartum psychosis, a condition they contend was worsened by the medications she was prescribed.
The persistence of postpartum psychosis
To outside observers, Clancy’s case appears to fit a rare but tragic pattern: women whose postpartum psychosis was not adequately recognized or treated before it ended in catastrophe.
The most famous is Andrea Yates, the Houston mother who drowned her five children in the family bathtub after experiencing severe postpartum psychosis, including commands “from Satan” she believed were commanding her to harm them. Before the killings, Yates had sought psychiatric help, including multiple hospitalizations, but her condition continued to deteriorate. She was initially convicted of capital murder in 2002, though that verdict was overturned on appeal in 2005. Yates was retried in 2006 and found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Another is Carol Coronado, a California mom who was sentenced to life in prison after stabbing her three daughters to death and attempting suicide by stabbing herself so deeply that she punctured the sac surrounding her heart. In the months before the tragedy, Coronado reportedly sought help multiple times — from her husband, family, and healthcare professionals — but those around her failed to recognize the severity of her condition. She remains incarcerated to this day. 
These women were also attentive mothers, by all accounts, who were overtaken by a psychiatric condition more common than many people realize. Postpartum psychosis affects approximately one in every 500 mothers, though the risk rises dramatically, to 20–30%, among women with bipolar disorder, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed. Yet when a new mother leaves the hospital, her chance of being screened for postpartum depression varies widely. When she is screened, it’s often through a 10-question survey developed in 1987. There is currently no widely used screening tool specifically designed to identify postpartum psychosis. 
&#8220;Throwing drugs at problems&#8221;
Expert psychiatric witnesses set to testify for the defense have also spoken publicly about Clancy’s case and what they describe as significant failures by her medical providers. Dr. Margaret Spinelli, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and founder of the university’s Women’s Program in Psychiatry, conducted a comprehensive forensic psychiatric evaluation of Clancy over multiple hours-long visits. She diagnosed Clancy with severe Bipolar I Disorder with psychosis and postpartum onset.
Spinelli said Clancy’s providers “never seemed to communicate with each other,” adding that Clancy “did all she could to obtain the appropriate treatment.”
The defense is also set to call Dr. Phillip Resnick, a prominent forensic psychiatrist who served as a key witness in the defense of Andrea Yates. 
“I don’t know anyone that could hear this case, and not just feel utterly enraged by what happened to her,” <a href="https://youtu.be/WUSH0D9LjSA?is=0ae2UHb71YGA1hLs">said</a> outside expert <a href="https://www.psychiatryredefined.org/faculty/josef-witt-doerring-md/">Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring</a>, a board-certified psychiatrist and leading expert in psychiatric drug side effects and withdrawal. 
“The senseless loss of life of these three children, for no reason, when it was so clear that she was responding poorly to these medications — I don’t know when the psychiatric establishment will wake up and realize that you can’t just keep on throwing drugs at problems.” 
And then, in a <a href="https://youtu.be/0s7CBT2_fOs?is=IR-to_ITygwTY-Zz">subsequent interview</a> with East Idaho News: “A terrible evil has occurred.” 
The Clancy case
The prosecution is nearing the end of its case, having worked through the vast majority of its 168-person potential witness list. Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham, who wears a large bow in her hair each day in what appears to be a tribute to Cora Clancy, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09qrVVj9yqI">contends</a> that Lindsay acted “intentionally, rationally, and swiftly,” meticulously planning the killings and staging a suicide attempt.
Buckingham and her co-counsel, Jennifer Sprague, have presented the jury with hours of testimony detailing the facts of the case, many of which have already been stipulated to by the defense. They’ve played the graphic 911 call, presented autopsy photographs of the dead children, and held up the Christmas pajamas baby Callan was wearing when he died.
But the prosecution’s tactics are not landing with the increasingly skeptical public in the way prosecuters may have expected. Messages of mourning, and of support, for Lindsay have overwhelmed social media. Think pieces <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/what-we-still-dont-understand-about-postpartum-psychosis?utm_source=chatgpt.com">have</a> <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/21/opinion/letters-clancy-postpartum-psychosis-mothers/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">been</a> published in major media outlets about the culpability of Big Pharma in this particular tragedy. 
The prosecutors have failed to recognize an important cultural shift: We no longer live in a world where a judge could sentence Carol Coronado, a mentally ill mother, to life in prison with little public examination of the relational and medical failures that preceded the tragedy. And we’re past 2020, when a largely compliant public, driven by fear, surrendered extraordinary liberties in deference to government agencies without scrutiny of the science behind each consequential decision.
We live instead in an age of appropriate skepticism, where institutions are expected to prove their competence, not merely invoke their authority. If the jury reflects that broader public sentiment, it should prove consequential for Lindsay Clancy, whose failure by the system had deadly consequences.
***
Grace Salvatore is a Nebraskan writer based in New York City.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Terrible Truth About The Lindsay Clancy Case

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Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is reportedly recovering in the hospital following an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gossip-blogger-perez-hilton-sparks-police-response-with-disturbing-video">incident</a> of him appearing to engage in self-harm during a livestream, police have confirmed.
The popular online personality exhibited the disturbing behavior late Tuesday night, prompting multiple followers to call emergency responders to intervene. Hilton appeared completely nude holding a knife and appeared to be using it to cut himself. 
Emergency personnel were dispatched to his South Florida home and have now confirmed that he has been taken to the hospital and is recovering.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff&#8217;s Office <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/perez-hilton-hospitalized-reports-livestream-self-harm-rcna590901">said</a> in a statement that an individual, believed to be Hilton, had been &#8220;safely recovered&#8221; and taken to &#8220;a local hospital, where he is receiving medical attention.”
Police said after arriving on scene, they opted to &#8220;tactically disengage while continuing to monitor the situation.&#8221;
&#8220;In many incidents involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis or actively harming themselves, deputies prioritize de-escalation by creating time, distance, and opportunities for communication,&#8221; authorities said. &#8220;Unless there is an immediate threat to others, slowing the situation and utilizing crisis intervention techniques can reduce the likelihood of a suicide-by-cop encounter and minimize the risk of injury to the individual, deputies, and the public.&#8221;
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira Jr., was home alone during the time of the live stream, NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/perez-hilton-hospitalized-reports-livestream-self-harm-rcna590901">reported</a>. His TikTok account was suspended following the graphic livestream on Tuesday.
The co-CEOs of Golden Artists Entertainment, the talent management firm that represents Hilton, said in a statement Tuesday night that they “are aware of the concerning content circulating online involving our client, Perez Hilton.”
“At this time, we have not been able to make direct contact with him, despite our ongoing efforts to reach him,” Dante Rusciolelli and Rebekah Kochan said. “Our primary concern is Perez’s health and well-being, as well as the well-being of his family.”
Hilton rose to fame operating a snarky celebrity gossip blog, which he has since said was a form of bullying and not behavior he wishes to engage in any longer.
He recently announced on social media that he was moving from Las Vegas to Florida with his three children. “Manifesting abundance, manifesting just family, peace, good times,” Hilton said of the change in June. “Manifesting health, good health — that’s what’s most important.”
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a free hotline for individuals in crisis or distress or for those looking to help someone else. It is available 24/7 by dialing 988.

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The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy has become one of the most hotly debated criminal cases in the country, raising difficult questions about standard practices for treating mental health issues, postpartum care, and personal accountability.
Clancy admitted to strangling her three young children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan — inside the family&#8217;s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023 after her then-husband left to pick up takeout food and medication. Prosecutors say Clancy then attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window after cutting both her wrists. All three children died, and Clancy was left paralyzed from the waist down.
There has been a movement of supporters online that say Clancy suffered from a severe psychiatric illness after having her third child, and that repeated medication changes only worsened her mental health, culminating in an unimaginable tragedy. They note that the mother of three was seeking help before the killings and should receive treatment instead of life behind bars.
Others argue that Clancy must be held accountable for the deaths of three innocent children. They also point to prosecutors&#8217; allegations that Clancy&#8217;s actions showed planning and awareness.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, arguing she was legally insane due to postpartum mental illness. She faces life behind bars.
<h3>Here are five things you need to know about the case:</h3>
1. Clancy was prescribed a long list of psychiatric medications before the killings.
One of the biggest points of contention is Clancy&#8217;s psychiatric treatment in the months leading up to the deaths. Court records and medical reports indicate she was prescribed or took numerous medications, including Zoloft, Ativan, Benadryl, trazodone, Prozac, Ambien, Remeron, Klonopin, Seroquel, Valium, and amitriptyline, with doctors changing or adjusting medications over time as her symptoms persisted.
Several of the psychiatric medications listed potential side effects including agitation, insomnia, suicidal thoughts, confusion, and, in rare cases, hallucinations or psychotic symptoms. According to court filings, Clancy&#8217;s medication regimen changed multiple times during the fall and winter of 2022 before the killings in January 2023. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1149143 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616821-861x576.jpg" alt="" width="861" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616821-861x576.jpg 861w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616821-300x201.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616821-768x514.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616821.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 861px) 100vw, 861px" />
David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
2. Clancy spent time in intensive psychiatric treatment shortly before the killings.
Weeks before the killings, Clancy voluntarily entered a partial hospitalization program at McLean Hospital for mothers experiencing postpartum mental health issues.
According to court records, she left the program early to celebrate her daughter Cora&#8217;s fifth birthday at home. Clinicians declined to involuntarily commit her after determining she did not exhibit signs of postpartum psychosis and was stable enough to return home.
3. Prosecutors say the evidence points to planning, as opposed to a sudden psychotic break.
Prosecutors argue Clancy carefully orchestrated the timing of the killings. They allege she asked her then-husband, Patrick, to pick up takeout food and medication from separate locations, giving herself more time alone with the children than usual before he returned home.
Investigators also say each child was strangled with an exercise band, suggesting the killings occurred one after another rather than during a sudden, uncontrollable outburst. Prosecutors are arguing that Clancy&#8217;s actions demonstrate planning and awareness.
4. Patrick Clancy has publicly forgiven his ex-wife.
In the days after the killings, Patrick Clancy released a statement asking the public to forgive his then-wife rather than hate her. &#8220;I want to ask all of you that you find it deep within yourselves to forgive Lindsay, as I have,&#8221; he said. He described her as a loving mother whose illness had &#8220;broken&#8221; her.
<div id="attachment_1149189" style="width: 854px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1149189" class="wp-image-1149189 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616864-844x576.jpg" alt="Patrick Clancy on the stand. The Lindsay Clancy murder trial is held at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth on July 29, 2026. " width="844" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616864-844x576.jpg 844w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616864-300x205.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616864-768x524.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616864.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 844px) 100vw, 844px" />David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</div>
During pretrial hearings, Patrick Clancy appeared in court in support of Lindsay, and his attorneys said he believes she was suffering from a devastating mental illness rather than acting out of malice.
During the trial, Patrick testified that he never believed his wife wanted to harm their children and described the dramatic decline of her mental health in the months before the killings. He also recounted repeatedly seeking medical care for her and trusting the recommendations of her doctors, testimony that became a central part of the defense&#8217;s claim that Clancy was suffering from a severe mental illness.
The couple were married at the time of the killings, but have since divorced, and Patrick Clancy is reportedly remarried.
5. Her suicide attempt remains one of the most disputed parts of the case.
After the children were killed, Clancy jumped from a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Her defense says the jump reflected overwhelming guilt and a genuine suicide attempt by a woman experiencing a catastrophic psychiatric collapse.
Prosecutors are expected to argue that her jump was evidence of consciousness of guilt after she realized what she had done.
<div id="attachment_1149193" style="width: 851px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1149193" class="wp-image-1149193 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616927-841x576.jpg" alt="Lindsay Clancy attends her murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth on July 29, 2026." width="841" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616927-841x576.jpg 841w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616927-300x205.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616927-768x526.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2287616927.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 841px) 100vw, 841px" />David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</div>
A verdict is expected to be rendered later this month or in September.

Patrick Clancy describes ex-wife’s mental health struggles leading up to children’s deaths in her murder trial

Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Three Children. Why Some People Want Her Set Free.

Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Three Children. Why Some People Want Her To Walk Free.

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A California judge on Monday dismissed all charges against a radiologist accused of intentionally driving his family off a Northern California cliff in 2023 after he completed a court-ordered mental health diversion program.
<a href="https://abc7news.com/post/judge-drops-attempted-murder-charges-dharmesh-patel-accused-driving-family-off-cliff-devils-slide/19459898/">Dharmesh Patel</a>, 45, was charged with attempted murder after driving his Tesla off a 250-foot cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway near an area known as Devil’s Slide in Pacifica, about 14 miles south of San Francisco. His 41-year-old wife, 7-year-old daughter, and 4-year-old son were inside the vehicle when it dropped hundreds of feet. All four survived the January 2023 crash, which first responders described as an “absolute miracle.” 
The Tesla crashed into a rocky outcropping, flipped several times, and came to rest on its wheels, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-california-san-francisco-04504cc68d9c753ee6095627b66af612">Associated Press</a> reported. Firefighters had to cut the family out of the wreckage. 
After surviving the crash, Patel&#8217;s wife, Bubna, told investigators she believed her husband &#8220;did it on purpose&#8221; and needed a &#8220;psych evaluation,&#8221; <a href="https://www.ktvu.com/news/dharmesh-patel-devils-slide-crash-charges-dismissed">according to local outlet KTVU.</a> She added that her husband suffered from depression. 
&#8220;He said he was going to drive off the cliff,&#8221; she said, according to KTVU. The Southern California-based family was reportedly in the Bay Area visiting relatives at the time of the crash. 
After his arrest, Patel told a psychiatrist he believed his children would be kidnapped and trafficked, according to the Associated Press. Patel pleaded not guilty, <a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww2.mbc.ca.gov%2FBreezePDL%2Fdocument.aspx%3Fpath%3D%255cDIDOCS%255c20251125%255cDMRAAAJD4%255c%26did%3DAAAJD251125225913022.DID&amp;data=05%7C02%7CORodriguez%40ap.org%7C7038575fa1494d9eb9c808dedc63870b%7Ce442e1abfd6b4ba3abf3b020eb50df37%7C1%7C0%7C639190517655511618%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=NM6adS8wkq5oHLQf8O9zZo2IfFMRY4wf6%2FuGvsg8fSE%3D&amp;reserved=0">surrendered</a> his California medical license, and remained in jail without bail until 2024.
He was ultimately released after a judge found him eligible for an outpatient mental health treatment program. He moved in with his parents in San Mateo County and was monitored with a GPS bracelet. 
On Monday, a San Mateo County judge dismissed the charges after Patel successfully completed the two-year mental health diversion program, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/california-driver-car-drove-off-cliff-1863d68448fe091a99817ebc4dc230cd">Associated Press.</a> 
“The judge was required by law to dismiss the charges,” San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/california-driver-car-drove-off-cliff-1863d68448fe091a99817ebc4dc230cd">outlet</a>, referring to a 2023 California bill that allowed Patel to qualify for the mental health program.
Patel’s wife later testified that she had forgiven him and did not want him to be prosecuted, according to the AP.
In court, San Mateo prosecutors opposed diversion for Patel, saying the former doctor &#8220;got the break of a lifetime,&#8221; <a href="https://abc7news.com/post/judge-drops-attempted-murder-charges-dharmesh-patel-accused-driving-family-off-cliff-devils-slide/19459898/">according to ABC7. </a>
Wagstaffe said he is working with lawmakers to prevent defendants charged with attempted murder from qualifying for mental health diversion.
“We’ll try again in the future,” he told the AP. “We’re not giving up.”

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Why Charges Were Dropped Against Doctor Who Drove Family Off Cliff

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Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) revealed Tuesday that the undisclosed medical condition that kept him away from Congress for nearly four months was depression, ending months of speculation about one of the House GOP&#8217;s most closely watched absences.
Returning to the House floor for the first time since early March, Kean disclosed that he was hospitalized after experiencing health concerns and was ultimately diagnosed with depression, a condition he described as far more debilitating than many people realize.
&#8220;Many people think it is feeling sad. It is so much more than that,&#8221; Kean told colleagues. &#8220;It is physical, it is emotional, and until you experience it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be.&#8221;
The announcement comes after Kean missed more than 100 House votes and largely disappeared from public view, creating headaches for House Republican leadership as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) attempted to navigate the chamber&#8217;s razor-thin majority.
Kean last cast a vote on March 5 before abruptly stepping away from Congress. His office initially described the situation only as a &#8220;personal medical issue,&#8221; repeatedly declining to elaborate while assuring constituents the congressman expected to make a full recovery.
Earlier this month, Kean&#8217;s political adviser, Harrison Neely, announced the congressman would return to Washington on June 30 and promised he would be &#8220;fully transparent&#8221; about his condition.
On Tuesday, Kean explained that he initially entered the hospital for medical testing before receiving his diagnosis. &#8220;I was given the diagnosis of depression,&#8221; he said. Kean said doctors advised him to remain hospitalized because it offered the quickest path to recovery. &#8220;I was hesitant,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t think I had time for it.&#8221;
The second-term Republican acknowledged that when he previously told constituents he expected to return within weeks, he believed that timeline was accurate. &#8220;But as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing,&#8221; Kean said. &#8220;Today I stand before you healthier, stronger and excited to return to the work that I love.&#8221; Kean characterized himself as &#8220;a private person by nature,&#8221; explaining why he chose not to disclose his diagnosis sooner.
He also encouraged others struggling with mental illness to seek treatment. &#8220;Asking for help is not a weakness,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It is a strength.&#8221; Despite revealing the reason for his prolonged absence, Kean left Capitol Hill immediately after delivering his remarks without answering reporters&#8217; questions, leaving several unresolved what initially prompted his hospitalization.
Speaker Johnson said he had repeatedly encouraged Kean to be more forthcoming with the public during his absence. &#8220;I encouraged him all along to be as transparent as possible,&#8221; Johnson told reporters. &#8220;I&#8217;m glad he finally has.&#8221; Johnson declined to criticize Kean further, saying the decision ultimately rested with the New Jersey congressman. &#8220;It&#8217;s his personal issue,&#8221; the speaker said.
Kean represents New Jersey&#8217;s highly competitive 7th Congressional District, one of the Democrats&#8217; top pickup opportunities heading into November. His absence became an issue in the race as Democrats questioned whether constituents were receiving adequate representation while Kean remained out of public view. Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, is expected to challenge Kean in what is projected to be one of the country&#8217;s most competitive House contests.
Before Tuesday&#8217;s announcement, President Donald Trump and House Republican leaders had continued backing Kean&#8217;s reelection campaign despite his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-rep-set-to-return-to-congress-after-he-went-mia-for-months">absence</a>. Trump endorsed Kean earlier this month, while Johnson repeatedly defended the congressman&#8217;s right to medical privacy and urged reporters to be patient.
Kean, the son of former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr., missed more than 100 House votes during his absence, though his office maintained that he continued to perform constituent services and campaign activities remotely.
The congressman&#8217;s remarks drew support from some lawmakers who have publicly discussed their own struggles with mental illness. At the same time, critics argued that while Kean&#8217;s diagnosis deserved empathy, his constituents also deserved greater transparency during an absence that stretched nearly four months.
New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, who has spoken openly about living with depression, wrote on <a href="https://x.com/RitchieTorres/status/2071993828534346043">X</a> that he had &#8220;deep sympathy for anyone struggling with mental illness,&#8221; but added that &#8220;public office carries a duty of transparency.&#8221;
&#8220;When a public official is absent for an extended period,&#8221; Torres wrote, &#8220;the public has a right to an honest explanation.&#8221;

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