PATTY DUKE

The Painful Journey to Mental Health Advocacy

By Maureen Traxler

"I'll talk about anything. There are no skeletons in my closet. They're all out in the open and bleached white."

When her therapist said, "Anna, I think I know what your problem is. Don't be afraid. You're manic depressive," Patty Duke replied, "Thank God, it has a name."

Patty, born Anna Marie Duke on December 14, 1946 in Lower Manhattan, realized something was "wrong" when she was in her late teens. "I began to notice that the slightest thing could touch off rage and that within weeks, the depression came. And as time went on, it would get more intense and more dangerous." But in the days when she was living with the disorder, Duke says, there was no such thing as going to a psychiatrist, "So I suffered and took innocent others on that painful journey."

"It was so mysterious," adds Duke who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 35, "and I certainly didn't think it was going to have a treatment." But like about 70% of bipolar patients, she was successfully treated with lithium, a metallic element that controls a person's moods by preventing the wild oscillations between mania and depression, characteristics of bipolar disorder. "No more crazy highs, no more suicidal lows. It's given me life!"

A former child star who became a flourishing and respected actress, mother, stepmother and grandmother, fundraiser, environmental activist and author, Duke has spent the last 25 years as a tireless mental health advocate. This month, she will travel from her 80-acre ranch in Idaho where she lives with her husband Michael Pearce to be the keynote speaker at the Clubhouse of Suffolk's 14th Annual Mental Illness Awareness Day on October 18.

Duke recalls that when she first began reaching out, speaking before Congress, talking to people one-on-one, or "2,000 to one," she realized that she wasn't really meant to be an actress, "that was just a means to an end." After speaking engagements she hears from people who ask for her assistance. She gives them companionship and guides them to those who can help.

"Without the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, I couldn't do any of this," Duke remarks. "They make sources available. I'm really just a conduit." Duke also reveals that when she began her advocacy, "I felt and I said, if I could help one person." Impishly, she adds that that statement was "either ignorance or a lie, because, I don't want one person, I want all of them."

"I've seen real progress over the years," Duke told Networking¨ magazine recently. "My first concern is that people with mental illness get the treatment they need and they don't wait as long as I did. I'm also trying to alleviate the fear that creates the stigma of mental illness." In the past, she adds, she's gotten "peeved at people" for not understanding what it is like to live with a mental disorder.

"I've had to learn tolerance. Looking back over history, mental illness has always had high drama attached to it, dungeon-like mystery. We are trying to erase thousands of thousands of years of that fear." Duke acknowledges her fellow patients who have not been able to speak out as openly as she because of the stigma society imposes. "I'm the professional patient, not the doctor, but I do the best I can to cultivate awareness."

To individuals struggling with a mental disorder, Duke says: "Keep the door open to possibility. I slammed the door between ages 19 and 35. Also, know that you are not alone." To their families whom she calls "the unsung heroes," Duke adds, "Please take care of yourselvesÉthen and only then will you be able to be of service to the one you love."

The years before diagnosis

Watching the Patty Duke Show in the 1960s, television viewers might have thought that the 16-year-old star's biggest problems were finding a date, trying to get away with a prank, or persuading her TV father to lift her curfew on the night of the big dance. But off-stage, Duke was living a nightmare. Her father John was an alcoholic who bounced around from job to job, and her mother Frances suffered for years from undiagnosed severe chronic depression. Ushered into acting at about eight years old by chance because of her brother's interest, Duke's talents were discovered by managers John and Ethel Ross. When she had barely reached teenage years, her mother sent her to live with the couple.

"I was horrified that I was now going to stay with these people, says Duke." I didn't want to stay clean or go into a room and show somebody what I could do." The Rosses planned her career, scheduled her auditions, prepped her through long, oppressive sessions for parts, and often involved her in their self-indulgences and dysfunctional behaviors.

But eventually, Duke adds, she realized that acting was "the one place where I could be comfortable with myself. I got to love it because of the people I worked with. They gave me love. I felt I belonged."

"I got to participate in the waning years of Golden Television," says Duke, who recognized, even as a teenager, the talented professionals with whom she shared the stage, Lord Olivier, Claude Raines, Anne Bancroft and others. "I was rarely intimidated by them. I seemed to have my solid footing in the workplace. I knew my craft quite well. Instinctively it was there." Through all the manipulations of the Rosses, she adds, "There remained a purity in that child. I would aim for the heart."

Duke often played roles that portrayed women who were mentally disturbed, struggling to overcome dependencies. She says she brought part of her own life and took away something from those roles. "When you're on a set, most defenses drop. A lot gets shared and it's oddly therapeutic. I think I drew a great deal from my own struggles and sometimes it was nice to have words that somebody else wrote to go with those feelings."

Strength to survive and forgive

Troubled as her parents were, Duke said they gave her, her brother and sister "the basics of right and wrong, a certain kind of integrity that was part and parcel of what helped me survive the ensuing years and to survive myself." She credits her sister as her "moral compass."

"Because of the way the Rosses ran the household and me, there wasn't much indulgence in my life. There was work, work, work," comments Duke. And, if confusion was what they wanted, they got it, when Ethel told the youngster, "Anna Maria is dead. You're Patty now." On a daily basis, she began to hear how "useless Patty Duke was" and in a backwards way, she adds, "it kept me humble." After years of surviving under the brutal control of the Rosses, Duke left them, thinking that whatever came after couldn't be any worse. "I was scared, but I was far more exhilarated."

"The healthiest thing that has come of all those years with them, and therapy, is that I finally, very privately, was able to find forgiveness for them." Duke calls the ability to forgive "one of the biggest freeing aspects of my life." In some ways, though, she adds, "It's a selfish step if the result is relief. We do it for ourselves as much as for them."

Finding happiness

Duke had a number of failed marriages in her past; she says she would simply "say and play that she was loving and giving." But she did find happiness when she met Michael Pearce. She was in her late thirties and she was working on a television movie about a woman who enters the Army in order to support her children and ill husband. Sgt. Michael Pearce was one of the servicemen assigned to give her a quick course on the Army's basic training.

Because she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, had received treatment and gone through talk therapy, Duke believes she was ready for marriageÑ"I lucked out." The couple's family now includes Duke's two sons, Sean and Mackenzie, Mike's daughter Charlene [his daughter Raelene was tragically killed in an automobile accident at age 22], and their adopted son Kevin, now 17 years old. Duke has four granddaughters and one on the way.

Duke says she has a "supportive husband. Mike was born filled with kindness. He has seemingly endless ability to put himself in the other guy's shoes. On as daily basis, he's a lesson for me. There's healing going on all the time." Then she adds with her keen sense of humor, "I'm overindulged and I love it!"

An unprecedented career

Duke starred in about a dozen feature films and over 70 television movies. She's the youngest person in history to receive an Oscar for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1963), and she received a Golden Globe for it as well. She is the youngest person to have had a series bearing her name and in which she played the 2 leading roles. By age 16, she had conquered Broadway, film and television. She has won almost every major award in her industry.

In her book, Call Me Anna, she addresses her bipolar disorder. She also co-authored Brilliant Madness, which is more specific to the illness and contains a series of comparisons between her illness and that of others.

Through her association with Helen Keller, she has become a champion for the blind. She's worked for equal rights for women, has her own Teddy Bear collection, "Patty Duke diet" and a Web blog. She and her husband raised over $200,000 for an assisted living center for people with dementia and Alzheimer's disease in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and she's dabbled in environmentalism, helping to preserve 80,000 acres of forest near Idaho's St. Joe River from development.

Her must-do list includes a trip to Ireland. And asked if she has any aspirations, she replies, "I would like to continue to learn so that I can be even more at peace with myself. I'm not unhappy about where I am now emotionally, physically or otherwise, but I know there could be just a little bit more comfort in my own skin."