BillLindau

Patty Duke's visit

'Miracle Worker' star visits Sandhills
Patty Duke delivers passionate speech on bout with bipolar disorder
Moore County Independent, Oct. 5, 2006
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
Patty Duke has played roles ranging from a famous blind and deaf-mute woman to identical twin cousins to a doped-out diva.
Lately she has attracted lots of fans with a real-life role: A champion for the mentally ill.
Duke, with husband Mike Pearce in tow, spoke before a packed audience at Sandhills Community College on Saturday evening.
Duke shared some of her ugly experiences with bipolar disorder. Also known as manic depression, this malady had plagued her since she was 19 years old, she said.
After the speech, Duke signed copies of the books she had written about mental illness, at a reception in Kennedy Hall.
During the question-and-answer session, some people shared their experiences with bipolar disorder with their famous guest speaker. A few even said that Duke's second book, "A Brilliant Madness," helped them cope with their own cases of this oft-publicized psychiatric malady.
Duke was the guest speaker in the second program in the new Ruth Pauley Lecture Series. Her program was titled "A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness." The series is in its 20th year. This series, which featured biographer Mary Skutt as its first speaker of the new season in September, has been hailed as the longest-running series of its kind in the American community college system.
Duke spent the weekend in the Sandhills. On Sunday she was the featured guest at Pinehurst, in the Path to Awareness program that was held at the Pinehurst Village Hall. She signed copies of both "A Brilliant Madness" and her 1987autobiography, "Call Me Anna", at the assembly hall. This event also featured a walk, a "Candles in the Sky" observance which consisted of helium balloons released in memory or in honor of loved ones, door prizes, the giveway of a painting by Charlotte artist Stefan Duncan; and a performance by local pop band Movin' Through. These events were co-sponsored by Sandhills Community College Foundation, the National Alliance for Mental Illness and FirstHealth of the Carolinas.
Duke spoke for about an hour, then fielded questions from the audience. There was standing room only reported at the time she spoke in Owens Auditorium.
Some members of the audience arrived at least an hour before Duke was scheduled to speak, in anticipation of a vast crowd. The event was free, open to the public, and heavily publicized.
At Duke's speech on Saturday, one woman said she had suffered from bipolar disorder for 14 years and went into intensive therapy following a suicide attempt. She read "A Brilliant Madness", and claimed the book brought her and her mother together.
One of the first people to ask Duke any questions admitted to having bipolar disorder and asked Duke if she had any trouble sleeping.
"I'm touched that a girl like you had the courage to come here and speak up," Duke said.
Duke said she has been taking lithium for her therapy, beginning her current treatment 25 years ago. She advised people with psychiatric illness not to be ashamed of it and to continue taking their medication.
"I will take my medication till the day I die," she said, "And knowing me, I'll take it the day after."
Duke turns 60 in December. She has acted in movies and on TV for more than 40 years. She won an Oscar for her portrayal of the famous Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker" as a child. In her teens she starred in a sitcom called "The Patty Duke Show" in which she played a dual role as identical twin cousins. In 1969 she played a famous singer with a drug problem in "Valley of the Dolls". That role is said to have been modeled after Judy Garland. Her other cinematic highlights included a remake of "The Miracle Worker", in which she took Anne Bancroft's former role in the previous version.
Duke told how in Saturday's speech how she began experiencing the symptoms of a psychiatric disorder when she was 19.
"The Patty Duke Show had just wrapped," she said. "I had been married for about a year when all of a sudden this pall came over me."
In time it afflicted her to the point at which "I didn't get out of bed except to go to the bathroom," Duke said, "And I had to debate that some."
She said she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.
Throughout her speech, Duke managed to put a comic spin on some of the incidents.
"I was talking so fast you couldn't understand me," she said, discussing her other symptoms. "Sally Field did it in an episode of 'ER" and I kept wondering how come I didn't get the job."
"My motor was running and then it would stop," she added.
She said she was released from the hospital before she was completely cured, being misdiagnosed for depression solely. She continued to be in need of help, she said, but, she did not go to another psychiatrist for a long time. "We were worried about my image," Duke said. "I was little Patty Duke and I couldn't possibly have a mental illness."
She said her husband at the time was cheating on her. "But when I found out, I was in another manic episode," Duke added. :"I had also started drinking. That was my second career."
She said in the late 1960s, when she became more established in her acting career, "I had another manic episode. I bought a lot of cars that I couldn't afford."
Duke also said she was bar-hopping, "having indiscriminate sexual encounters with people I didn't know."
During this time, however, she said she had "a little conscience" that told her she could not go on like that, and she knew she had to changer her ways.
She found a boyfriend who left her when she became pregnant. Then she married "Addams Family" star John Astin, who had children from an earlier marriage. Duke's marriage with Astin fell apart largely to her disorder.
"I was not marriage or mom material," Duke said. "I was manic. The kids were subject to my rage and physical abuse....One minute I'd tell them that they were king of the world. The next minute I'd be smacking them and berating them and telling them how much I berated them."
She said she once told Astin a divorce would be the best thing for both of them. "I told john he'd have to give me a divorce because I was afraid I'd kill him in his sleep," Duke said.
During the divorce proceedings, Duke saw a psychiatrist again. The seventh time she saw him, "the psychiatrist said I was manic-depressive," Duke said. "And I thought, 'Oh, thank God, it has a name.'"
That was when she began lithium treatments, Duke said.
"The motor stopped running," she said, "and I started taking my medication and I have for the past 20-some years."
Duke talked about landing a movie role as a 39-year-old woman who enlists in the Army to obtain benefits. She was sent to a military base in Georgia, to train for the part under a drill instructor.
Commenting on the sergeant assigned to her, Duke said, "You'd think that all the blue eyes in the world were in his head. He was very nice -- and he beat the (expletive deleted) out of me."
The sergeant was Mike Pearce. She ended up marrying him. During the past summer they celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary, she said. They now live in northern Idaho, with their 12-year-old son, Kevin, and five dogs.
Duke said she remains committed to fight for the rights of patients with bipolar disorder and other forms of mental illness. This includes health insurance.
"I've been working hard with NAMI National to achieve insurance parity," Duke said.
"We (NAMI) are trying to get Congress to give mental patients the same coverage they do for physical disorders," Duke added. Also, "to cut $6 million in child research and treatment is a sin."

posted by Bill Lindau @ 9:20 AM