When Celebrities Should Really Just Shut Up

Apparently Tom Cruise doesn't have enough to do promoting his new movie, trying to get MI:3 off the ground, and making a fool out of himself with his new girlfriend on Oprah. He's now trying to telling fellow actors what they're doing wrong with their brain chemistry.

See, Cruise is a Scientologist, a sect that is apparently not too fond of psychiatry as a field. And Brooke Shields, whom he acted with in Endless Love almost 25 years ago, recently released a book detailing her battle with postpartum depression. In it, she mentioned being prescribed Paxil, taking it for awhile, going off of it when she felt better, then going way off the deep end and ending up going back on the meds. Very riveting story, and very much not abnormal for anyone who's ever been through clinical depression themselves. But apparently Tom Cruise doesn't think so, and he saw fit to say so to Access:Hollywood's Billy Bush:

"These drugs are dangerous. I have actually helped people come off," Cruise maintains to Bush. "When you talk about postpartum, you can take people today, women, and what you do is you use vitamins. There is a hormonal thing that is going on, scientifically, you can prove that. But when you talk about emotional, chemical imbalances in people, there is no science behind that. You can use vitamins to help a woman through those things."

Okay, Tom, I'd really like to know if you've ever really spent a day truly depressed in your life. Or at least in the way Brooke described in her book, parts of which I've read. When she was having severe mood swings and having delusional thoughts of throwing her baby against a wall, she should have been taking vitamins?

See, it is true that there are chemicals involved here, and that certain vitamins and mineral supplements can help you control your levels of these chemicals. One of those, 5-HTP, is good at keeping an even level of serotonin in your bloodstream. These supplements are excellent, and a lot of people should be taking them who aren't. But when you enter a major depressive state, your body needs help producing serotinin beyond what it can naturally produce. And there are often other factors involved beyond just the chemicals, like learning how to deal with the emotions that are causing the problems in the first place.

But since Tom Cruise is such a star and seems so perfect and believable, some woman somewhere who's having a horrible time will hear what he says and think that he's right. They won't get the help they need and will turn to a bottle off multivitamins instead of turning to a crisis hotline. Just like people everyday are told by their pastors that they'll feel better if they turn away from sin and pray harder. Or some college professor tells a student that they're just not living up to their potential and need to quit being lazy and get to class or else. Or their buddies tell their friend to just have another beer and don't worry about it. It's amazing how people are so willing to accept a chronic illness of the body like arthritis or lupus, but refuse to believe that you can have an illness of your mind that's treatable but also deadly. And because of that, people go into a state of denial.

I've been around a lot of depressive people, and there are two things that you get very good at doing. One is maintaining a veneer of perfection. Even if you are a complete mess otherwise, the outside world only sees a polished version. The second thing is that you become a cocoon. You isolate yourself from the world, and only tell those few around you trust how you really feel. You're not looking for all the answers because the answers look out of reach, but you really need a glimpse of understanding, or just a hug. But instead you might end up getting a metaphorical slap in the face or a turned back. When the people you turn to tell you to "snap out of it" and give you their quick cures, or end up rejecting you altogether, that's the worst thing in the world, because it only pushes you further into the spiral.

If Tom Cruise really does feel true concern for Brooke Shields' well-being, the place to express that isn't on a tabloid TV program. That's not a place that's she's going to watch, say, "Wow, he's right! Get me his number!" and change her path. He should have tried to talk to her personally and privately. But moreover, even if he wanted to expressconcern about her physical and mental health, he should respect her ability to make her own decisions about them. Because even if it's not his own personal way, she's now happy and she's alive, along with her baby. And in the end, isn't that what matters?