New Manuscript!

For the past three months, my son and I have been hard at work on a new manuscript — William Edwards and the Wizardly Glasses. Today, we’ll be sending it off to a literary agent, who we hope will love it! Here’s a synopsis:

William Edwards has never flown a time machine. He’s never seen a jean pool (or a gene pool, for that matter). And he’s certainly never heard animals talk to him. Up until now he’s lived a horrid life with Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, who are disgusted with the poor investment they made when they bought William off of the Internet 10 years ago. William can’t do a math problem, and worse, he hasn’t brought home a soccer trophy when they’re given out just for showing up.

But everything’s about to change when William is given a pair of big green glasses with rose-colored lenses and a ticket to ride on a purple bus by a knowing old woman. No matter that he looks like a frog when he arrives at Winkleberry, a school for children with magical powers. There he finds friends for the first time, a playground that’s an amusement park, and ice cream, cake, and an endless supply of food kids love. There’s something mysterious and exciting every which way he turns. The future looks bright for William when he is given the chance to rescue his real parents, but he must find ways to outwit his opponents.

It’s a fantasy/humor novel for kids of all ages! Now if you’re up for a thrill, mystery, drama, and love story with a dash of humor, download my debut novel, MIND GAMES, and let me know what you think of it.

A Bit Miffed

I decided several months ago for my Huffington Post celebrity blog that instead of just interviewing celebrities with something they want to publicize, I’d interview celebrities who had something of significance to say, something about which they, and I, had a passion, something that would shed light on topics and help people.   So, for my first series I chose brain disorders.  Most people refer to this topic as “mental illness,” but because the mind is in the brain, I wanted to place the illnesses where they really should be.  It’s my own little crusade.   The biggest reason I chose to blog about this field is because as a journalist, I can write about all sorts of health conditions, but it’s nearly impossible to pitch an editor on anything “mental illness” related and get an assignment.  I found out from my interview with  Former First Lady Rosslyn Carter that other journalists have the same problem.   As a blogger, I am free to assign myself my own topics.  So there you go!  I’ll be taking on presidential candidates and food allergies next, I think.  I’m also open to hear what you want to hear about from celebrities.

Now here’s what I’m miffed about — and this is the kind of stuff editors should be thinking about.  There  have been reports about a group of high school students in upstate New York — and now a 36-year-old local woman — developing symptoms of Tourette’s (motor and vocal tips).  There’s research out of the National Institutes of Health, mostly by Susan Swedo, M.D., indicating that one cause is Strep throat, which is caused by a bacteria and is not always symptomatic.  I’ve seen nothing about testing for the bacteria.  What I have seen is reports that these people have been diagnosed with “conversion disorder,” resulting from stress and childhood trauma.   That’s right, all of a sudden a whole group of people are bursting from childhood trauma and stress.   I find that hard to imagine.   I’m glad Erin Brockovich is on the case, and I have an interview request in to her.

What are your thoughts?

Actress Patty Duke’s Fantasy: A March on Washington

Several years ago, Emmy-award winning actress Patty Duke shared a story with me. Back in 1970, at age 24, she’d walked off the set of a show on which she was guest starring. The actors had been told to take lunch and leave a tired crew behind to fix technical problems. She didn’t like the inequity. Outside the studio, she jumped onto a garbage truck with armed soldiers heading for an army base with a studio limo in pursuit to get the actress back to the set on time. As if this weren’t disastrous enough, she invited the armed soldiers — and their friends — more than 100 men in uniform — to the studio for lunch. Not surprisingly, she was summoned to Sid Sheinberg’s office. While she waited impatiently in his office for him to arrive, she picked up a Mickey Mouse clock he had sitting on his desk and tucked it into her pocket. When Sid Sheinberg arrived, Patty Duke threw his Mickey Mouse clock at him, but not before greeting him with a string of obscenities. No matter that Sid Sheinberg was president of MCA studios and a Hollywood powerhouse. She was angry.

The whole scene could be written off as just another Hollywood actress behaving badly, but that was not the case. Patty Duke had bipolar disorder but was unaware of it.

Nearly 42 years after that episode, and after 20 years of a tumultuous life of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows that characterize manic depression, Patty Duke is balanced. And despite the enticements of euphoria, balanced is a much better place to be, she says. (Sid Sheinberg would probably agree.)

The disorder began for Patty Duke when she was just eight years old. It was then that she began experiencing terrorizing panic attacks. At age 16, when she was starring in The Patty Duke Show, she started having audio hallucinations and insomnia that would go on for days. Then, periods of depression set in, but it was only the depression she would allow her psychiatrists to see. She kept the mania her secret, until one day a psychiatrist witnessed it, gave her a correct diagnosis and prescribed lithium.

I recently caught up with the woman I know as Anna Duke Pearce. As always, she is warm and witty. She is also a woman on a mission. For nearly 25 years, Patty Duke has traveled around the country educating audiences on brain disorders such as hers and speaking out about the stigma that goes along with being diagnosed with a “mental illness” (which I refer to here as brain disorders, because the mind is in the brain). Her wish before she dies is that it becomes ordinary and commonplace to treat these disorders just like it is with the flu. (See Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s Primary Care Initiative.)

The problem, of course, is the stigma associated with these brain disorders. “When we want to say something negative to somebody we say, ‘Aww, you’re so crazy.’” She’s not suggesting that we drop the terminology from our lexicon. She’s saying that as a society we have not yet recognized “how deeply rooted the stigma is.”

Like Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Patty Duke believes that people who are well-known have to battle stigma for all who suffer by being public about their diagnoses as has Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy (who will be the subject of my next blog) and “demonstrate that we are functioning, not just talking about it,” she said.

Patty Duke is also concerned about children and teenagers for whom she says the stigma is 10 times as powerful. Add to that the pain, terror and depression that are the symptoms of many brain disorders. “I remember wanting to give up with all of my heart and soul,” she says.

Further, some of the drugs used to treat these brain disorders may pose an increase risk of suicide. We become complacent when people are taking their meds, she says. We think they’re fine now. So sometimes we take our eye off the ball and don’t see the symptoms that can lead to suicide, “either as a drug reaction or from the illness,” she says. “So, even though I’m very big on taking our medicines, it is not the panacea,” she warns. To teenagers she says, “Don’t give up.”

At age 64, Patty Duke is deeply grateful she didn’t give up. “But it doesn’t mean that everyday I’m walking on air,” she notes. Still, she emphasizes that hope actually exists. She also wants people who are suffering from brain disorders to know that they are not the only ones. She meets so many people who think they are the only ones with bipolar.

And it’s not just the people with the diagnosis who suffer, Patty Duke points out. Family members get caught up in the illnesses. (The affect of these brain disorders on family members has been well recognized in the Alzheimer’s community.)

Patty Duke doesn’t know of any other way to reduce stigma other than to continue funding research for treatments. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m coming to believe that without the money we’re just spitting in the wind,” she says.

Research could move forward “if the government would stop cutting all the funding for mental health research,” Patty Duke says. “[I]t is cost effective to treat people with mental illness, and most of the time the treatments work and people return to the workplace, and they pay taxes. Why can’t we grasp that simple notion?” she asks.

Patty Duke has addressed Congress on this matter three times.

Because of a lack of funding, there’s a lack of organization. There’s no networking among community centers, she says, which echoes what Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter told me.

“We can become a force. Right now, we’re a bunch of little forces,” Patty Duke says.

Patty Duke has a fantasy (and she doesn’t think it’s a manifestation of her illness, she jokes) of all the people with these disorders marching on Washington, D.C. “There wouldn’t be anybody left home,” she laughs. “To the uninitiated it would be yet a further demonstration that we’re tired of hiding,” she adds, and she’s serious about that.

In the end it comes down to each individual. “We have to be thoughtful about our votes,” Patty Duke says.

Note: I was recently made aware of an organization whose mission it is to fight stigma associated with these types of brain disorders. Bring Change 2 Mind, an anti stigma campaign, was founded by actress Glenn Close and other like-minded organizations. For the next week, I will donate half the profits from my novel, MIND GAMES, to Bring Change 2 Mind. A 5-star rated thriller/suspense at both Amazon.com and Goodreads.com, at its heart, MIND GAMES is a story of one small-town journalist’s fight against stigma as she battles her own war on terror. You can also donate directly to Bring Change 2 Mind.

For more by S.Z. Berg, click here.

For more on mental health, click here.

A Conversation With Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter About Stigma, Discrimination, and Brain Disorders

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has been an unrelenting crusader for people suffering from mental illness (which I refer to here as brain disorders). For more than 40 years she’s been working on promoting awareness of the issues, public policy, making health care insurance coverage for these brain disorders comparable to traditional health care coverage, and reducing stigma and discrimination against the people who suffer from these brain conditions.

I spoke with Rosalynn Carter about stigma and treatments.

Rosalynn Carter emphasized that “mental illness” is “an illness like any other illness.” It can be diagnosed and treated, and almost everyone suffering from one of these disorders can be helped. The problem is access to help and the stigma associated with obtaining healthcare.

Much of the stigma related to these brain disorders was created because of our nation’s past history of institutionalizing people with these illnesses. As a result, Rosalynn Carter’s efforts have focused on educating people on these disorders in order to reduce the stigma associated with our nation’s health practitioners having gone to such extremes as removing people from society simply because their symptoms were misunderstood.

Stigma in these modern times has not changed much. In fact, Rosalynn Carter said it may even be increasing. It is difficult for her to understand why the stigma still exists today when at least one in four adults in the United States is diagnosed with a mental health condition, she said.

Through The Carter Center, Rosalynn Carter has focused on strategies to reduce stigma and discrimination.

As with any form of prejudice, the answer begins with education.

Rosalynn Carter stressed the need for internists to be trained to recognize symptoms, make the diagnosis, treat the condition, and know the resources in community for referral and support. However, she found, after enormous efforts, that medical schools were resistant to incorporating this type of coursework into their curriculums, and there is no umbrella organization that can make it a requirement.

The Carter Center for Mental Health created its Primary Care Initiative to tackle this problem. It is an especially important initiative, because many primary care physicians are not well trained on diagnosing or treating these brain disorders. Indeed, according to the Carter Center, depression is too often misdiagnosed and only one third of patients treated for depression in the primary care setting have any type of meaningful improvement in their condition. (This may be due to ineffective treatments. See JAMA article.) At the root of this problem is stigma among medical practitioners, despite the improved understanding of “mental illnesses” being biological brain disorders no different from any other brain disorders.

As a result, people who suffer from these brain conditions continue to feel the stigma and are embarrassed to seek professional help. Rosalynn Carter would like to see medical centers expand into one-stop shops, where various practitioners would practice so that consumers don’t feel stigmatized getting treatment, and, of course, she wants to destigmatize brain disorders. She added that there is a need for more community centers at which to get treatment. (Georgia, she noted, has a Medicaid-paid peer pairing program — those treated helping those getting treatment — that’s successful.)

The media is another area where Rosalynn Carter focuses, because the media has contributed to stigmatization of these brain conditions. Too often journalists and reporters refer to the symptoms of these brain disorders as “bizarre” and other derogatory terms. To combat this problem, Rosalynn Carter created The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships For Mental Health Journalism to educate journalists.

On an individual level, stigma can be reduced through interpersonal experiences, Rosalynn Carter said. She would like to see neighbors getting to know neighbors and co-workers getting to know co-workers with these disorders. After seeing that they’re okay and that they’re raising families, she hopes the stigma will fade. She also believes it helps when celebrities reveal that they have been diagnosed (and treated for) a brain disorder (as has Emmy-award winning Patty Duke. Look for my interview with her in my next blog posting.)

Rosalynn Carter recently led The Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy, which focused on building services and support for children at risk for developing brain disorders related to psychological trauma.

The Politics, Stigma and Experience of Brain Disorders: A Blog Series

The holiday season is a good time to talk about brain disorders. The kind I’m talking about are more commonly referred to as mental illness, but I think that term detracts from the fact that depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia and other such conditions arise in the brain. I think it allows us to consider them less important than “real” brain disorders, such as tumors and strokes.

Mental illnesses are too often tossed aside as conditions that take place in the mind. (Last I knew, the mind was in the brain, and the brain is a pretty important organ — I think you’ll agree.) I see people wearing pink ribbons for breast cancer and other colors for other diseases and rallying around them to raise money for research to eradicate these awful diseases. (And more power to these people.) But save for autism, I see little energy going into standing up for people suffering from stigmatized brain disorders that affect thoughts and emotions and that leave their hosts losing out to fulfilling their potential.

If it takes selfishness to motivate people to rally around a cause, then consider all that we miss out on — discoveries and advances in various fields that are left undone because these sufferers may not be able to function at the high rate they otherwise would. You can also think about your wallet, because the cost in lost productivity and therapeutic (and only weakly effective) measures ultimately cost us in terms of taxes or reduced profits. And if you think you are immune from developing such a condition, think again. In one study, nearly half (43 percent) of older Americans will have Alzheimer’s disease by age 85 — and that’s just one form of dementia.

Having a brain disorder leaves you vulnerable at any age, but having one when you’re a child or a senior citizen leaves you especially vulnerable.

It is true that there is research going on, but too often I see the same research being done again and again using antidepressants. However, a landmark paper published in JAMA Jan. 6, 2010, that reviewed nearly 30 years of studies found that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos (sugar pills) for those people with mild to moderate depression. (This is not to say come off your medication if you are taking it, but that research needs to be done outside of antidepressants.) Further, many of the psychotropic medications — drugs used to treat so-called mental health disorders — have serious side effects, including substantial weight gain, metabolic syndrome and tardive dyskinesia. Money is a factor, understandably. So it surprises me that funding is seemingly not being given to larger studies that would validate the findings of innovative small studies that have shown real possibilities for using inexpensive treatments, such as Tylenol to treat emotional pain (emotional pain is pain, after all — think heartbreak) and Vitamin B8 to treat obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

I chose the holidays to address these particular types of brain disorders, because many people feel depressed at this time of year. I’m hoping that feeling will give way to empathy long after your depression lifts with the promise of a new year.

For this series, I have interviewed former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who has been an unrelenting crusader for people suffering from brain disorders, Emmy-award winning actress Patty Duke, who has bipolar disorder and who speaks about bipolar around the country, and former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who has been a relentless fighter for the rights of people with brain disorders to have their diagnoses be covered by insurance like any other medical disorder and whose focus has now become understanding the etiology of brain disorders and changing the way we perceive brain disorders by looking at them through the eyes of our soldiers.

I’m placing links to their nonprofits below. I want to point out, though, that neither Mrs. Carter or her organization or Mr. Kennedy asked me to link to their websites, but I suspect they’d be pleased if you’d support their efforts.

Carter Center Mental Health Program
The Next Frontier

Jillian Rose Reed: Why Awkward’s Sassy “Tamara” Is Sweet On Curing Diabetes

Jillian Rose Reed stars on MTV’s offbeat comedy Awkward (which has been picked up for a second season) as the sassy and fun-loving best friend Tamara. Now 19, Jillian was only 9 years old when her older brother developed diabetes. He was away at college, which she notes made it especially frightening for him and the entire family. There was a lot of worry and fear, she told me, until he got diagnosed and got his diabetes under control. Even after that, life didn’t go on an even keel. He nearly slipped into a diabetic coma before seeking medical help once when he was sick, because he didn’t understand the complexities and potential complications of this medical condition.

There are an estimated 25.8 million people in the United States who have diabetes — 7 million of whom are undiagnosed. Complications include heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease, neuropathy, and amputation. Type 1 diabetes, the type Jillian’s brother has, where the body does not produce insulin, is usually diagnosed in children and young adults and makes up only 5 percent of all diabetes cases.

Jillian’s advice to others in similar situations is to just be there for your sibling. “It’s such a hard thing,” she said. It’s traumatic and involves an entire lifetime change of diet and routine when you’re insulin-dependent, she explained.

That’s why Jillian is taking action to help raise money to prevent and treat diabetes. She’s joined ranks with the American Diabetes Association for Los Angeles and will be speaking at the Los Angeles Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes on Sunday, October 2, 2011. The fundraiser is a 3-mile walk through movie and television history, complete with a yellow brick road and the opportunity to meet characters, such as Luke Skywalker.

Watch for Jillian’s tweets (@JillianRoseReed) about it and how you can help raise funds to prevent and cure diabetes.

Meanwhile, Jillian is trying to reduce her chances of developing diabetes by exercising and eating healthy, which is especially hard for a teenager. She admits she’s far from perfect, but she’s trying.

And for all you young actors who dream of making it in Hollywood, I asked Jillian what she thinks was the key to her success. She told me that it’s her family (she lives at home). They believe in her, and the fact that they think she can succeed made her want to keep going when she faced rejection. She told me about a time when someone in the business told her that she’s good at acting but not that good. No matter who you are, you’re always going to get that, she pointed out. And so her advice to young actors is, “definitely don’t give up.”

Mark Salling: Glee’s Noah “Puck” Puckerman on His New Puppy, New “Child Hunger Ends Here” Campaign, and New Season

Mark Salling, who’s best known for his mean jock character Noah “Puck” Puckerman on Glee, has every reason to be excited. He just got a new puppy, an Australian cattle dog (which he named Noah), and there’s a lot in store for his character on Glee this season. He told me that he’s going to be confronted with some very adult issues, which may include having to deal with his out-of-wedlock daughter, Beth, again (who’s the result of a one-night stand with fellow Glee Club member Quinn Fabray, who was dating his best friend, Finn Hudson, at the time).

But things haven’t always gone so well for Mark. Before hitting it big, Mark spent 7 years pursuing a professional music career in LA. He was just about to throw in the towel and move back to his native Texas when he decided to make one last-ditch effort — sending out resumes and photos to 75 managers and agents. “I was at the very end,” he told me. He received only one response. However, that manager led him to an agent who got him an audition, which turned into five “agonizing auditions” for a pilot show that was billed as a high school musical for primetime TV. As it turns out, Glee is about the will and fortitude of the underdog, and Mark’s perseverance paid off with a role that changed the course of his life.

Now Mark is trying to change the course of the lives of other underdogs: hungry children. He’s a spokesperson for ConAgra Food’s Child Hunger Ends Here campaign. He cites his home state of Texas as second only to Arkansas in the number of children who go hungry, a number nearing 17 million nationwide. The solution is easy, he said. Get your school involved. Each ConAgra Foods UPC code saved buys one meal for a child.

That’s something really worth singing about.

Leeza Gibbons on Remembering Alzheimer’s Caregivers

Anyone who’s had a child sick with the flu knows how stressful it can be to take care of him or her. Now imagine what it’s like to become a caretaker to a chronically sick child, parent, or other family member.

Some 13 years ago, Leeza Gibbons, former co-host of Entertainment Tonight, fell into the role of caregiver, along with her siblings, for her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive brain disorder characterized by dementia, which is a loss of memory and cognitive (thinking) skills. There are also personality changes in the later stages of the disease where the person with Alzheimer’s may lash out at the caretaker, show fear, and have other distinct changes in personality and behavior. Leeza told me how her mother would get up n the middle of the night and wander and fall.

Leeza went home to South Carolina when her mother first suspected she had the early stages of Alzheimer’s to decode her mother’s symptoms and get a diagnosis. It was a tsunami of shock, Leeza told me. She sees now that she coped with such a life-changing diagnosis of a loved one by immersing herself into trying to find answers via research to fix her mother’s disease. But Leeza developed depression and struggled with sleeplessness. She described it like this: “I was just wound up as tight as I could be [from anxiety].” And her anxiety affected everything in her life. Meanwhile, she says, her mother just needed her.

Over the years, Leeza witnessed her mother progressively degenerating. Ironically, Leeza, like other long-term caregivers, was on a somewhat parallel path. “Caregiver fatigue” placed her at increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and a long list of other medical conditions and already she suffered as a consequence of her role as caregiver from depression, another risk for caregivers.

But Leeza’s mother helped ease some of the burden by accepting the diagnosis, asking for what she needed, and telling Leeza what she wanted, which helped in drawing some of her mother’s friends back. People don’t understand dementia and some withdraw, Leeza said. (That’s true of many long-term medical conditions and diseases.) The earlier you get real with the diagnosis, the sooner you can line up your team, Leeza said. Leeza told me that the team won’t include everyone, because everyone won’t have what it takes to get on their battle gear.

While being a caregiver can take its toll, having a caregiver — advocacy and the demonstration of love — is so important to the person with the medical condition or disease that I wrote about the devastating effects of not having one in Mind Games.

ESPN’s Erin Andrews Helping Small Charity Score Big With Fan Support

After an exciting game between Notre Dame and Michigan, ESPN Sportscaster Erin Andrews got on a plane and headed to New York City where she spent the tenth anniversary of 9-11. She’s not afraid of much, but this was different, and she admits it was frightening to go to New York on September 11th. It was an emotional and nerve-wracking day, she said. Even watching the commercials on TV made her cry.

But the timing couldn’t have been better, because Andrews is working with StubHub.com to raise money for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). This program helps children (and others) who have lost a loved one while they were serving in the military. The waitlist, she found, was 500 people long. Andrews wanted to do what she could to shorten it. What better way than a Girls Night Out, where proceeds from the purchase of tickets to selected sports games would go to TAPS.

Andrews, who’s from the South, said that Southern women know more than many men do about sports. She’s a big college football fan.

Watch the Skypecast of my entire interview with Erin Andrews to find out why her friends call her Mother Theresa, how she got interested in sports when she was just 5 years old, and more about what she’s doing.

 

“Trapper John” Reveals How He Became a Business Star

Wayne Rogers, best known for his role as Trapper John on the now classic TV series M*A*S*H, is a man with many hats. He’s weaved in and out of acting roles to take such leads as a founding shareholder of six banks, real estate developer, and co-owner of a vineyard, restaurant, convenience store chain, and, not surprisingly, a film distribution company, among other things. He even owns a minority interest in a Major League baseball team, the Oakland A’s. And, it appears, he hasn’t struck out. In fact, he’s helped turn around distressed businesses, including Kleinfeld, the largest bridal retailer in the nation and star of the TLC smash hit, Say Yes to the Dress. What’s his secret? Rogers says that his successes — acting and business — are all thread together by the creative process.

In his book, Make Your Own Rules: A Renegade Guide to Unconventional Success, Rogers talks about the things that are common to both the arts and entrepreneurship. I spoke to him while he was writing the book.

“[I]t’s not that different,” he says of the two. “There is a creative process that goes on.” Rogers said that when he creates a character, he wants to know everything he can about him — from what style of clothes he wears to how he behaves. And so he must figure that out as actors do. In business, where he had no experience and therefore no preconceived ideas, he takes the same approach of immersing himself in it to learn everything about it.

Rogers has also applied his creative process to fundraising for the Emerald Coast Child Advocacy Center in Niceville, Florida. With so many fledgling, grassroots charities out there, I thought it would be interesting to learn how Rogers gets people to give generously to benefit those in need.

Rogers likes local charities. He thinks that they tend to be more focused. If you’re personally involved in a local charity, “you have a better chance of seeing the results of your charitable work,” he said. Even with a local chapter of a national organization you can see that something is actually happening with your money.

Contrary to the heart-tugging approach many national charities use to get the dollars pouring in, Rogers says donors ante up the big bucks when they’re having fun and when friendly competition is involved.

Once, he auctioned off an autographed jersey of a Heisman trophy winner who played for Florida State’s rival, the University of Alabama, Roger’s home state. Given the location, not too far from Florida State, there was plenty of conversation about that sweaty shirt, and that raised a lot of money.