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This past week, Catherine Zeta-Jones announced she was bipolar type II. From CNN‘s Catherine Zeta-Jones bipolar disorder: Her private struggle:
Walking the red carpet at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art this week, Michael Douglas was feeling grateful for all the well wishes he’d received from friends and fans as he battled cancer.…Absent from the event was his biggest supporter: wife Catherine Zeta-Jones. Hours later, it was revealed that she has quietly sought healing of her own. Her rep says the actress recently checked into a facility for a few days to treat her bipolar II disorder.
The revelation was surprising to many, not least because the Oscar-winning actress and mom-of-two stayed steadfastly positive in public while sticking by Douglas’s side through a grueling six-month battle with cancer.
But behind the scenes, those close to the actress say she felt the strain. Her rep acknowledged the timing of Zeta-Jones, 41, seeking treatment was in part connected to “the stress of the past year.”
As someone who also has the same diagnosis — although my attending psychiatrist, Dr. Hagop S. Akiskal, also has diagnosed me with bipolar type II-and-a-half (cyclothymic disorder) — well, I can attest that bipolar type II condition can sometimes be a quite debilitating condition.
Most days I’m functional, but on other days I’m not. And, stress that isn’t easily resolved is a trigger for both depression and hypomania for me.
I’m pretty sure that the long unresolved stresses that Catherine Zeta-Jones experienced regarding her husband Michal Douglas’s cancer were triggers for her condition as well.
Catherine Zeta-Jones has a mental health condition. She recently needed treatment for her condition, and received inpatient help for it. Then she came “out of the closet” about her mental health condition and her that she was receiving treatment for it.
The destigmatizing of people with mental health conditions will likely require the same “out of the closet” approach that has helped address the stigmatizing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in broader society.
I’d like to thank her Catherine Zeta-Jones for coming out as bipolar — her coming out will help more people than she probably knows.
Photo courtesy of Graphics Hunt, which states on their Catherine Zeta Jones photo webpage “Feel free to use our Catherine Zeta Jones Headshot photos on any website, forum, myspace, friendster or blog.”
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Related:
* Living With Mental Illness
* This Past Week: Dealing With Bipolar Depression
* A Week Of The Debilitating Side Of Bipolar II ½
* Thinking On Bipolar Depression, Anxiety, And Hypomania… And Christine And Me
2 Comments
Finally a little good news……in so far as someone having mental illness can be “good news.” As another who has battled with PBDtII for decades I too feel hopeful that her coming out will lead to a discussion in our culture about mental illness and the stigma and social isolation associated with it. Kudo’s Autumn for putting this particular take on it out there. I too am encouraged.
GOGO Katherine Zeta Jones! newest member of my heroes list!
I agreeSomeone I respect coming out of the closet about their mental illness and directly describing the stigma helped me realize that I was, at best, being extremely insensitive to the mentally ill.
I had a grandmother who I was close to who died recently. I only found out that she had been clinically depressed around the last week of her life. She’d been taking antidepressants since before I was born.