Patty Duke speaks at UCI on illnesses

Academy Award-wining actress Patty Duke read the words from the inside of the door of UCI’s Brain Imaging Center and remembered a time when mental illness was as confusing as trying to read that sign backward. But now, Duke remarked, the words are being made clear.

Duke was the guest speaker at the Brain Imaging Center’s Silver Ribbon Dinner on Friday night. She has dedicated herself to bringing awareness, wrought from personal experience, to issues of mental health.

“If you have the theory that stigma is born of ignorance and fear, and look back over centuries of ideas of madness ... madness was very dark and romantic,” said the former star of the TV series “The Patty Duke Show.” “We are trying to undo 100 years of that kind of perception.”

Duke, who won the Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Keller in the 1962 film “The Miracle Worker,” was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which plagued her throughout her career as a television and movie star.

Born Anna Marie Duke, she went public with her experience in her 1987 autobiography “Call Me Anna.”

Dr. Steve Potkin, director of the Brain Imaging Center, validated Duke’s beliefs about mental illness.

“There’s no shame in this,” he said. “You don’t have to hide.”

The UCI research facility works to understand brain function and neuropsychiatric illness, said Potkin. The goal is to develop faster ways to better treatments of mental illness.

Potkin said Duke’s mission is in sync with the center’s.

“We are matter, we are vibration,” Duke said. “We have heart defects, ear defects ... why wouldn’t we have brain defects?”

The actress, who now lives in Idaho, has been taking the mood stabilizer lithium for 26 years without suffering side effects. She hopes more people find the treatment.

“We must try to take care of each other better; be aware of the guy next to us,” Duke said. “All I care is that they get the help they need.”

Duke feels the nation has come a long way in understanding bipolar disorder since her own diagnosis — but there is still a long road to travel. She wants legislators to get more involved in helping those with mental illness.

If individuals can get help, they can become productive citizens, Duke said.

But the problem doesn’t rely on legislators and scientists alone; it also falls on those who need help. Duke offers some advice for sufferers.

“First of all, do the best [you] can to get past the denial that there’s something wrong. Know that there are treatments, and you actually do function better in society.”

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at [email protected].