Although there are warnings about the rare, potentially lethal side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which were issued by the FDA and Health Canada in 2004, many North American psychiatrists and doctors still arenât aware of how to prevent or even recognize rare problems that are caused by the pills. Many donât acknowledge that there can be deadly adverse reactions to SSRIs.
I can attest to one such lethal side effect.
In July 2004, shortly after starting the SSRI Paxil, I had a psychotic episode and took the life of my 11-year-old son, Ian, in a London, Canada hotel room. I was then charged with first-degree murder, judged not criminally responsible (insane) in October 2005, institutionalized in a mental health centre (forensic psychiatric hospital), and conditionally discharged in December 2007, which allowed me to live with my wife Elizabeth and daughter Gillian again. I received an absolute discharge from the Ontario Review Board in December 2009.
Since 2005, Iâve become familiar with many tragic stories about people who have lost loved ones to SSRIs and other psychiatric drugs, but Iâve never been as immediately heart-stricken as when I read my first newspaper article about the Lindsay Clancy family tragedy in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
Lindsay was the mother of three young childrenâCora, 5, Dawson 3, and eight-month-old Callanâwhen she started taking an antidepressant and other drugs in October 2022. She had been exercising and eating healthy to deal with the challenges of parenting until she started to feel anxious about returning to work as a labor delivery nurse after her maternity leave, so she went to a psychiatrist.
On January 24, 2023, after being prescribed 13 drugs over the previous four months, including the SSRIs Prozac and Zoloft, Lindsay had been transformed into somebody nobody recognized as being psychotic, and took the lives of her young children and then attempted suicide. She has been charged with the first-degree murders of her children, as well as three counts of strangulation and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
There are several similarities with our homicidal psychotic episodes. Sharing these similarities will hopefully help prevent rare SSRI-induced suicides and homicides, including mass shootings.
Since Lindsayâs case is before the Plymouth District Court in Massachusetts, the statements about Lindsay are from what has appeared in the media.
Personal Similarities
Loving Parents
Lindsay
âAccording to friends, Lindsay was a devoted mom. “There wasn’t anything she loved more than her children,” said Grace McNulty, a longtime friend and colleague, in a letter. “I do not know a better mother than Lindsay Clancy,” nurse Erika Sevieri, who worked with Clancy, wrote in another letter. “She lived and breathed for her children.” (BestLife, March 1, 2023)
âShe was always working out and going everywhere with her kids,â says Michelle Connor, 32, who was on the cheerleading team with Lindsay at Quinnipiac College in Hamden, Conn., and kept up with her on Facebook.â (People, February 16, 2023)
Me
During an interview for the documentary Letters from Generation Rx, my daughter Gillian said âMy dad and I have always been really close. Both my parents did everything for my brother and I. If there was a sport we wanted to pick up, or something that we wanted to do, we did everything. My dad built my brother a halfpipe in our backyard, and it was like a professionally built halfpipe. This thing was phenomenal, and we had kids from all over the neighbourhood come there to ride it because it was huge. My brother got into dirt jumping as well, so my dad built my brother a dirt jump at our cottage. My brother would just spend hours out there, and he loved it. We were the ideal family.â (Letters from Generation Rx, 2017).
Totally Out of Character
Lindsay
âA work colleague described her as a âkind, compassionate, patient, empatheticâ nurse and mother devoted to her children. âShe is a great human being, and it would be hard pressed to hear anything but positive remarks about our dear sweet Lindsay,â wrote Laura Sanders, a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, who worked the night shift with Clancy for seven years. The story continues to shock the nation, especially those who knew the 32-year-old well.â (BestLife, March 1, 2023)
Me
During a BBC Panorama interview for the documentary A Prescription for Murder? about Aurora Theater shooter James Holmes, Gillian told the BBC journalist Shelley Jofre that âI am 100% convinced that the drug played a part in what happened, absolutely. My dad is not the type of person to murder anyone, especially his own child. It (Paxil) completely changed his behaviour. It changed how he viewed the world when he was on those antidepressants. And then when he went off of them, he was back to the man he was. That doesn’t make any sense.” (BBC Panorama interview, 2017)
Similarities Within the Context of Mechanisms for SSRIs Causing Suicide, Violence and Homicide
When I first read about the Clancy family tragedy and found out that Lindsayâs problems started after seeing a psychiatrist for the first time, I immediately thought about Dr. David Healyâs biomedical model to explain how SSRIs cause akathisia, emotional blunting, and delirium-psychosis, which can lead to suicide, violence, and homicide. Iâve explained how my homicidal psychotic episode is aligned with his biomedical model in this 2016 RxISK blog post.
Dr. Healyâs biomedical model applies to many people, without resulting in deaths. SSRIs often cause suicidal ideation (ideas), homicidal ideation, and different type of violence, including physical assaults, verbal abuse, and abrupt behaviour. Only in rare cases will the side effects, within a few weeks of starting an SSRI, changing the dosage, or withdrawing from it, cause suicides and homicides, including mass shootings.
Akathisia
âAkathisia is a neuropsychiatric syndrome and movement disorder that makes it difficult to sit or remain still due to an inner restlessness. A person with akathisia experiences an intense sensation of unease or an inner restlessness. This results in a compulsion to move – usually in their lower limbs. In most cases, the movement is repetitive. This uncontrollable need to move can cause extreme distress.â (Cleveland Clinic)
Lindsay
None of the media reports refer specifically to akathisia but, according to what was published in a People magazine article, it seems reasonable to assume that Lindsay experienced it as an adverse reaction to the antidepressant and other drugs she was first prescribed based on the additional drugs she was prescribed. Itâs also likely that she experienced akathisia at other times when her drugs were changed.
âAccording to Lindsayâs lawyer Kevin Reddington, after the birth of Callan, Lindsay sought help from doctors because she was feeling anxious and depressed. She saw a doctor who prescribed an antidepressant and other drugs, says Reddington. That caused her to have an adverse reaction, she wrote in a social media post last fall. âShe kept complaining about how she was feeling.â Between October and January, he says, she was prescribed more drugs, including sedatives, sleep aids, mood stablizers and anti-anxiety pills in various combinations, he says, calling Lindsay âovermedicatedâ during the time she was being prescribed these medications. âThey (Lindsay and Patrick) would go back to the doctor, and then they would tell her to get off the medicine and start up something else,â he says. âThey didnât even get her to wean off of it before starting her on something else,â he says. âIf that didnât work, theyâd change it. It went like that into January.â On Jan. 1, Lindsay checked herself into McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Belmont, and was released five days later after being taken off some of the drugs and put on others, he says. When she got out, she felt unwell, and kept going back to doctors to let them know that, Reddington says.â (People, February 16, 2023)
Me
After I started taking Paxil on July 8, 2004, I immediately became agitated and irritated. I remember having to get up and walk because I couldnât sit still without my legs trembling. I started feeling anxious and incredibly negative thoughts began racing through my mind, which I didnât have before I started Paxil. I was pacing the floor in the middle of the night because of the anxiety. The pacing did nothing to calm me down. In fact, my anxiety, agitation, and irritation got worse over the next couple of days.
Emotional Blunting
âEmotional blunting means you are numb to both positive and negative emotions. You canât seem to cry or feel sad about things that normally would make you sad. You also canât seem to laugh or smile at things that would normally make you happy. People experiencing this side effect often describe themselves as feeling âflatâ or âdetached,â or having âdullâ emotions.â (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center).
Lindsay
Kevin Reddington, Lindsayâs attorney âsays she was severely depressed, suffering from post-partum depression and even psychosis, caused by a cocktail of prescription drugs that turned her into a âshellâ of herself and robbed her of her personality and ability to feel emotions,â âand that it had turned her into a âzombie.ââ (DailyMail, February 8, 2023)
Me
As my mind was becoming more delusional towards the end of the second week of July 2004, I stopped worrying and caring about things in my life. I became unemotional. On July 28, three days before I took Ianâs life, I calmly researched how much time I would be spending in prison for first-degree murder and what prison life was going to be like. I wasnât worried.
Delirium-Psychosis
âDelirium is a mental state in which a person is confused, disoriented, and not able to think or remember clearly. Psychosis occurs when a person loses contact with reality. The person may hallucinate, such as hearing or seeing things that arenât there, or they may have delusions, which are false beliefs in things that are not true. Â People who experience delusional disorders can have more than one unshakeable delusion that everyone else would know is false, and often continue to socialize and function well, apart from the subject of their delusion. Generally, they donât behave in an odd or unusual manner.â (Cleveland Clinic)
Lindsay
Lindsay âtold her husband that after he left the house on Jan. 24, she heard voices and had âa âmoment of psychosis,ââ prosecutors wrote. He asked her what voices she heard, and she said that she heard a manâs voice telling her to kill the kids and kill herself because it was her last chance.â (Boston Globe, February 8, 2023)
âPolice interviewed a close college friend of Patrick Clancyâs named Kyle Carney. Carney said the Clancyâs and their two older children had come to his home for dinner two days earlier, and that Lindsay seemed âfairly normalâ and mostly stayed quiet on her phone. Others, too, seemed to notice a change for the better. After Clancyâs parents visited Duxbury just days before the killings, her mother noted her apparent improvement in a text message to her daughter. âNice to see you doing better,â her mother wrote on Jan. 22.â (Boston Globe, February 8, 2023)
âDuxbury mother Lindsay Clancy started her day on Tuesday, Jan. 24, as any mother would, by taking one of her three young children to the pediatrician for a morning appointment, according to court documents and a local prosecutor. There were no immediate concerns about the demeanor or behavior of the 32-year-old Clancy, who left the pediatricianâs office with her daughter and returned home, where she took her children outside to play in the snow. Clancy texted photographs of the children playing to her mother and to her husband, Patrick Clancy.â (Boston 25 News, February 10, 2023).
A few hours before her homicides, âLindsay calls CVS pharmacy in Kingston and asks if they have childrenâs Miralax in stock. A manager tells her they donât, but have similar medications for children, according to prosecutors. The manager later tells investigators Lindsay did not slur her words or sound impaired during the call.â (Inside Edition, February 28, 2023)
âPatrick maintains that January 24th seemed to be âone of her best days.â She built snowmen with her kids, while her husband worked from home before sending him to CVS to get a prescription for their daughter and takeout food for dinner. âShe was smiling and happy, and there was no indication that she was going to harm the kids,â he said, per the prosecution.â (BestLife, March 1, 2023)
Me
I became increasingly psychotic in the last couple of weeks of July 2004, with five delusions towards the end of July that made me think, out of love for my family, it would be best for me to take Ianâs life and spend the next 25 years in prison. On July 27, I started planning a trip with Ian to an indoor BMX park close to London. Although none of these delusions make any sense to me today, they were real towards the end of July and lasted for two more weeks after I stopped taking Paxil while on suicide watch in jail. In the middle of August, my mind was returning to normal.
Two days before our trip to London, I had a meeting with researchers about a project I was developing for a provincial sport organization in Ontario, and none of them made any comments about my behaviour being unusual.
The day of my homicide, I spent the morning at the day camp I was directing in Toronto. In late afternoon, when our bags were packed and in the van, Elizabeth said goodbye. I told Ian to tell his mom that he loved her. He did, and Elizabeth said it back. And then I drove off.
I was calm when I drove away from our house for the two-hour drive to London, and Elizabeth would have had no reason to be concerned without knowing what I was thinking and planning, which I didnât share with her because I thought it was in the best interest of all of us if I took Ianâs life. In my delusional state, I was convinced that I was saving Ian from living hell, and protecting Gillian, Elizabeth, and other children from Ian. As a loving father who thought I was doing the right thing, I was convinced that taking Ianâs life was worth sacrificing my life by spending the next 25 years in prison.
Preventing SSRI Tragedies
Suicides and homicides, including mass shootings, are rare examples of tragedies that SSRIs can cause. There are, however, many other personal tragedies that can be caused by SSRIs. For example, the common side effect of sexual dysfunction can destroy relationships.
I became familiar with one example during the 2018 Mental Health in Crisis Lecture Tour in Australia and New Zealand that I was part of along with several medical researchers, including Dr. Peter Gøtzsche and Robert Whitaker. When I was being interviewed on a New Zealand radio station, I mentioned that almost everyone taking SSRIs experiences some type of sexual dysfunction. At the lecture that evening, a woman showed up who had heard my interview in the morning and stated emphatically that her marriage was destroyed because of sexual dysfunction issues caused by an SSRI.
In 2022, I toured across Canada to raise public awareness about adverse reactions to prescription drugs, using the sexual dysfunction side effect of SSRIs as an example because of my experience in New Zealand. Several people I talked with on SSRIs were experiencing sexual dysfunction issues but hadnât made the connection before. Others were skeptical about this adverse reaction, including a young newspaper reporter from Windsor, Ontario. He seemed to be so skeptical that I was concerned about the article that was going to be published the next day, after my evening public discussion about drug safety. Fortunately, the article supported the purpose of my tour.
My next tour is going to be in the United States. For several reasons, including the significant global increase in the prescribing of antidepressants during the COVID-19 pandemic, Iâm going to narrow the focus of my public discussions from prescription drug safety in general to antidepressant safety.
Antidepressant Safety Tour
Iâm planning to start my American Antidepressant Safety Tour on November 2, 2023 in Seattle, Washington and end it on June 20, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 15 cities, Iâll be holding a four-part Antidepressant Safety Day:
- 10:30 to 11:30am: Public Discussion about Preventing Antidepressant Tragedies
- 12 to 1pm: Seminar on Alternatives to Antidepressants
- 5 to 6pm: Seminar on Tapering Off Antidepressants
- 7 to 9pm: Screening of Documentary Letters from Generation Rx
An important purpose of my tours is to engage the mainstream media. If I can engage the media, Iâll be able to reach many more people than I can through the actual events. This approach to getting media coverage worked well for my recent cross-Canada tour. For example, I was able to share my story and talk about prescription drug safety on two current affairs shows; CTV W5 in Canada and My Big Story, produced by Channel 7 News in Australia. Both shows promoted my tour and, combined, they reached a few million people.
Based on the minimal media coverage the Mental Health in Crisis Lecture Tour received in Australia and New Zealand, which is the only country in the world other than the United States to allow direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical companies, Iâm expecting it to be difficult to get the mainstream media interested in my American Antidepressant Safety Tour, but I think itâs worth trying. And if the media does get engaged, it will be difficult to know what to expect. At the beginning of my interview with the New Zealand radio station, I was introduced by the host as âkiller dadâ and the first question was âwhat does it feel like to kill your own child?â I knew it was going to be a difficult interview, but I didnât expect that type of opening.
Iâm not sure whatâs going to happen with the mainstream media as I venture into the United States, but Iâm prepared for no interest, some interest or, hopefully, a lot of interest. And some challenging questions.
****
MIA Reports are supported, in part, by a grant from The Thomas Jobe Fund.
Thank You David,
I’m very sorry for your own experience, but I am glad that you are helping other people.
I have experienced the horrors of Akathisia, and have attempted suicide twice as a result. When I was in this medically induced state of terror, I had no control whatsoever over my actions.
I made full recovery as a result of stopping the offending drug.
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“many North American psychiatrists and doctors still arenât aware of how to prevent or even recognize rare problems that are caused by the pills. Many donât acknowledge that there can be deadly adverse reactions to SSRIs,” and SNRI’s.
For goodness sakes, seemingly too many within the psychological / psychiatric / medical / pharmaceutical industrial complex were totally ignorant of the common adverse effects of the antidepressants, even in 2005, as this highly hubris filled psych “professional” confessed.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychiatric-bulletin/article/brain-shivers-from-chat-room-to-clinic/642FBBAE131EAB792E474F02A4B2CCC0
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“In July 2004, shortly after starting the SSRI Paxil, I had a psychotic episode” – likely caused by anticholinergic toxidrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome
But anticholinergic toxidrome, has been and still is, a medically known way to poison people – that can be created with both the antidepressants and antipsychotics – and has been known about by the entire medical community, for decades, or longer.
All medical students have been taught about anticholinergic toxidrome in med school for a long time.
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Thank you for speaking the truth, David.
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Psychiatric bungling from the start? It seems like it to me- that she “had the audios” sounds like someone misdiagnosed her and then misprescribed her with that “antidepressant” (prescribing antidepressants to someone with dysperceptions is an invitation to disaster).
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How many more tragedies like this have to happen before this pharmaceutical garbage is taken off the market?
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Let’s hope and pray it ends soon, Birdsong.
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I hope it ends soon too, Someone Else, but nothing will happen until a lot more people are seriously harmed, so the blitzkrieg of psychiatric drugs flooding the market will continue unabated. But even when the pharmaceutical companies end up in court, they rarely if ever admit to any wrongdoing. So personal testimony is the only way to end their pharmaceutical carnage.
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Excellent article. Thank you very much for your work. I deeply appreciate it, David.
To people who hope and pray it ends: Itâs not going to End soon. Thereâs too much money at stake now.
AlsoâItâs like the oil industry. If we just stopped consuming fossil fuel, the chain reactions would make our whole society as we know it collapse .
Can you imaging if the millions of people who are on psych drugs suddenly all went into withdrawal? Our labor force would be crippled.Our economy would collapse. Food distribution would collapse. It would all collapse. Once youâre on these drugs, after youâre off, it takes, not weeks, not even months but years to recover. A lot of people Cannot work on them and most cannot work withdrawing from them.
We need to stop people from starting these meds. But this is not going to
Just end. Not the way we want it to. If and when it ends it will not be pretty no matter how much we hope and pray.
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An excellent but tragic survey of SSRIs and violence, suicide and homicide. This, however, is just the tip of the iceberg regarding SSRI (and other drugs) that impair the brain but are under the threshold of violence. This is a virtually unexplored area of psychiatric and non-psychiatric drugs but it deserves our research attention because, among other things, it impairs a users ability to often learn and resolve symptomatic and adaptive problems without professional intervention of any kind. Some sizable number of persons with mental health symptom, adaptive and addiction problems resolve these problems on their own without any professional help. Years ago I had a friend who had a serious heroine problem unknown to me who one day quit the drug cold turkey and he ended up a university professor! One reason why 30% or more of those meeting criteria for major depression resolve the disorder by inert placebo alone do so because the placebo does not impair their ability to learn as does the SSRI and other drugs! The above does not preclude the fact that to resolve serious behavioral health problems the vast majority of persons with serious BH problems require professional help for good outcomes but the therapy must do no harm and not impair one’s brain and ability to learn!
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I was under the impression that there was some sort of metabolic disorder associated with this effect. I don’t see that mentioned here; perhaps I am mistaken. The disorder prevents the body from metabolizing and secreting the drug, so it quickly builds up to dangerous levels in the blood.
That said, I consider it insane to give drugs to “treat” any mental illness or emotional challenge. After adequate rest and nutrition are established, further treatment of the body – except perhaps where drug withdrawal is involved – should not be needed to handle mental or emotional problems.
The movie mentioned, “Letters from Generation Rx” by the way is a great film, and I know that David has devoted himself to getting the message out through this film and other means.
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Hi Larry. People who suffer from Akathisia, and the homicidal and suicidal thoughts and impulses that go with it, usually carry a genetic mutation or variant in one of the genes in the CYP450 Genetic family, which makes them unable to tolerate or properly process psychiatric medications. If all people prescribed psychiatric medications were first given a genetic test before taking any medication, dr.s would know whether they could tolerate them, or would develop Akathisia or other side effects. However, even if one doesn’t carry the variant, a healthy brain also cannot tolerate antipsychotics, and there are studies that prove that people with a healthy brain will react with a variety of severe side effects to medication that depletes their Dopamine.
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I took ONE 25 mg. dose of Zoloft 1.5 years ago and have still barely recovered from the trauma. I have PTSD and lack of trust in medicine that will never go away. I am 100% positive, without a question in my mind, that if I had continued taking it I would have taken my life. It was the absolute worst experience I have ever or will ever live through. I’m so sorry this happened to your family. Thank you for raising awareness, unfortunately those of us who go against the grain on this are looked at like psychotic MAGA ant-vaxxers. This stuff is so dangerous and should be off the market!
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If there is any way I can help this poor woman please let me know. I have personal experience
with these drugs (administered without my knowledge or permission) and can attest to the delusional
effect they cause. I have never been – before or since – diagnosed as mentally ill. I was in
a hospital recovering from a previous medical error and a doctor used a similar mix of
anti-psychotic drugs to keep me under control FROM BEHAVIOR CAUSED BY THEM. I can tell you
that my visitors saw me behaving relatively normally while my mind was full of hallucinations
that nowhere close to reality. I realize that her life and that of her husband are destroyed
by this, but the use of these drugs needs to be controlled and those who prescribe them
irresponsibly should be held accountable. BTW, a friend some years ago committed suicide
at the age or 53 after years of being prescribed continuous cocktails of these drugs.
She was a beautiful, kind and loving person who became a victim of the Medical Industry.
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Thank you for your story. I was put on a cocktail of meds once. Many were the same as the oneâs Lindsay was on. I had insomnia and anxiety during perimenopause. No mental health history. The only time I experienced suicidal ideation was while taking these drugs. I was given Seroquel and Zyprexa! These are antipsychotics. They made me psychotic! Luckily I got off the drugs and got the bio identical hormones I needed. When you pile these meds on top of sleep deprivation and exhaustion, itâs a disaster.
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There has been a very sad case in New Zealand recently where a mother killed her children. A lack of knowledge about SSRIs was clear from this comment:
“Lauren Dickason told a psychiatrist she stopped taking her antidepressant medication for âimmigration purposesâ, a jury has heard at her High Court murder trial. Dr Justin Barry-Walsh said the medication the accused triple murderer had been taking would have been âwell clear of her system within daysâ
In other words there was no knowledge that severe withdrawal could have been a factor. The drug may have left the body but withdrawal effects can be severe enough to cause something like this.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/lauren-dickason-trial-alleged-child-murderer-stopped-taking-antidepressants-for-immigration-purposes/IM6OBGE2VVFLRLXUTCL2XSVXAA/
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