A PATIENT'S PERSPECTIVE — DICK CAVETT, a report on an interview 1 of Dick Cavett, Smooth Sailing, Spring 1992

For our symposium, celebrity Dick Cavett found himself on the less familiar side of the talk-show situation, with Dr. DePaulo as the host asking him about his experience with depressive illness. In serious as well as many lively, quick-witted comments, Mr. Cavett told his story.

His first depressive episode was during his freshman year at Yale. It lasted four to five weeks, during which he was oversleeping and feeling very exhausted. Fortunately, although his depression was misdiagnosed and thus never treated, it lifted spontaneously.

Several years later, when Mr. Cavett was starting out in the media business in New York, he experienced a paralyzing depression. He slept until 3:00 P.M. and stayed in bed all day, getting up only to watch the Jack Paar Show. When he dragged himself to a doctor, the doctor prescribed Geritol!

About nine years ago, Mr. Cavett experienced his worst depression. He felt flattened, destroyed, impoverished by it. A total numbness of feeling descended on him. He lost his confidence, had no interest in sex, felt like he couldn't talk and had no talent, and wasn't interested in anything (except books and articles on depression). He said he "couldn't pass a couch without falling in love with it." Mr. Cavett did do a series of talk shows for public television during this time, but he said they were torture because of his lack of concentration. He generally wasn't sure that he was asking his guests relevant, interesting questions. He felt 100 times worse than he looked to others, so the shows came out satisfactorily.

After the television series ended, Mr. Cavett went to a famous New York psychiatrist and expert on depression who put him on Parnate, one of the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) antidepressants. Some medication adjustments were necessary before stability was achieved, but for the last eight years, Mr. Cavett has had no depressive episodes. He did mention, however, that there is a six-to eight-week period every year when he feels "off," not at his best. The candor with which Mr. Cavett speaks about his illness in public has great potential to reduce the stigma associated with depressive illness.

1 An interview at a DRADA/Johns Hopkins symposium, Baltimore, Maryland, April, 1992

Click here to order a video tape of Dick Cavett's entire appearance at the symposium.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website