Margot Kidder

• Kidder said she experienced severe mood swings for much of her life. She was diagnosed with manic depression, the term then commonly used for bipolar disorder, in 1988, but initially rejected the diagnosis and recommended treatment. [1][5]
• Although Kidder had been diagnosed years earlier, her bipolar disorder became widely known after her highly publicized manic and psychotic episode in Los Angeles in 1996. She subsequently spoke openly about manic depression in interviews and said that publicly discussing what had happened brought her relief and prompted messages from people who said her openness had helped them. [7]

• Kidder described mood swings extending through much of her adult life. During manic periods, she said her thinking and activity would begin to “speed up”; before her 1996 crisis, she stopped sleeping and eating, consumed increasing amounts of caffeine and eventually became psychotic. [1]
• During that 1996 episode, Kidder spent several days wandering around Los Angeles while experiencing paranoid beliefs that people were pursuing her. She tried to disguise herself, slept outdoors and was eventually found in a backyard and taken for psychiatric care. Kidder later described the episode as manic and said her thoughts had been moving extraordinarily quickly. [7][6]
• She also experienced severe depression. Kidder said her mood swings began early in life and publicly disclosed that she had attempted suicide at age 14. [1]

• Kidder initially rejected the bipolar diagnosis she received in 1988 and refused the recommended lithium treatment. She later said she disliked lithium and, at different times, tried other approaches including Depakote, acupuncture and nutritional supplements. [8][5]
• In later interviews, Kidder said she was not taking psychiatric medication and instead described using acupuncture, vitamins, minerals and what she called orthomolecular medicine. She also said she had learned to pay close attention to sleep, stress and regular eating after recognizing how strongly those factors had preceded her 1996 episode. [1][9][7]

• Kidder returned to acting relatively quickly after her 1996 episode. By late 1997, she had completed eight projects since the crisis and said she had learned that protecting her sleep, limiting stress and eating regularly had to take priority over her professional ambitions. [7]
• She did not describe herself as permanently free of symptoms. In 2000, Kidder acknowledged occasional periods when she could feel herself becoming unusually “hyper,” while saying that she had become better at recognizing and responding to changes in her mental state. [9]

• After her 1996 episode, Kidder became an outspoken critic of the stigma surrounding mental illness. Drawing on her own experience, she argued that people experiencing psychiatric illness should not be treated as separate from the rest of society and said that isolation can intensify fear and insecurity. [5]
• Kidder continued speaking publicly about mental health in later years. In 2001, the California Women’s Mental Health Policy Council gave her its Courage in Mental Health Award for speaking openly about mental illness. [5]

“I didn’t know enough to get the signs that, oops, I’ve stopped sleeping, this is really bad, I better do something about it.”

— Margot Kidder [1]