Robert De Niro breaks down in tears as he discusses the plight of his bipolar illness

Robert De Niro wasn't acting when he broke down in sobs on Katie Couric's day time talk show Monday.

The usually tough-guy actor was a guest on Katie to discuss the hit film Silver Linings Playbook with director David O. Russell and co-star Bradley Cooper.

When asked about the film's premise - that of a bipolar character trying in vain to fit in - The Goodfellas actor began to cry.

'Did you feel a greater responsibility about doing a film that David had so much personally invested in?' the anchor asked, following up on a question asked of Russell.

'Of course, I uhm – I understand,' replied De Niro, who plays the father of Bradley Cooper's troubled Pat. After a long pause, he tried to continue, but sobbed up.

Russell was inspired to write the film because his son suffers from bipolar disorder as well as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Those are the mental illnesses that plague Cooper’s character Pat.

'There’s nothing harder in life than when you can’t, can’t figure out what to do,' Russell said about dealing with a character like Pat. 'You try everything, and you must never stop. Your heart just has to keep growing.'

I had read books on bp years ago, before getting divorced. Both my ex and her son, who I adopted, are bp. The best natural remedy was mineral water with lithium b/c the amt was minute enough not too become toxic.

Unfortunately the drug companies lobbied the FDA, who saw fit to prevent labeling for mineral waters. So I’m tempted to start vacationing and getting samples of as many different mineral waters as possible.

My ex hated the drugs and my son does too - too much zombification and what’s worse is going off the meds with brief rounds of psychotic behaviours.

My parents were married in 1950, after my mother got her degree in music education, and she began teaching. A few months later, she had a breakdown and was placed in a mental hospital, where she was given shock treatments. During her time there, she somehow managed to gouge out her own eye.

Six months later, with a new prosthetic, she was determined well enough and released. She and my father settled down and started a family, but my mother was never really happy. She began having huge mood swings. For a few weeks, she would seem so full of energy and unconcerned about anything. Then, she would suddenly crash and, for several more weeks, be unable to cope with the smallest problem. She was so severely depressed, she often considered suicide, but only stopped when she thought about her two young children.

Finally, one day, she was diagnosed as bipolar and started on medical therapy. Not only did her life turn around emotionally, but she accepted Christ as her Savior and suddenly had a whole new reason to live.

My favorite anecdote in all this: When she left the mental hospital, she always remembers a nurse snidely telling her she’d be back in ten years. Instead, ten years later, she was traveling around as a speaker for Christian Women’s Club, telling this same story to help inspire others.

Thanks for that link, I’ll follow up on it tonight hopefully at the drugstore. If there are others reading, lurking here too, they may benefit too since Lithium Orotate appears to be used for a wide variety of needs:

ADD
ADHD
BP
PTSD

as well as:
alzheimers
alcoholism
aggression
stress

Wiki does warn the Orotate may cause kidney problems so I plan to purchase some Lithium Carbonate too if I can find it.

Plus, it is claimed to improve memory too. After I first read about BP [around 20 years ago], I got a cassette tape in the mail entitled: “Dead Doctors don’t Lie”. These 2 things started me on a quest investigating minerals and their health benefits. The tape was recorded by a veterinarian who claimed physicians/MDs died on average 10 years prior to their patients.

Some years prior a good friend lost her father due to an aneurysm. He was a great man and an exceptional neurosugeon who had saved another of my friend’s life in college following a car accident.

All these events gelled and got me to looking at many different alternative medicines and healthy lifestyles, partly b/c in my mid-thirties I was well on my way to colon cancer. I tried all kinds of diet and exercise [an apple a day helped the most but not enough] until finally I went to a chiropractor. I never had the colonoscopy my MD advised at 39 yo, but all my symptoms began to dissipate within the first 3 months of intensive back-cracking [much thanks to Dr. Aaron].

WARNING: Graphic details follow...

Before the chiro I’d investigated the colon treatment and found they’d charge 3-4k for the colon/rectum scraping and then re-test every 5 years just in case they needed to do it again - yikes. The worst part though, if the polyps [scraped from the colon wall] sent in for testing are cancerous then there is a chance the scraping could release the cancer cells into your bloodstream - double yikes. DYK that modern MDs no longer are required to take the hippocratic oath of “first do no harm”? And they deign to call chiropractor ‘quacks’ ha!

How bad were my symptoms? My MD ordered a blood occult test from my stool sample, I sometimes got so constipated that I’d turn the toilet bowl blood red when I was finally relieved. A couple of times I nearly passed out on the throne as the blood rushed from my head. I was afraid to eat anything with cheese and I also avoided alcohol completely. Nothing in my diet or exercise could solve this problem.

If you want to know more about chiropractic care see my homepage [found 2 very good books on the subject]. I’m healthier now than I’ve been in a long time - feels more like my early twenties, but I’m 51 and have not seen an MD in 12 years!

Two things:
1. I own the tape Dead Doctors Don’t Lie. I haven’t listened to it in a while, though.
2. My chiropractor has a picture on his wall of a guys back that had one disk that was REALLY out of allignment. The reason? He explained that there are three types of nerves coming out of each vertebrea. One is the one that causes pain when it is pinched. The other two are either for maintenance of organs or repair of organs. I’m giving the simplistic explanation here. Anyway, the nerves in the picture were clearly atrophied, but the one that would cause pain did not. However, the others controlled the kidneys. The guy died of kidney failure.

I started going to the Chiropractore at age 32 and am now 59. My back has, since that time, felt better than it did in my 20’s. I know this becaus it had always been painful to wash my car before that time. With the exception of a couple of bouts of back injury, that has not happened since.

BTW, If you have not seen it, go to youtube and search for the movie, “The Beautiful Truth”. The whole thing is there. It is like “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie” on steroids.

OK putting ‘The Beautiful Truth’ on my must see list.

For me I’d never had any back problems even after a bicycle accident that nearly killed me, my helmet was crushed but not my skull. I broke my collarbone, shoulder blade [completely in half vertically], and a rib, but the worst was the swelling on my hip. It wasn’t broken like I’d thought, but the swelling was about the size of a catchers mitt and even now about 2 pancakes.

When I thought I’d re-broken my shoulder blade getting slammed through a wall, I went to the chiro b/c he offered the cheapest x-rays in town [no insurance/no desire either -I’d rather get out of divorce debts first].

Also I bought the ‘DDDL’ vets colloidal minerals - tasted awful and felt I was getting ripped off.

So I investigated further[ b/c to make any lie credible you must mix in some truth] into vitamins/minerals/diet. Even swear by magna-therapy to this day b/c all minerals have magnetic qualities.

Whenever I torque an ankle or knee usually playing racquetball I take a multi-vitamin/mineral and wrap it over night and with these magnets. The healing is always much much faster. Usually only takes 1-3 nights.

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