I’m writing regarding mental illness and the potential damage that naive and ignorant Tom Cruise has done to the scientific psychiatric community and all of the mentally ill people and their families that these doctors help.

First, Cruise is not a doctor. Why anyone would believe someone who only has acting credentials but no doctorate in mental health is beyond me. Cruise should be ashamed for ignorantly giving medical advise without a doctor’s degree.

Over and over, intelligent scientific tests, observations, and studies have shown that chemical imbalances do exist in some people. This is not something “make believe,” like the fictional writings of Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard that Cruise believes in.  

As a graduate in psychology from the University of California-Santa Barbara, and also one who has a number of bipolar acquaintances, I assure you, most bipolars do need to stabilize on medications. The bipolars I know who are taking meds and getting psychiatric counseling are very “normal” and are doing very well in their lives. The right meds do work.  

Some of the bipolars I know who are not getting psychiatric care or taking their meds are pathological liars, are ending up in jails, or doing one stupid and self-destructive thing after another. One even has eight or more abused and abandoned kids by different mothers and has also been in and out of 12 jails! This man has destroyed his life and those of his family members, and all because he refuses his meds and the psychiatric help he so desperately needs.

But, today’s laws cannot force bipolars to take meds. It is entirely up to them, and the last thing a bipolar needs to hear is ignorant Tom Cruise saying that meds aren’t necessary. Untreated mental illness costs our society millions of dollars and clogs up our jails and courthouses.
 
Famous people in the entertainment industry have no business misusing their fame to expound on something they have very little educated knowledge about.

I can’t help wondering how many people naive Tom Cruise has hurt because today they are not taking the meds they so desperately need to stay sane, rational and calm. Cruise’s outspoken ignorance may have even caused some poor person’s suicide because Cruise told them not to take their meds for thier depression.

We should all remember that actors are only actors and nothing more. Cruise has no business giving anyone medical or psychiatric advise!

— Rachel Douglas, Oxnard