On January 24th, 2023, after months of debilitating insomnia and polypharmacy, Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children before attempting to take her own life. She is currently on trial for their deaths, which her defense attorneys argue resulted from postpartum psychosis.

It may seem strange that I could relate to Lindsay Clancy at all. I’ve never been pregnant, and I’ve certainly never been accused of killing anyone. And yet, despite our differences, I can’t help but see a little of myself in Lindsay.

It all started three years ago during my last semester of college. I had been tossing and turning more than usual at night, and so, like Lindsay, I was prescribed a benzodiazepine to quell my anxiety—Xanax, in my case. At the time, I didn’t know much about Xanax, but my doctor assured me that it was no different than taking a shot of vodka. Reassured, I figured I’d take it for two weeks, get through my midterms, and after those two weeks, my life would go back to normal.

That was over three years ago. I’m still not quite back to normal, and I’m not sure I ever will be.

My heart pounded violently as I walked into the ER a little over two weeks later after my prescription had run out. I didn’t know what was wrong with me—sure, I had trouble falling asleep sometimes, but not like this. To stay up for one night, let alone three, was highly unusual. It was as if, without Xanax, my body had forgotten how to sleep on its own. But after conducting an EKG, the ER doctors insisted I was healthy. I was given an Ativan, a script for hydroxyzine, and sent on my merry way.

By the time I saw my psychiatrist a few days later, I had done my homework. I learned that I was likely going through rebound insomnia, a common symptom of Xanax withdrawal. I learned that Xanax is a highly addictive drug that can cause dependency within merely three to six weeks of continuous use—vital information I hadn’t been aware of before. Some sources claim dependency can occur even sooner. My doctor insisted with a chuckle that it was “impossible” that my unusual insomnia was being caused by Xanax withdrawal. Rather, it was a sign that my anxiety was getting worse, and the right course of action would be to up my dosage.

But, like Lindsay, I was terrified of getting addicted to benzos, so I insisted that I try something else to help me sleep. And similar to Lindsay, over the course of a month, I was prescribed a slew of strong medications to be taken in unison—including Seroquel, Trazadone, Librium, Lithium, Latuda, and Lunesta.

I still didn’t sleep. Instead, I’d lay wide awake until around four in the morning, at which point I was permitted to take half a Xanax. But after a while, my body adjusted to Xanax, which is a short-acting drug, peaking within one to two hours—so even though it still put me to sleep, I definitely wasn’t staying asleep.

What people don’t understand about insomnia is that it isn’t just the occasional struggle to fall asleep at night. When you’ve struggled with severe insomnia, like Lindsay and I did—I’m talking one to four hours of sleep every night for days, weeks, even months on end—the way you interpret reality shifts.

At first, I was just physically uncomfortable. My body was tense and shook at all times. I swallowed air so rapidly that I belched constantly. I took upwards of five hot showers per day to ward off the persistent stabbing sensations in my chest. I felt sharp pains in my stomach as my food refused to digest.

But the less sleep I got, the more distorted reality became. I felt so dizzy that the words I read on my computer seemed to float off the screen. The world around me felt dull and gray. I was irritable, pessimistic. I suffered from panic attacks daily. The bright lights from the TV were enough to throw me into a rage. I was angry, even violent—mostly towards myself, other times towards benign household objects.

Strangest of all, I developed what I can only describe as a sleep phobia.

On the one hand, I became terrified that I wouldn’t fall asleep. As I walked to my bed every night, my stomach shuddered with butterflies and my heart pounded rapidly with the fear that, once again, I would lay awake in agony for hours.

But even worse was that part of me actually became scared of falling asleep at all. Suddenly, this thing that I had done every night for years, this thing that I could no longer do on my own, had become mysterious and elusive, completely out of my control. And if I couldn’t control …