Yesterday I spoke with a woman who, like too many, learned about benzodiazepine harm the hard way. She watched her husband, a college professor, deteriorate while taking a benzodiazepine and a pain medication. Instead of seeing his anxiety and pain resolve, she watched him grow increasingly anxiety-ridden, confused, and desperate while also suffering worsening pain.
Those of us who have experienced BIND (Benzodiazepine-Induced Neurological Dysfunction) rue the day we accepted a prescription for clonazepam, lorazepam, alprazolam, or any of the over fifty benzodiazepine generics available on the market. For us, in the years, months, weeks, and sometimes only days after starting a benzodiazepine, our frame of mind and physical health worsened. Often enough, our doctors prescribed a different or additional medication (e.g., an antidepressant or a nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic) to address continuing or new complaints. Sometimes our prescriber told us to stop the benzodiazepine and start another medication right away. Sometimes they suggested a measured taper of one or two weeks as we transitioned to another drug. And sometimes they just kept piling on benzos, oblivious to the fact that the drug itself was the source of worsening symptoms. Or, as confounding, they prescribed additional medications that affect the CNS, as though that approach is a well-supported and fully researched method of medical treatment. Actually, the prescribing is, in great part, guesswork. To my mind, psychotropic drug prescribing is the pharmaceutical version of Russian Roulette.
All instances I mention point to a familiar pattern — and are the makings of a disaster. In fact, catastrophe did strike the college professor’s family. His wife told me about the years of suffering that she, her family, and her husband endured as he followed medical advice and continued to take a benzodiazepine. No one connected his worsening health with the benzo. She has since grown to understand that the medication was the cause and the undoing. Tragically, her husband took his life. Like me, she feels strongly about getting the word out about benzodiazepine risks, about informed prescribing, and critically needed change.
When I got off the phone, I checked the news. Lindsay Clancy stories were dominating my feed. And this makes sense. The algorithms know that “benzodiazepine” remains one of my most searched words because of my work on As Prescribed.
Unfortunately, benzodiazepines have a way with death; they have a habit of finding their way into too many tragic stories. I am talking about death stories that involve people who found themselves trapped in CNS-injured bodies and were treated for new or worsening mental health or psychiatric disorders, rather than for benzodiazepine-induced neuroadaptations that manifest as adverse psychological and physiological symptoms and sensations. Most medical and mental health professionals view these indicators as evidence of psychiatric disorders to be found in the DSM-5-TR with names like bipolar disorder, depression, PTSD, and postpartum depression. Some would argue that Lindsay was suffering from postpartum psychosis (yet to be included in the DSM).
Lyndsay Clancy could have been diagnosed with any of these conditions, and it would have been fine IF, and only IF, the diagnosis led to proper treatment. But that is not what happened. It seems clear as day that treatment decisions — the piling on of one psychotropic medication upon another, even when she reported adverse reactions — were dangerous, terribly dangerous. I see it as extreme malpractice.
Clancy, her deceased children, and her family are victims of outrageously mishandled treatment of resolvable mental health issues. Our current psychiatric and mental health system allows, as standard evidence-based care, the poisoning of its patients (consumers). Of course, those who support this prescribing system would disagree with this statement. Clinicians confidently cite positive outcomes as the norm. In fact, when psychotropic drug research studies are perused carefully, they point to an equal balance of adverse sequelae. Speaking from a medication survivor’s point of view, I can vouch for the internal terror state that comes with suicidal ideation. The person’s inner voice tells them that they must die, they must leave life. Taking others’ lives is extremely rare, but it does fall within the scope of untreated suicidal ideation and psychosis caused by medication overprescribing and, yes, toxicity. This is not the harmed person’s true voice or desire. This is a chemically-induced state that Clancy’s care providers still seem oblivious to.
Take a look at the record of prescriptions Lindsay Clancy was given over a less than five-month period between September 2022 and January 2023:
Sept. 15, 2022: Sertraline (25 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Oct. 21, 2022: Lorazepam (0.5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD Ativan
Oct. 26, 2022: Hydroxyzine (25 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Oct. 26, 2022: Lorazepam (1 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD Ativan
Oct. 26, 2022: Buspirone (5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Nov. 2, 2022: Lorazepam (0.5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Nov. 9, 2022: Buspirone (5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Nov. 16, 2022: Trazodone (50 mg) – Kayvon Izadpanah, MD
Nov. 21, 2022: Fluoxetine (10 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP
Nov. 25, 2022: Zolpidem (5 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP Ambien
Nov. 25, 2022: Mirtazapine (7.5 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP
Nov. 25, 2022: Clonazepam (0.5 mg) – Julie Paul, RN, CNP Klonopin
Nov. 30, 2022: Quetiapine (25 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 6, 2022: Diazepam (5 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP. Valium
Dec. 7, 2022: Diazepam (5 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 7, 2022: Quetiapine (100 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 9, 2022: Diazepam (5 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 13, 2022: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 16, 2022: Lamotrigine (25 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Dec. 19, 2022: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 19, 2022: Quetiapine ER (300 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 21, 2022: Quetiapine (100 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Dec. 22, 2022: Quetiapine (25 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Jan. 5, 2023: Tradozone (50 mg) – Alia Goodheart, MD
Jan. 5, 2023: Lorazepam (1 mg) – Alia Goodheart, MD
Jan. 9, 2023: Diazepam (5 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 12, 2023: Trazodone (150 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 13, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Jan. 16, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 16, 2023: Amitriptyline (10 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Jan. 19, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Rebecca Jollatta, NP
Jan. 23, 2023: Diazepam (2 mg) – Jennifer Tufts, MD
Why is it that I, a filmmaker with no medical credentials other than a certificate degree in plant medicine, can look at a list like this and gasp at the ignorance, recklessness, and professional dereliction, while Clancy’s highly-regarded mental health professionals in Boston and on the South Shore operated as though this was normal? Why is it that I see a young mother who was forced into a polychemical-induced chamber of horrors while she was trying to manage with a new baby, look after her two toddlers, function as a caring wife, run a household, and maybe even return to the nursing work that she loved?
Between September 15, 2022, when Dr Jennifer Tufts first prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline) for Clancy, and January 23, 2023, when she was given her final Valium (diazepam) prescription, Clancy ingested an astonishing number of psychotropic drugs — twelve different prescribed medications in less than five months. At the time of the Clancy children’s deaths and Lindsay’s suicide attempt, five different benzodiazepine metabolites were still present in her blood serum. Five, when it only takes one benzodiazepine to cause BIND.
The professional ignorance surrounding these medications is shocking. I pray that the jury is listening to Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney. He has taken the time to learn about benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and psychotropic drug dangers. I hope the jury members are listening to Reddington carefully because the psychiatrists testifying for the prosecution continue to misinform. They really do not appear to understand the drugs they prescribe.
When prescribed responsibly, psychotropics can do amazing things. But when prescribed out of ignorance, institutional disregard of facts, and even arrogance, we are all at risk.
You shouldn’t have to live through BIND or antidepressant-induced injury to comprehend what these medication-created syndromes are. There has to be a better way. Doctors must understand what they are prescribing. And they need to provide their anxious and depressed patients with safe and effective ways to cope, recover, and heal.
I am praying that Lindsay Clancy can find some measure of inner peace as she learns to live with the consequences of profound injustice. She is the victim of a terrible crime.
Holly Hardman
August 12, 2026
