INTERVIEW: Dr. Jessica Clemons Talks Mental Health Advocacy, Postpartum Depression & Psychosis, Parenthood, Lindsay Clancy Trial + More

Today on The Breakfast Club, Dr. Jessica Clemons Talks Mental Health Advocacy, Postpartum Depression & Psychosis, Parenthood, Lindsay Clancy Trial. Listen For More!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hold up.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The
Breakfast Club. You all finished or you all done?

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God.
We are The Breakfast Club. Launa Rose is here as well.
We got a special guest in the building.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yes, indeed.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
She's back, ladies and gentlemen, Dr.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Jess.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Welcome back.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Feels good to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Very important to say, Dr.

Speaker 5 (00:22):
Jessica Clements is a board-certified psychiatrist, okay?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right.

Speaker 5 (00:27):
Graduated Cornell University Medical College. Completed your residency training at NYU.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yes. At NYU, okay? Very important to say that.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
Why?

Speaker 6 (00:36):
Why?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Just want people to know that she really got her
certification and qualifications.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
That's just been up here before.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I know, but you know.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I want to reiterate to the people. All right.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Well, how are you feeling, Dr.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Jess?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
She's a real doctor.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
I'm feeling great. I'm glad you did that for me
because I was going to try to find a way
to bring that in. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Do y'all have to do that now?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
On platform?

Speaker 4 (00:55):
I really, so before the controversy online, when people were
talking about whether, you know, someone is.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
People with a doctor or not. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
I wouldn't think it's a thing. But now I do
think it's important. People really need to know that the
information they're getting from so-called doctors, you know, it's trusted.
It's vetted. So, yeah, I feel like it's something that
we do have to say.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
And the last thing is medical doctors, it's easy to
look up whether or not we're truly who we say
we are. All you have to do is just take
our name and the state we're licensed and you can
see if the license is active or not.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
You know, it doesn't take much to show your degrees
and things like that. They're always on the wall behind me.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
OK.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:35):
And I'm glad you're here because you're also a reproductive psychiatrist.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
So you treat women with postpartum.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
And we've been having a lot of conversations about postpartum,
especially because of the Lindsay Clancy situation. And I think
it's very important because we spend nine months talking about
women being pregnant, but never talk about what happens to
the mother psychologically after pregnancy.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Absolutely. Yeah, this is a newer area in psychiatry. Mass
General is really leading in a lot of the research. Yeah,
we don't talk about the hormonal effects, whether it's pregnancy,
delivery or even before. Like I take care of a
lot of women who talk about, wow, every couple of
weeks out of the month before my period starts, I'm

(02:16):
just anxious or depressed. But we talk about that and
we talk about treatment options that might include therapy or
lifestyle modification. but also medication. But when I'm thinking about
like postpartum, especially to your point with the case that
we've all kind of watched, I kept a little distance
from some of the details there. But yeah, we're talking

(02:37):
people are coming in depressed. It affects their ability to
bond with the baby, which then also has effects on
the infant child, right? If they're not properly bonding with
their parent, the mother, that has, you know, some downstream effects.
But there could absolutely be a role for medication for
some women. It also could be a role for more support,

(02:57):
making sure that you have someone there to cover the
night shift. I know personally that was just one of
the hardest times after having a baby to be up
all night and just thinking about what that does to
mood and irritability. So it's an area of medicine that's
starting to really take the front center now.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well, let me just break down the Lindsay Clancy case
for somebody that doesn't know. She's a 36-year-old former labor
and delivery nurse. She strangled her three children ages five,
three and eight months before attempting suicide by jumping out
of a second story window. She was not prosecuted on
September 24th, 2026. It was a mistrial. The judge declared

(03:36):
a mistrial after seven days of deliberation. And this has
been a big conversation of postpartum and all that. I
wanted to ask. When I seen your name on the
sheet earlier this week, well, last night. I called Charlamagne.
I'm like, is that Dr.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Jess?

Speaker 6 (03:50):
Dr. Jess?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Because usually we don't see Dr. Jessica Clemens, right? We
just see Dr. Jess is coming. And he was like, yeah.
I was like, well, where has she been? We haven't
seen her in a long time. And she was like, well,
she dealt with postpartum. And I was like, wow. I
was like, well, break down what it is. I've had
six kids. You know, I have six kids. And thank
God my wife didn't deal with it. So what makes
somebody deal with having a child, like Charlamagne said, so excited,

(04:14):
nine months, you're excited to have this baby, a baby
that you created and you do the nursery and you
build the crib and the family's giving you gifts and
you can't wait. And you're picking outfits to look like
your outfits and you get so excited. And then you
hear a lot of women say when the baby came,
they didn't like the baby. They didn't want them. They
didn't want the child next to them. They, some women
would say, hate the baby. How do you get to that?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's what Mimi said this morning. Our front page news
person said she.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
She hated her son at first. Oh, wow.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
So how do you get there?

Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah. So for, for me, just to make sure people
are okay with, um, Part of what I've been focusing on,
I mean, answer the question, is really building my private
practice and trying to shift away from social media as
a primary public space that I engage in. But how
we get there. So during pregnancy, there's like big shifts

(05:03):
in hormones. you know, estrogen is high and that's why
the hair is like herring and the skin is all full.
And just, you know, just really people just look great
when estrogen levels are high. But after delivery, that starts
to tail off pretty rapidly. And so for some people
who are more sensitive, that's the language we kind of

(05:23):
use in medicine, meaning one woman may tolerate that estrogen
drop off and another woman may not. The one who's
more sensitive, the one who doesn't, may begin to have
signs of like postpartum blues. In fact, 50 to 85%
of women will experience that. That's not like depression where
you're down, you really don't want to get out of bed,

(05:43):
you're feeling hopeless, maybe even suicidal. It's more of like irritability.
There might be some anxiety. You might be just a
little like frustrated, unable to connect. maybe some feelings towards
the baby, not at all like postpartum psychosis, which I'll
go into, but that usually gets better once mom is,
you know, properly, she's got the nutrition back, she feels supported,

(06:06):
she's focusing on rest. A lot of what I advise
women who come in after delivering is like, you got
to sleep. Even if you have to stop pumping or
prioritizing trying to breastfeed, like let's move on if it's
not working for you. But again, part of what happens
is the change in estrogen levels affects some women and
And then the work. I mean, it's hard taking care
of a newborn, especially when it's the first. You have

(06:26):
no idea. You're like, to your point, you're getting ready.
You're creating the moment. You're getting the room ready. Then
the baby arrives, and now this baby has to be
fed 24-7. The only communication is through tears. I mean,
it's stressful. And then if a lot of women do
feel pressure to breastfeed, to pump, that is around the
clock too. You can't just stop because you need to sleep.

(06:49):
If you don't, you'll stop producing milk. So I think
for some women, if they end up not being properly supported,
that first couple of days when postpartum blues can show up,
that can sort of start to set the stage for
postpartum depression, anxiety. I support a lot of women who
talk about how overwhelmed they feel. You know, they're worrying

(07:10):
about this. Do I have enough for that? So it
starts to play into how they feel about themselves and
how they feel about their performance. And then even the children,
it can be resentment. that builds.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Can you help us understand the spectrum?

Speaker 5 (07:22):
Like what separates like the normal baby blues from the
postpartum depression and the psychosis and the OCD?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Like, like, like help us understand the spectrum.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yes. Great question. So we, we look at this as
like a continuum. Okay. Some women, um, before they became pregnant, uh,
may have had a history of depression and anxiety already,
but postpartum, uh, this continuum of blues, depression, and psychosis
can happen in any, any woman, um, Again, part of
it is this like hormonal shift that some people are

(07:53):
more sensitive to. But blue shows up about two to
four days into post delivery and it levels off and
you're not depressed to the point where your mood is
consistently down. You're sad. Literally, you can say, I feel depressed.
You're not dealing with a lot of sleep issues. You're
not sleeping great. You're caring for a baby. You could
fall asleep. If somebody takes that baby, you're out. Right.

(08:14):
You could fall asleep. Postpartum depression would have the opposite.
You're having trouble falling asleep. Your appetite's low, stuck to
your mattress. You're having a lot of thoughts of guilt.
You're not enjoying things. You're hopeless. And some women will
develop suicidal thoughts. That occurs maybe in the first couple
of weeks. Two to four weeks is when we look
for that. But this isn't the one that we're worried
about the safety of the baby. Postpartum psychosis is rare.

(08:37):
It happens in about one to two deliveries out of
a thousand births. So it's rare. Most women are not
going to experience postpartum psychosis. But this is the one
that was, I guess, kind of at the forefront of
this case, which, you know, I don't really know if
that's what it was because eight months is not really
the window. Postpartum psychosis we're seeing in the first couple
of weeks, but really at four weeks, we're not really

(08:59):
expecting that to be there if it occurred. And it
is a emergency situation. Right. So the person will look disorganized.
They might have mood fluctuations. So they're really elevated. They
might be up all night, you know, talking and very
just have all this energy or they might look depressed.
They might be disorganized and like, what are you doing?

(09:20):
You're putting the remote in the, you know, fridge. It
just something seems odd. But what one of the hallmarks
that's scary is if they start to communicate that they're
hearing things or. Or they start to believe that something's
going on with you with the baby. They don't really
want anyone with them. This can put the infant and
family at risk of infant side or, you know. So

(09:42):
it's an emergency in New York. There are so many resources.
There's a mother and baby unit, I think, at Mount Sinai.
So it's not unusual if someone does present with this
for them to get admitted. You'd have to be admitted,
treated with antipsychotics. But they'll keep the baby in the
hospital with you. But you're not the primary when caretaking
because the risk is that if they're alone, maybe these
command auditory hallucinations might tip them into acting on it.

(10:07):
But again, very rare. It's an emergency. Depression is probably
a bit more common. Blues is incredibly common, but that resolves.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
And what are your thoughts on paternity leave, right? Because
When I first heard about paternity leave, I laughed so loud.
I was like, what the hell does a man need
to take off, right? But now hearing what you're saying,
I guess it would be needed.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
For support.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
For support.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Absolutely. I don't want to leave the men out, right?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
I didn't say paternity.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Did you?

Speaker 4 (10:35):
No.

Speaker 6 (10:37):
But I think things have developed since y'all have had
your children. But you said you don't want to leave
the men out. You mean that in their mental space
as well or just the fact that? So talk a
bit about that because I don't ever hear people talk
about their side of it as well too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
So.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
The first point, yes, support is really why I think
men should absolutely advocate for it. You don't want your partner,
your spouse, whatever the situation is, at home alone with
all of the burden of care. But I think we
also don't really talk about the changes that happen to men.
This isn't like a hormonal conversation, but more or less
just the big role that people are stepping into, right?

(11:14):
So if it was just the two of you, that's
a very different lifestyle, very different dynamic. Now you might
have someone who's like, actually, I really do need you
to take the baby when you come home. I don't
need you to do your process to decompress. So that
can also take a toll on people. Stress is one
of the most notorious experience that people don't recognize, but

(11:35):
contributes to things like anxiety, which also can have irritability
in there. You know, anxiety isn't just this like cute, oh,
I'm so worried, but people can be really edgy, snappy, right?
It also can bring up feelings of depression, right? whether
it's like depressive episode or just the low mood that
comes with, maybe you're not connecting with your, you know,
your partner anymore. Uh, maybe it's demanding on you too.

(11:57):
You worked all day. You want to come home and decompress,
but now you have this baby that you have to
take care of. Your wife's like this, but you understand,
but it still affects you. Right. So, um, paternity leave
is important. I wish in the U S it was longer.
I think what it's like six weeks, maybe not long enough. Um,

(12:17):
That's still like a newborn. That baby is so tiny
and developing. So I think if a man is on
the fence about it, you just need to take it.
Take the time. Bond with the family. Be supportive. Figure
out the new role.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Right.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
So that it's not really just one person taking the
lead on all the caretaking. Because that does affect the
relationship as well. And not pressuring also for sex. That's
just something I want to throw in there.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Say that again. Expound on that?

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, go ahead. That seems like that's been a... Since
you said it like that, it seems like that's been
a problem and an issue with.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
A lot of couples.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Because you're supposed to do six weeks after, right?

Speaker 4 (12:48):
People need a weight, right? Yeah, so the body can heal.
But also just realizing that this woman, her body doesn't
really even belong to her anymore. Mm-hmm. Right? You've heard
about being touched out when moms are talking about like, okay,
the kids are all on me. I don't want anybody
else to touch me.

Speaker 6 (13:04):
Oh, like when mom needs to take like an hour,
maybe an hour in the car before she walking out
the driveway or she hiding in the closet.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Because she just needs, she tired.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Don't touch me.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
I know of that, but I didn't know it was
called touched out.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
Touched out. Like, you know, if you're nursing and you
got a toddler with you and everybody's just grabbing for mom.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
At some point it's just like, get off me.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
Right. So I was kind of being a little tongue-in-cheek
here where I was saying men also need to give
their women time to not make sex something that you
start to also put the pressure on because she's adjusting
to her body and the hormones. And if she's lactating,
you know, let her get her time to heal, but
also for you two to figure out the dynamic now
that kids are involved.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I wonder at.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
What point does normal adjustment become an illness? What do
you mean? Like when you're looking, you know, the normal,
like the baby blues, you see that, but How do
we know when there's something actually more going on?

Speaker 4 (13:56):
Time, right? So if you are experiencing, like I was
describing before, for moms, some irritability, maybe there's sadness, overwhelm,
you're surprised by how much you're not connecting, give it
about a couple of weeks. I actually recently cared for
a young woman who that's what we were monitoring. She
came in and I thought we were going to talk
about her birth story, but she's like, I'm overwhelmed. I'm

(14:17):
really surprised by this. It's kind of getting to me.
But what I talked about with her is you were
advised by your treatment, like the birthing team, not to
get out of bed. I don't really agree with that.
So now you're like isolated in the bedroom. You know,
you were told not to really do anything, let others
do things for you. But I think she took it
so literally that I'm like, what have you been doing?
I've just been in my room. Girl. I need you

(14:39):
to get out of bed. I'm sorry that, you know,
this is what you think you have to do. But
also you need more people to come in and help you.
You don't need to just have the baby with you
all the time if you're feeling like you're overwhelmed. But
to your question, it's the time. So for her, we
kept monitoring it and it trailed off. So probably by
like the third or fourth week, she was feeling more

(15:00):
like herself. She was bright, wasn't so tearful. She was
excited again. Show me your baby, you know, on a photo. Um, but,
but time two to four weeks, if it's persistently down your,
your partner's not getting out of bed, you're trying to
help take off some of the load. Now we're looking at,
could this be depression? And if they talk about things
like I'm hearing things about the baby or I'm, I'm,

(15:21):
I feel like, you know, I might harm them. That's
an emergency. You know, you don't want to go golfing.
You don't want to go step away for a big
work trip. You want to get family, get the baby
secured and get them in front of a reproductive.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Let me ask you one question. You know, I was
talking to Charlamagne about this earlier. He said he heard
it before, but when I would talk to my mother
or my grandmother or my aunts, I've never really heard
him mention postpartum, right? Is it something because they didn't
talk about it because it wasn't the thing to do
or was it because back then more family stepped in, right?

(15:55):
I just remember having my first child, Madison, and grandmas
were there. They were like, we'll take the baby. You
go ahead. You go relax. And maybe we're not hearing
that as much now.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Some of the case of why?

Speaker 4 (16:07):
I think you're onto something. Yeah. We're, we're living so isolated.
You know, I had my first baby during the pandemic
and it was me and my husband, you know, it
was just the two of us doing this thing. So
it would have been wonderful for both of us to
have a grandparent to come in and, and just take
the baby. Literally. I'm not thinking about anything except sleeping

(16:29):
and recovering and the two of us kind of bonding again.
So I think you're on to something. And even the
example I was sharing before about someone I'm working with
very similarly didn't really have a lot of support. But
then when the grandparents came, she was like, I didn't
see my baby for like three days. And I got
to like, you know, go and get my nails done.
And we went for walks. So I think I think

(16:52):
you're on to something. If, you know, I were someone listening,
getting ready to have a baby and I'm on the
fence about letting family come, you know, if it's a
good bond, good dynamic. Let them come. And take the
pressure off of trying to make sure you nurse and breastfeed.
I think there's a lot of pressure on women for that.
Get the formula. A fed baby is a fed baby.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
You have to breastfeed. It's not the same as the formula.
It's this. My mom has always told.

Speaker 6 (17:18):
Me breastfeeding, yeah, it makes your baby smarter and it
helps you lose weight and get your body back faster.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
So she's always been like, you got to breastfeed.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
If you can, do it. But if it's causing you
unnecessary stress, you can't get enough sleep because you have
to pump or feed all through the night. Let it go.
And the study that I think people are referring to
about how smart babies are, we've kind of looked at
it a bit further. There's confounders that can happen when

(17:47):
you're putting a study together. And if you aren't careful
to separate things out, you start to put, you start
to conflate this is the reason that we're seeing that.
And so one of the things I think about it
when I think about race in this country and just
in general in the world, it was a lot more
white women who were in the study. Right. And so
it's not about race, but it was about things like

(18:09):
education levels or right.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
So your baby's smarter when, when they go to a
private school, you know what I mean? And the class
size is only 10, but then when it's us, it's
class size is 36.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
Right. So then it's easy to kind of assume, well,
these babies were breastfed and that's why they're smarter. It
could be the environment. It could be how much time
they were able to, you know, develop skills with their child. But, um, Yeah,
just focus on yourself and giving the baby the basics
of what they need because it's a long call. You're

(18:40):
not just in it for the first couple of weeks.
You're in it forever. I mean, I still call home.

Speaker 5 (18:45):
The point that you made earlier, I heard postpartum used
so casually my whole life, I just never realized.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
It was a mental health issue.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
Because I'm just starting to hear phrases like postpartum depression.
I didn't hear postpartum psychosis until the Lindsay Clancy trial.
So I feel like we miss a lot by just
using it casually, saying, oh, that's just postpartum, but we
don't actually know what that entails.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
Yeah. I think people in the past thought it was
just a part of what the experience is, you know?
But it's not always. A lot of women do experience it.
Like I said before, 50% to 85% of women after
delivery will have some mood lability. They may be tearful.
They may be irritable. But from my perspective in caring

(19:28):
for patients, I wonder how much of that is sleep deprivation,
the pressure to perform it perfectly. You know, you've got
lactation specialists. The baby's not latching.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
I got you.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
It's just so much pressure. So a lot of what
I talk about with women, if they want more support,
is take the pressure off. Like good enough is good enough.

Speaker 6 (19:47):
Is there can we talk about like the, is there
like a genetic thing where it's like, say if you
have all that, right? Like we're talking about things a
lot more now. You can plan the nurses, the nannies,
the sleep, all that, but then you still get to
some of the postpartum things. Is that something that like
can be passed down? Like your mom deals with it,

(20:08):
so then you dealt with it. So you've done everything
to try to fight it, but it still happens anyway.
Is that a thing as well?

Speaker 4 (20:13):
It can be. Yeah, the unfortunate part is we don't
know what causes this experience in women. It could be genetic.
It definitely, we feel pretty confident that it's the hormonal
shift that some people are more sensitive to. But I
also think a lot about what's modeled, right? So what
am I saying here? If you saw generation after generation of,

(20:38):
women take on more than their share and now they're
irritable after birth or more tearful. Is this something that's
really postpartum blues? Yes, we would diagnose it as such.
But is it that you saw women overdo it, not
accept support, not expect the men in their lives to
step in and take care of the things that they

(21:01):
just are doing?

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
OK. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
So I often think like when we're talking genetics, How
much of it is really the family system passing on
certain behaviors? But for now, we don't know. I want
people to know what to look out for.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
Can somebody experience postpartum psychosis and still have moments where
they look completely rational? Like they could be cooking dinner,
they're answering texts, taking care of the baby. That's what
they were saying in the Clancy case. They said that
she was functioning.

Speaker 6 (21:31):
That's how the movies make it seem like that, too,
when they have these characters that have kind of like
the Lindsay Clancy case.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
This is complicated. I'm privileged that I got to actually
see people who are ill. A lot of mental health
providers are psychiatric nurse practitioners, for example. There are people
who trained in psychiatry outside of great institutions like NYU. NYU,
by the way, is the VA hospital on First Avenue.

(22:00):
Bellevue Hospital.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
So we're seeing like everything.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
And that's where I got to see some of this.
And then the hospital next door, Tish.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Bellevue is a psychiatric hospital.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yes. Yes. Notorious, right? Long Island, right?

Speaker 3 (22:16):
It's Long Island.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
No. So it's right on First Avenue in the city.
First and like.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Was it always there?

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
They never moved it?

Speaker 4 (22:23):
Never moved.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Nope.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
And did they close it down and shut it down
at one point? And the reason I'm asking is we
worked similar down there, down there one time. And I
feel like one time.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
No, that was like a shelter.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
That was a shelter. Next door.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
There is a men's shelter next door. But no, Bellevue
has been, I mean, just, I could talk about a
lot of things I've seen there, but where I was
going with this is, If you don't really witness people
who are truly in that state, what we would call
like psychosis, you can pick up on things because you're
making the diagnosis based on what's the DSM, which is

(22:57):
like our psychiatric handbook, which is a collection of symptoms
that if they meet this collection or meet criteria, then
we call it that. So I've even found when I'm
working with someone who might be a therapist or a
nurse practitioner that that we don't see the symptoms the
same way. I don't like to fluff myself here, but

(23:18):
I'm also like, I really got to see it. Like
Bellevue has Rikers Island. There's a unit in that hospital.
So we're seeing people who are truly, truly ill. So no,
like people who have postpartum psychosis, from what I've witnessed,
they're bizarre. They are muttering to themselves. Part of when
someone is psychotic, if they have that experience, They're not

(23:41):
really taking good care of themselves. That's a disorganization. So
the hygiene might be down. They may be even like
styling themselves kind of oddly.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Why don't they take the baby away during those times?

Speaker 2 (23:51):
You do.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
You should.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
And not family members. I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Doctors like the baby needs to go until she's.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Well, the doctor has to know what's happening to the.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Doctor has to know it. Also, the states. you know,
the state that you are in, their mental health hygiene
laws really set the stage for whether or not they
can involuntarily admit you. Like I said, New York is,
is pretty strong on, I mean, we were admitting people
coming in with schizophrenia because they weren't taking care of
themselves and that helps the community, but also we get

(24:22):
them treated and then we move them down and sort
of the level of care to ideally not continue to
live on the streets with like severe mental illness. But
if you're in like Texas, you know, I don't know
their laws. It might be a little bit harder to,
for the psychiatrist to actually have the authority to involuntarily
admit you. They may not have enough units. So this
is also a bit of like an advocacy issue.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Too, right?

Speaker 4 (24:43):
In New York, I mean, you're getting admitted without a doubt.
You're getting admitted. That baby is going to have to
be with family until we treat you because it's a risk.
You could kill that baby. You could kill your baby.
In other states, again, I don't know what they have
going on, but you'll find that it's state dependent.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Got you.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, it's interesting, right?

Speaker 5 (25:06):
Because even with that case and everything you're saying, like
they said she did ask for help.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Like they said she asked for help.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
She had a lot of contact with mental health providers before,
you know, she did what she did to her kids.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Did she do it? Yes, she did it, right? Yes,
she did.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
I think she did it.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
What does that.

Speaker 5 (25:23):
Case teach us about the difference between having access to
care and actually receiving.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
The right care?

Speaker 4 (25:28):
Great question. So this goes to quality, right? The quality
of care. So even when I'm like running my private practice,
that's a part of the language I communicate is that
I'm not just your doctor treating you. You're getting quality care,
which goes back to the training. Again, I picked NYU
because I knew I would see everything and that would

(25:49):
make me more confident in my diagnostic skills and then
knowing how to treat. So this is also the sort
of unfortunate, ugly side of mental health treatment in this country,
which I think is evolving. I'm glad we're talking about it.
I'm glad you've been spearheading making this something that our
community really focuses on. But it's just going to depend
on what you get.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Right.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
You might sit across from someone who where they train.
They never saw someone come in with schizophrenia. So they're
really relying on the handbook. Right. They may have never
seen a woman come in with postpartum psychosis. When you
see it, you know it. They may have never seen
someone come in with bipolar disorder. So it's harder to
call it. They also might not feel comfortable to take
away your rights or to say, like, we're going to

(26:30):
hospitalize you. So the difference, unfortunately, is where people train,
their comfort level in the medication. You know, if you've
got a lot of medication going on, that's usually not ideal.
From my perspective, that's kind of a red flag. Like,
what are we targeting, right? Patients shouldn't be on multiple medications.
They should have closer follow-up. So there's not really a

(26:53):
standardized way of treatment because also in the U.S., I
don't want to sound like I'm bashing nurse practitioners. I
know they're going to be in my comments later, but
the training is just so limited. Right. And I've worked
with people. I'm like, why would you prescribe that for this?
And it just, it just tells me that they don't
have enough experience and you get to, you get to

(27:15):
kind of do your thing.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Do you get nervous at all? Like when you, because
I'm thinking about some of the people that you have
to deal with.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
And you never know when they're going to, jump, when
they're going to attack you, when they're going to have
an outbreak, right? When they're going to snap. Like I
think about the lady that the NYPD shot a couple
of weeks ago, right? The lady that had the two knives,
she stabbed two people and you could tell she was
having an outbreak. I was wondering, when you meet with
these people, do you pat them down? Do they go
through security? Like these are all real questions because it's

(27:46):
just y'all two in a room and who's to say
that somebody doesn't snap?

Speaker 4 (27:50):
Yeah, great question. So again, where I trained, because there
was a lot of just severe mental illness. So we're
talking about like schizophrenia, schizoaffective, where people have lost touch
with reality.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Even women that you said postpartum that could just snap.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yes. We were taught how to position ourselves in the room.
We were taught if someone is really appearing like psychotic
and not really attached with reality, we don't have to
even go in to have a deeper discussion about why
you're here. We just move forward with treatment. I have
worked a job that I left because I felt like

(28:26):
I was like, these people are just coming back to
my office. Right. Like what is going on with security here?
So it's something to actually consider and think about. But
where I was before, there'd be a police officer on
the floor. You know, I think a lot about the clerks.
They don't necessarily get that barrier because they're the first
person meeting. But, yeah, there'd be like a call button

(28:49):
in the room if we needed it. You know, you
don't position yourself where they're closer to the door. You
want to be closer to the door so you can
get out of there. Some hospitals do have, you know,
you walk through a metal detector, but it's a risk.
I think that you take. But again, I just feel
so confident in what I've seen that I'm going to
be able to clock right away. The like sun is off.

(29:13):
People aren't like the movies where they disappear lucid and like.
then they attack you. They're usually, you can start to
see the signs. They look internally preoccupied, like they're hearing
something or they're like delusional in what they talk about
or they're starting to talk in this way. We call
it like homicidal ideation where they're maybe talking about hurting people.

(29:33):
You take that very seriously. At least I do.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
You know, it's so interesting.

Speaker 5 (29:36):
I'm glad you said what you said about psychosis because,
you know, yeah, I know people who will know that
I know what I'm talking about in this particular situation.
There's a person I know who knows I'm a mental
health advocate, right? And they were allegedly going through psychosis,
manic behavior. And I kept telling people, like, I don't
think so. I think he know exactly what he's doing

(29:57):
and he's manipulating us. And he sent me a text
and he said, now that you know that I'm sick,
shouldn't you be sticking by me? And I was like,
ain't nothing wrong with this motherfucker if you can say
some shit like that to me.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Didn't I tell you that?

Speaker 5 (30:07):
I told him, I was like, there's nothing wrong with
him if he can say this to me. So I'm
glad you said that. Because I got other people telling me, no,
he's going through psychosis. I'm like, no, not if you
can tell me that.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah. You know, just walk around the city. Yes. Right?

Speaker 6 (30:21):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
We see it every morning.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
I mean, they don't look like they know you're there. Right? Right. Now,
some people can be so consumed by their psychotic experience.
They're hearing voices. They're convinced someone's going to get them.
You do want to give your space. Like if someone's
behaving erratically, they're moving around all weird, they're brandishing something,
some sort of weapon. Like that is that's an emergency. But,

(30:43):
you know, I think it's it's really subtle and how
people cry for help. Right. So I don't know if
this person is dealing with something that's more like trauma
related or maybe trying to find. support through someone like you,
but psychosis is profound. They're in their head. And you

(31:04):
could just see it. Like I said, you just walk
around the city. Why is the.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
City so bad? And why does it feel like the government,
the state, is not doing anything about it? It seems
like it's getting worse, especially in New York City. When
I say worse, worse. And this is not just... Quiet.
This is loud people yelling and screaming. And yesterday there
was a guy that he dropped a woman's purse on
the floor.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
And when women would look down at it, he'd just
yell at them.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Again, I think it's just a complicated relationship between the
mental health hygiene laws. And then we're so accustomed to
it in the city. You just kind of like cross
the street, get out of the way. But, you know,
if someone is really behaving oddly, you can absolutely call. Here,
I think they do a better job at police. I mean,
I think they do a better job at calling someone

(31:52):
like EDP, an emotionally disturbed person. They'll come into Bellevue.
That's where we see them. And then sometimes, you know,
when we treat, the issue is also people don't want
to stay on the medication. Antipsychotics are, they're tough to take.
People gain weight. People lose sex drive. Um, some people
may lactate some, some of these medications. They may start

(32:13):
to also develop diabetes. People might feel a little bit
too subdued, drowsy. So it's, it's hard if you have
a severe mental illness to continue taking things like antipsychotics.
So it's not unusual for these people to kind of revolve.
And then with schizophrenia, which is a form of a
psychotic illness, there's a downward drift in society. So because

(32:33):
they lose, it's called abolition. They like lose the drive, um,
to care about the things we care about, like hygiene,
finding a relationship, working. So that's why they kind of
end up on the streets. So, you know, what do
you do with people? We have a lot of shelters
throughout the city, and they can get treatment there. They
can get access to, like, single-room occupancy. So there's a

(32:54):
lot of behind-the-scenes work going. But what I've noticed just
getting to work with people is they don't always want
the help. Sometimes they're just like, I'm done with these meds.
You know, look, they made me have this, like, weird movement.
If you see someone, like, lip-smacking— that's a side effect
of the medication or their fingers kind of move weird. So,
so people, and it's not treatable, it's treatable, but you
can't really give remission. So it's just a long road.

(33:20):
And the city is a great place to come and
kind of cover it up because they're just, there's a
lot here, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Somebody will ignore you. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
They won't see you. Somebody will hand you food. There's
a shelter you can pop into. Whereas if you're in
the more rural areas, your family might take you in
and you're just kind of that cousin in the back
room that's weird.

Speaker 6 (33:38):
How do you deal with people if they come to you, right?
Like if someone gets a mom, like let's say a
black mother, right? Because I was reading something that the
American Psychological Association did and they talk about how postpartum
and a lot of the mental health things, like black
women deal with it a lot differently.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Than white women. Like we are affected at a larger rate.

Speaker 6 (33:57):
If someone pushes a mother to come in, say she's
a black mother, And she's like, I'm only here because
my mom made me come here. And you see that
she really needs the help. But she's like, no, I'm good.
I don't want the help. Right. Like people on the streets,
you see them, you know, they need the help. How
do you what do you do if they don't want
to do it?

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Like.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, you can't keep them locked up. You can't like
how does that what's the resolve?

Speaker 4 (34:19):
It's it becomes a long process of really it's hard.
Like so what the approach I end up taking once
I start to see there's resistance, I'm just here because
somebody pushed me to be here. is now I'm like,
oh gosh, now I got to focus on building rapport.
I got to get them to kind of lock in
with us as like, you know, therapeutic doctor-patient relationship. It's

(34:42):
going to take time. I've got to get them to
talk to me and tell me like what their reservations are.
Usually it's stigma. Usually it's, I don't want the medications
to affect me or I can do this. So it
just becomes a process of trying to like lead them
to the water. So I do think it's great for
families to really encourage it. go to the appointments. And
then the doctor has to have the ability to be

(35:02):
patient in the relationship to start to see if they
can like, you know, connect enough that now we can
say it's time. Why don't you think about it? That's
a lot of what I do. Most of what I'm
doing is trying to get people to be okay with like,
we're okay. I know it's a lot to be here.
We'll try the medication. It's a tool. If it doesn't work,

(35:22):
we stop it. You're going to be yourself. But look
at the effects, right? Now you're not going to be
able to go back to work. Or you haven't been
able to connect with your baby.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
But it takes time.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's such a rolling the dice thing, having a baby.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
What you just said about connecting with the baby, is
the phrase maternal instinct damaging? Because it kind of suggests
that a woman should just naturally know how to mother.
You should just naturally have a bond. And then if
she doesn't, then she probably feels like something.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Is wrong with her.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
I think so. I think any title that puts pressure
on us, if you feel the pressure, drop it.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yeah, I think you're right. Maternal instinct. I mean, if
you've never, I, so I never had to care for
any body. I didn't have younger siblings. I have a
younger sibling, but he was like four years younger. So
when I have this baby, I'm like, I don't know
what I'm doing. You're leaving me with this, this thing.
How do I have no, we're supposed to feed him
right now.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
What?

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
I think that's something that if it's, if it's not
helping you drop it, maternal instinct, what does that mean?
You know?

Speaker 6 (36:27):
How do you talk those first time moms through that though? Like,
I mean, you have your own experience, but I have
a friend who we went out the other day and
she was saying to me to just make sure that
I'm in the right head space before I have my baby.
And I'm like, how do I know what, like, how
do I prepare for that? It's not like you go
like pregame for it. Like, what do I, like, what
is the right head space? Cause she said for her,

(36:48):
her life changed so much and she, she didn't, she
There was no way that she could have prepared what
it did to her mentally because the only way her
baby communicates to her is through tears. And she said
that there's so much anxiety of, I don't know if
I'm even doing the right thing, no matter.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Who I call.

Speaker 6 (37:05):
And her baby's a bit older now, but she still
feels that way.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
How do you prepare for that?

Speaker 4 (37:12):
I don't really know the best way for people to
prepare beyond that. talking to other mothers. Like, you know,
it sounds like this friend is giving you some insight.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
She scared the hell out of me.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Birth control is like the best form talking to other mothers. It's,
it's really, I think being, being honest about like, this
is something I want to do and starting to like
communicate with other moms. Like I was similar. I didn't
realize what I was getting myself into, so to speak like, Oh,
this is a real 24 seven around the clock. These
babies have demands. Um, But I wonder when she says

(37:45):
the right headspace, it's just like really being aware that
it's a night and day transition, right? From just focusing
on your own needs, making sure you look good and
feel good to a lot of times there's no time
for that. I feel like I'm just getting back to
like getting to focus on myself because I was really
hyper focused on the caretaking and there's a lot of anxiety.
I know we didn't really get to touch on that,

(38:06):
but anxiety is absolutely a part of what many women
develop if they didn't have before. There's so much. The
way the pediatrician visits go. They want you to focus
on everything. How's the weight? And I find I actually
prefer working with a pediatrician who's had their own kids
because they tend to be a little bit like, it's fine.

Speaker 5 (38:25):
When you say anxiety, you're talking about, because I call
it parental paranoia, right? It's that anxiety that comes with
being a parent. You're talking about something outside of that? This.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
Yeah, like the parental part of it. But for some people,
it tips more into now they're worrying all the time.
They can't really turn it off. They're ruminating, which is
like the thoughts stuck on the loop. You're like, it's fine.
I've got the baby. But they're worried like, you know,
their partner may not do it right because they've absorbed
being like the perfect mother, the maternal instinct, the pediatrician

(38:53):
is saying, make sure that. So if the anxiety is
occurring to the degree where you can't shut it off,
you can't really sleep, you're feeling nervous on edge, you're
having panic attacks, you have to smoke weed now so
that you can feel relaxed. That's different than like the
parental paranoia, as you described, which is normal. Right. It
comes with like, are my kids OK at school? Is

(39:14):
it a good school? That sort of thing. But if
it's I can't stop thinking about it, we're talking more
of like an anxiety disorder.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
But what do you suggest to those parents?

Speaker 5 (39:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Because it's similar to what you said earlier, because this
is how I honestly, truly feel.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Right. You said Have you been lying this whole time?

Speaker 4 (39:30):
No. No.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
You said that sometimes, you know, you deal with a
doctor that does not have the experience that you might have, right?
That's the reason why you want to go to NYU,
because you see everything from this spectrum, right? From the worst, worst,
worst to the light, right? But now you have another
doctor that has a practice that lives out in New
Jersey and you take your son or your child, a pediatrician,
that hasn't seen anything. And now you're expecting this pediatrician

(39:54):
to know what's wrong with your child that maybe might
not have seen it. So what do they do? They
go into their handbook and they say, okay, this is
that thing.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
Here, take a Tylenol.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
It's trial and error.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Not child GPT.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
No, it's the truth.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
It'd be trial and error.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
So what do you do in that situation? Because, yeah,
it is paranoia, but maybe that paranoia is needed. And
my example is the perfect, right? Took my daughter. My
daughter had a seizure one day, right? Had a fever
for longer than she should have, right?

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Febrile seizure.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Took her to the doctor, right? Doctor in Jersey. Doctor said, okay, well,
there's nothing we can do. Keep giving her the Tylenol
and that's.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
It, right?

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Next day, still fever. Took her back. Took her back
to the pediatrician. Like I'm supposed to as a father
who's not a doctor and a mother who's not a doctor.
Took her there, same thing. She wound up having a seizure, right?
Took her to the hospital. Face blew up. Eyes swollen.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Crazy.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
They did all types of scans. Couldn't break the fever.
So they told me that there was something on her
brain and she needed brain surgery.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
Right?

Speaker 3 (41:00):
I'm one of those people I don't trust nobody. Fuck that.
Who's the best doctors? The best doctors that handle this
was South Carolina. I called Charlemagne. Charlemagne, get me an
appointment with this doctor in South Carolina.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
Right?

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Before I did that, I said, let me take her
to NYU.

Speaker 5 (41:12):
NYU.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Took her to the hospital at NYU. Doctor came and started,
I told the story, started laughing, right? When I took
him to NYU, I was like, what's so funny? He
was like, your daughter doesn't need brain surgery. She has
a sinus infection. But if I would have kept her
in Jersey, they would have did brain surgery. NYU, sinus surgery,

(41:34):
they sucked out everything, whatever it was, and instantly you
could see her eyes going back down. they told me
in New Jersey that she's going to have seizures all
the time.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
Oh, Lord.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
In the city, they said, no, she won't. This seizure
happened because of a fever that they should have taken.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
Care of before.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
But you see the difference?

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
If I would have kept her in Jersey, she might
not be here. But what do you tell a parent
in that situation? Because the paranoia that I had made
me get another doctor and a second opinion. And this
was the ninth inning. This was It was snowing outside.
You know, they told me that they would have to
check insurance first. So I got to go in the morning.
I told them to F off. I'm going to if
I don't take it right now, I'm going to put

(42:12):
in my car ticket. Like it was a lot towards it.
But thank God I did. So what do you tell
those parents? Because it's called paranoia. But is it bad?
Because if I didn't have that, me and my wife
didn't have that paranoia, my baby might not have been here.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
Trust your gut. Right. The paranoia is is it's more
of like now I'm going to get into feelings at
therapy site. I don't want to be called a therapist anymore,
by the way. I'm like, I'm a psychiatrist. We got
it right. Because what you're asking me to do is
talk about symptoms. So the paranoia, if we're going like
to feelings is anxiety, which is a common feeling. There's
really only four. I've said this before. Anger, sadness, fear

(42:52):
and joy. OK, so that fear is. is generating the
thoughts that something's wrong, I need more. That is different
than when we're talking a disorder, an anxiety disorder. You
go to your pediatrician, you're not in an emergency, I'm
glad your daughter's well, and that you trusted your paranoia,
the fear, your gut. But you go to a pediatrician

(43:13):
and they're saying, you know, it's fine, you don't need
to worry about trying to push more foods on your child,
just let them eat what they want to eat. If
you can't let that go, right, if you can't think
about anything else except is my child eating enough food
and you don't see like weight loss or these other signs.
The point I'm making here is, is it might be
a disorder if you can't drop it. And there's really

(43:34):
not this like emergency in front of you. Um, so
I think for parents trust the feeling and then with medicine,
I mean, sometimes you do need to continue to look
for the top hospital. There's a reason it's the top.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Um, And it sucks because sometimes insurance won't cover it.
It won't cover it. They only cover hospitals that's in
a certain area.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I used to have to take my.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Oh, never mind. I wish I did that. It's a
funny game how they play it. You got to go
to an emergency room.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
I wasn't playing.

Speaker 6 (44:06):
They was not trying to operate on my mom's brain
and I knew something was wrong. I'm not leaving this
hospital until y'all figure this out. We will leave and
come back. But I am not leaving. But they would
not do it because they were like, It was insurances.
It was all this stuff. You really have to fight through.
So it's a weird balance when my mom can tell me.
And I've known my mom for 34 years, so I
know what's right and what's wrong. But if your baby's

(44:28):
brand new, that's what my friend is feeling. She's like, yo,
sometimes I know something's wrong with my baby, but it's like,
I don't even know what's wrong because the baby can't
tell you. And I just met my baby. So now
she's going crazy because she's like, if I miss it,
my baby might not be here.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
But am I overthinking it?

Speaker 6 (44:44):
When she was talking to me, I'm like, girl, I'm
just happy you're here for happy hour right now. Because
it's like, what do you do?

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Drink.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Drink.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Drink, my friend.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
No.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
She's coming up out of it. But my point is
that she needed a break. She needed a day to
just be able to think past all of that. She's
in it.

Speaker 6 (45:04):
Currently, right now, her baby's a newborn. She doesn't get
a lot of time outside. Her or my best friend,
they don't get a lot of time out.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
It's tough.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
I think it's just, again, how long it's happening. Experiences
are absolutely going to generate fear. You have to trust it.
You have to be persistent in health care. I mean,
that's probably a whole other conversation. I'd love to keep
coming back and kind of even untangling medicine in general.
But yeah, you'll go into a hospital. Maybe it's the top.
They don't. Your insurance ain't insurance enough for them and

(45:35):
they don't want to let you access the treatment. So
you have to advocate. I actually have been an advocate
for my family often. I'm like, I need to make
this a business where I'm calling and getting the doctor
kind of discussion going and saying, no, you need to
actually advocate for them to stay. So I might launch that.
But what do you do? Trust, be persistent. But now

(45:55):
when you're getting in front of a psychiatrist, it's usually
because there's just there's way there's way more going on.
The breaks aren't helping you to resolve the anxiety. You're
getting the reassurance and it's still not helping.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Right.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
It's just a tricky balance between the feeling generating this action,
but then when it becomes more of a disorder. And
that's usually what I'm helping people to figure out.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Right.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
The best way to manage it in general, though, is
keeping stress low. So it's wonderful that you're there for
your friend and letting her have some time for you
to also reality test when you're like, girl, no, you're
a great mom. What can I do to be supportive
of you? I got you out. Let's just enjoy the night,
have our apps and a couple of drinks. That helps
someone also who's really anxious maintain that touch with reality

(46:43):
because you're like, no, that sounds like a lot. I
think you should actually look for a second opinion. I
give second opinions all the time. A lot of people
land in my private practice because they want to go
over their meds again. They want to just make sure.
So you just have to be proactive and advocate and
trust your gut.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
As a doctor, right? I want to go back to
the Clancy case.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
Does it concern you when these type of tragedies become like,
the public's primary.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Image of postpartum psychosis.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
Like I said, I never even heard of postpartum psychosis
until this case.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
But is that normal? Like, does this happen more often
than we know?

Speaker 4 (47:20):
So I agree with you that this isn't ideally just, again,
looking at the periphery of the case, and I know
that I think the prosecution had someone who also, that they,
you know, a forensic psychiatrist who thought that the symptoms
weren't so consistent. Um, with postpartum, when I look at
it and the, you know, the, the youngest is eight months, it's, it's,

(47:43):
it doesn't fit the textbook and it doesn't really fit
what I've seen, um, where people are coming in early.
Like this is still a newborn infant. Um, so I
don't like that that becomes the stage for what symptoms
would look like, but unfortunately, because mental health is so,
it's so damn confusing in general, it's easy for this

(48:05):
to become the focus. And I even saw doctors come
on shows, which is also why I said, I need
to come on here. And I just thought it was
so odd that the focus was really just talking about
postpartum psychosis rather than even just talking about mental health
in general or how we can support moms because it
is confusing. Eight months is not typically the window when

(48:26):
someone is in a postpartum psychosis. This could be bipolar
disorder at this point. This could be a depression with
psychotic figures. features, excuse me, but postpartum psychosis, that's a
very specific window of time that we're looking at it. And,
you know, apparently, you know, the defense has got to

(48:48):
come up with a case.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
That's at the precedent, though, for more cases like that.
Now it's like they can look at that case and say, hey,
we've seen it happen here.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Case study.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Case by case.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
I think it does. That's a central conflict also in psychiatry.
If the defense hires you, you're over here making this claim.
If the prosecution hires you, you're over here making this claim.
I wonder what it would be like if the court
appointed someone that's more in the middle and there's no
representation from both sides. I don't remember this woman's name.

(49:23):
I said I wanted to say it on air. Her
children are also dead. But also this case also says
a lot about race.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
The black one?

Speaker 4 (49:30):
Latasha something. I think she.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Was found guilty. She was found guilty. And it was
the same.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
The judge didn't allow her mental health records to be
a part of it.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
That's why I brought up the point about the black
mother because a lot of, the fact that she even
had records was like, okay, I'm happy she has it
to try and show this. But what I was reading
was a lot of times with black moms in that state,
they don't even have the paper trail leading because they
won't stay to get the help or they think it's
normal because they're watching their moms just figure it out.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
They don't have the insurance.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Latasha Sanders? Yes. Yeah, Latasha Sanders.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad we're talking about mental health because
it's again, going to help people start to recognize it's real.
This is probably one of the only experiences outside of
physical health. Although we also don't like to acknowledge when
we have high blood pressure. I know a lot of
people walk around with.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
High blood pressure. I got the machine at the house. Okay.

Speaker 5 (50:27):
Good.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
But, but there's also like, it's like a health literacy
issue where people just don't know. And then there's like
a endurance, you know, I can push through it. I
could just be stronger. Um, There's also they're running into
doctors who may not make them feel validated. Like, don't
take the time. Like, I might just because, you know,
I want I really want to help people. And they're
out the door or they were starting on a medication.

(50:50):
The dose was too high. So it's just such a
delicate process. But, yes, black people are going to have
lower rates of access to care, to quality care. They're
going to come in when they're sicker because we're all
sort of conditioned to endure and be strong and you
can handle it. But all of that contributes to stress

(51:12):
and stress absolutely sets people up for mental health triggers, right?
For anxiety, for depression. It's just so much. I'm pausing
here because I'm like, it's just a big tangled mess.
The best thing to do is really to just try
to accept when you need support, accept it, and then

(51:33):
you got to work to find the right treatment team
to help you manage the symptoms.

Speaker 6 (51:38):
That's even if you're just in the space to receive
all that. No, you're right. There's so many people I
know that they're living with so much day-to-day that this
is not... They're not talking about postpartum and what doctors
I'm going to go see or whatever.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
It's not even a thing for them.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
They might know about it because they watch it on
Breakfast Club.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Luckily, you're here. But they don't have the time, the energy.

Speaker 6 (52:01):
And if they do go to the doctors, it's the
one that they can get to across the street from them.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I think you all
are doing the work and trying to normalize it by
making this, you know, an extended conversation. I was thinking
we're going to be here for like 10 minutes, you know,
go over it. Because what you're doing is letting someone
listening in really reflect on their experience and then hearing
us talk about it. We look like the way we look. OK,

(52:26):
maybe it's OK for me to just take a step.
I like people to think about therapy first because they
usually are great about picking up when symptoms are here.
I get a lot of referrals because someone says, my
therapist said, it's probably time to see a psychiatrist so
that you can talk about medication because this isn't just

(52:47):
a matter of like all the stress. Like you said,
they're worrying about finances. They're worrying about the kids. They're
worrying about just surviving. That's when I get to step in.
And then having the experience, the same cultural background, I
can get to the weeds with you, right? Like, I
get it. Girl, that dude is driving you crazy. We
need to like, maybe talk about how we're going to
put that on ice a little bit. And we're going

(53:09):
to do some self-care and we're maybe going to talk
about medication. So this is, this is, we're, we're ushering in,
I think more people thinking about the importance of it.
And then I was sharing, I think a few years
back with you, the next step is like, how do
you find the right team? Right. Um, I love for
people to learn more about that, even through some of

(53:29):
the public work I'm trying to shift into. Because to
your point, you're going to see the doctor across the street,
and that might not be the right fit. But there
are a lot more people online sharing their work. There's
a lot more resources. Treat it like dating. If it
ain't fitting, just next.

Speaker 5 (53:47):
Don't quit.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
You said you were shifting from therapist to psychologist.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Psychiatrist.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Psychiatrist, I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
Yeah, yeah. Part of it is because I just want
to get in my bag a little bit more. I'm
like a little annoyed when people say you're a therapist.
It's a part of what I do. Shout out to
all the therapists in the world. I am one. I am.
I am a therapist also. But to become a doctor,
it's a it's a long road. OK, it is. There's

(54:14):
a lot of tests. There's a lot of standards you
have to meet. There's board certification that you have to
keep up. There's licensing requirements. There's just a lot more depth.
And I think when I was initially sharing my work publicly,
it was easier to kind of get people to be
OK talking about mental health when they see me as
like Dr. Jess, the therapist. But now I'd like to

(54:36):
say I think we've evolved. And now people need to
know the difference, right? And so when you're seeing a psychiatrist,
you're seeing a medical doctor, this is a specialty in medicine.
I could have done dermatology if I wanted, if I
had the scores. I could have done like OBGYN. We
are all physicians. This is just a specialty within it.
And I think now that more people are being sort

(54:57):
of we're open here talking about symptoms. That's the difference
between what a therapist and psychiatrist does. I'm really focused
in on the symptoms. How are you sleeping? How's the mood?
You know, how are you taking care of yourself? Rather
than maybe the emotional experience or some of like what's
happening in the world. I weave that in as a psychiatrist. Again,
shout out to NYU. They really trained us to do everything.

(55:21):
But I just want people to kind of put a
little bit more emphasis on knowing the difference.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
I just got two more questions. And one of them
was something you said earlier. So you got off social
media and started getting back into your real life practice, right?

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (55:34):
Was that because some of the mental health professionals online
just started to look unserious? Because we talk about that
a lot. Like some of the experts be looking very unserious.
Like I should know the difference between the experts and
the influencers.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Yes. And social media blurs the line.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
You are just helping me not have to put it
into words. Thank you. I don't have to be the
bad guy.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
You know, I always joke with my husband. I'm like,
I'm not going to be dancing on the internet for
my audience. You know, once it shifted to that or
the content needs to go even shorter, you know, if
I can't make a point in 60 seconds and keep
your attention, I'm not going to be dancing. I don't
I don't need to go viral. Right. I never really
focused on having viral moments. I think that's why it's

(56:17):
sustained and why I was getting a lot of opportunities
to be an expert. And I still get them.

Speaker 5 (56:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Became unserious. You know, people are just trying to get
really niche and really, truly. It's not there's there's the
symptoms are what they are. If I'm making you think
that you could possibly have this because I'm branding myself
as like the ADHD psychiatrist, there's there's something wrong with that.
Then you're going to come in convinced. I saw this

(56:44):
TikTok that if I, you know, I can't keep up
with my keys and I, you know, break down anytime
someone frustrates me that I have ADHD. I really have
people come in and ask that. And then I have
to delicately say. So, yeah, a big part for me was.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
Just that I can't find my keys.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
Right. Like, is this ADHD or is this like your
house is a mess? You're over attached to your devices.
You really don't have any true routine. You need to
really get back to the basics. Are you sleeping at night?
Are you eating your food? So when I did a
soft lunch for a podcast, and that's what I focused on,
it's self-care that you need to kind of bring into
the forefront. But yeah, social media became a bit unserious.

(57:25):
And I am disappointed seeing professionals feel the pressure to
maybe go viral when I'm like, have a boring ass page, right?
Let someone just trust you. Let them land on your page.
You don't need to go viral. Like, what are you
trying to do?

Speaker 5 (57:40):
And my last question, what do you wish the Lindsay
Clancy story had taught America before it became.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
This courtroom story?

Speaker 4 (57:52):
Well, again, I think keeping it really simple, I would
have hoped that it would have started more conversations around
properly supporting families, mothers, fathers thinking about the role for community.
You know, what I am disappointed to see is it became,

(58:12):
like you were saying, more of the symptoms of postpartum,
which I think some of us would debate. I think, again,
it just should be more of the discussion nationally about
how we're going to properly make sure people have what
they need. Maybe not even taking on the pressure to
build really big families if you feel like One is enough.

(58:35):
I'm tired. I mean, shout out to you guys. Six kids.
I love it. But everyone can't do that, right? Like
everyone may not have the support or they may be
more sensitive to stress and they might not be able
to tolerate that.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
My wife is good. My wife is really, I don't
even know how she does it, but she's pretty amazing
when it comes to the stress and things not bothering
her and her being a listening mom. Because I'm sometimes
the dad to be like, yeah, just get out of here.
But my wife, she'll sit there and she listens and
she goes through all the kids' problems and She wakes
up in the morning and you forget how difficult it is.

(59:07):
Like she just, like, that's why when she went. to
like she goes on a girls trip every couple of
years the 17 day girls trip and dad has to
hold it down and after like the fifth day I'm
like nah B I need her back right now because
it's a lot and then you're doing it on your
own and then I don't know how to do hair
so their hair look crazy and then I gotta feed
them and then if they have homework I gotta help

(59:28):
with homework Dad's not too good at homework.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
I do everything else.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I got to feed him.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
You got to feed him. But then you got to
cook this one because this one wants this to eat.
This one wants this to eat. And then my wife prepares.
So she prepares and she has it locked up. It's like,
all right, it's 6 o'clock. Get your food. You have
a break. Now back to dance. And this one has, like,
my wife does it. So give her those breaks at
times as much as she wants. She runs the house.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
That's her crib.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
I just live there.

Speaker 4 (59:53):
I love a 17-day.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
I hate us.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
I love that.

Speaker 6 (59:56):
I kept saying, she don't miss home. He was like,
I don't know. I mean, after hearing all that, she
need 30. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Whatever she does.

Speaker 5 (01:00:03):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:00:07):
I'm excited to become a mom, but I'm also a
bit nervous sometimes because of all these conversations. It makes you,
because you just don't know what's going to happen.

Speaker 4 (01:00:14):
Yeah. It's definitely not for the faint of heart. But
I always tell people, once that string starts pulling- I
think it's just a strong biological urge for some people.
I haven't, you know, I think it's hard for people
to turn, to turn from that if you feel it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
What string?

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
If you feel like, I want to be a mom,
I want to be a mom. But if you don't
feel that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Wait, it's a string now too?

Speaker 6 (01:00:37):
I heard about the spinal cord, but it's another one.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
Just meaning like, just meaning like if you're feeling your
heart string pull, but you know, I really want it.
It's hard to, it's hard to suppress it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
You know, figure it out.

Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
Are you about the, Oh, no, I was making sure
you wrapped up her point about what does she want
people to learn from the.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
Yeah, I think that's it. I think, you know, that
we've got to support families. They need resources. You know, doctors,
I do need, you know, you to do a... You know,
make sure people are on the right medication and push
for them to get admitted. I push mine. Like, okay,
if you aren't getting better, let me tell you the hospital.

(01:01:17):
I'm going to send you to.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Thank you, Dr.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Jess.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Dr. Jessica Clemens, man. I would tell him to follow you, but,
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
You can. I'm there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
I want to get back in it. Okay, what is it?
Is it still Ask Dr.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Jess? It's still Ask Dr.

Speaker 6 (01:01:34):
Jess.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Well, we appreciate you for joining us.

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
And hopefully you'll join us more. you vanished you vanished
from our life like you jumped in I've been.

Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
Trying to did you vanish you took intentionally took the
time away no.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
She vanished from us yeah but you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Said from us like it was just breakfast club I've
been trying.

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
To get her at the mental wealth expo for years
I'm like yo this would be now I'm thinking like
this would be a great year for her just to
do the whole panel by herself what's this thing called PowerPoint.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
I'm down.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Word?

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
I'm down.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
I'm back out here. I'm back out here. My children
are a bit older. They can tolerate being away from mom.
I got to shout them out. I know y'all are watching.
Y'all better be on your best behavior. But I want
to because I see this is needed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:19):
You know? And I have a lot of fun. You
guys have just been really good to me. I appreciate
being here.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Well, Dr.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Jess, ladies and gentlemen, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Hold up.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Every day I wake up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. You all finished
or you all done?