Pubdate: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 Source: Ledger-Enquirer (GA) Copyright: 2002 Ledger-Enquirer Contact: http://www.l-e-o.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/237 Author: Kaffie Sledge. News Columnist Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) CAN'T SPIN AWAY DRUG, MENTAL PROBLEMS People who have mental or emotional issues may be misled by the Hollywood spin mental health has recently received. "Superman" co-star Margot Kidder, who has a history of excessive drinking and mental illness, now says she healed her body, which made her bipolar disorder and other mental health diagnoses disappear. And comedian Martin Lawrence has produced a concert movie to portray his version of events that put him in headlines and on the evening news in the late 1990s. The movie, "Runteldat," is currently playing, and is said to be aimed at critics: "I'm still here. Now run tell that." Lawrence admits he was on "something he bought from his dope man" when he was apprehended after standing at a freeway intersection with a weapon, shouting obscenities and mumbling incoherently. Following that incident, he went to a psychiatric ward for a while. So was he also under the influence of something he bought from his dope man when he was arrested for assault in a nightclub, or when he collapsed from heat exhaustion? Perhaps someone should run and tell Lawrence there is nothing funny about substance abuse. For many people, getting high, getting loaded or taking the edge off are the first steps of their journey into addiction. Lawrence makes money by making people laugh. So in an attempt to sustain his marketability, he needs to make his fans laugh at his misfortune. But I fail to see the humor in the near-death experiences of a substance abuser. Kidder, best known as Lois Lane in the "Superman" movies, comes from a different angle. Now referring to herself as a poster child for mental health, she says her mental illness is a thing of the past. "For me, the solution was finally getting away from psychiatric drugs and actually healing my body so I wouldn't have the symptoms that are called mental illness," said Kidder, now appearing in the "Vagina Monologues" at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Just as Lawrence's jokes aren't really funny, Kidder's explanations don't fully explain. "I've been diagnosed with everything from schizophrenia to manic depression to attention deficit disorder," she has said. After going missing for three days in April 1996, she was discovered -- delusional, dirty, bruised, missing bridgework and her hair hacked off -- in a woodpile in a Los Angeles neighborhood. Her symptoms were serious, and after the incident, Kidder revealed she had dealt with mental illness most of her adult life. She also seemed to blame the incident on the psychiatric medication she was taking. Today, she is an advocate of orthomolecular therapy, a controversial field of medicine that claims major mental illnesses can be treated through a carefully planned nutritional program. Is Kidder for real, or is this PR strategy? The cause of schizophrenia is still unknown, so are we to believe its symptoms are so easily vanquished? - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager