Brooke takes on Cruise
2005-07-01 11:11
Washington - Actress Brooke Shields slammed Hollywood star Tom Cruise for his "ridiculous rant" on postpartum depression, writing in The New York Times on Friday that he did not know what he was talking about.
"I feel compelled to speak not just for myself but also for the hundreds of thousands of women who have suffered from postpartum depression," Shields wrote.
"To suggest that I was wrong to take drugs to deal with my depression, and that instead I should have taken vitamins and exercised shows an utter lack of understanding about postpartum depression and childbirth in general."
Cruise - a prominent member of the Scientology church - created controversy recently when he criticised Shields for revealing that she went into therapy and took anti-depressants to deal with depression after giving birth.
Defending his remarks a week ago on NBC television's Today show presented by Matt Lauer, Cruise launched into an attack on the whole field of psychiatric medicine, which Scientologists spurn.
"Psychiatry is a pseudo science," Cruise said. "She (Shields) doesn't understand the history of psychiatry. She doesn't understand in the same way that you don't understand it, Matt. You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."
"While Mr Cruise says that Mr Lauer and I do not 'understand the history of psychiatry,' I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Mr Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression," quipped Shields in her commentary.
After explaining in detail her ordeal with depression after the birth of her daughter Rowan Francis in 2003 - "I wanted her to disappear. I wanted to disappear" - Shields said drugs and psychotherapy were her salvation.
Noting that "one in 10 women suffer, usually in silence, with this treatable disease," Shields said Cruise's comments "are a disservice to mothers everywhere".
"If any good can come of Mr Cruise's ridiculous rant, let's hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease," she said.
"So, there you have it," Shields concluded. "It's not the history of psychiatry, but it is my history, personal and real."