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Jessica Cahill tried to kill herself a month ago. She is 28 and has lived with severe anxiety and deep depression since she was 12. Cahill has been hospitalized nearly 30 times in her short life. One psychiatrist recently said she has borderline personality disorder.
Mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders are complex and difficult to explain to those who haven’t lived through them. Cahill described her afflictions eloquently and with clarity over several hours of interviews.
She invites the Star’s readers inside her mind with the hope that it helps at least one person:
I want to talk about suicide because no one talks about it. Maybe if we talk about it, other people won’t feel so alone like I do right now.
I tried to kill myself on Nov. 1. My boyfriend was supposed to be gone all night, but he came back early. By then I had taken about a hundred pills and was unconscious. I was in a coma in the hospital and got out five days later.
I was even more down than usual that day. I usually wake up sad. Mornings are the worst. It takes a while to fall asleep because my mind is overactive. When I do fall asleep, I just want to sleep forever.
And I was just so tired of depression. Everyday I wake up sad and struggle to smile. Every day is the same. I can’t leave the house. I’m just not happy in my life. I felt hopeless and was done.
I wasn’t thinking properly. I was thinking about my parents, who worry so much. I wrote them a note and said I thought it would be better if I go so they can move on and not worry about me anymore.
But then they told me after that that’s ridiculous. I just think that I’m such a problem in their life. My mom is really involved. She wants me to get better, but I don’t know if she really understands I might not ever get better.
I got mixed up with OxyContin. I felt great when I was on Oxy. It numbs my feelings. It slows your brain down because it’s moving too fast otherwise. Millions of thoughts go through my mind — it’s overwhelming. And there are good thoughts mixed in with bad thoughts, but I always focus on the negative thoughts.
Those two months on Oxy were really fun, then it became problematic, and finally it’s hell and you have to have them. At that point, you’re sick when you’re off them and it’s a big fear if you don’t get your pill. You get muscle spasms, then you’re cold and you’re hot, and you got to find money for the next batch because you’ve got to get it.
I’ve been on everything, including Clonazepam. My mom hates Clonazepam. I love it, but I’ll abuse it. The relief I get when I take it is amazing. Within 20 minutes I’m a new person. I can be lying on the couch crying, take a pill and be up half an hour later.
It’s supposed to make you tired, but for me it gets me up, I can go out, talk to people and do everything I usually don’t do. I’m normal. That’s why I love it, but then I get a little anxious about losing that feeling, so I take more. I guess it’s ironic that I get anxious about running out of anti-anxiety pills while I’m taking anti-anxiety medication.
I just can’t take them properly, I pop them too close together and it builds up and I lose inhibition and go crazy.
My anxiety came early. I was a nervous child and really sensitive. I remember every remark and what other children thought. I cared more about what kids would say. In high school, a few boys would consistently make fun of me. They’d laugh at me when I had to speak in front of the class because I was nervous.
You know that butterfly feeling you get when you’re nervous? I have that all the time, although it’s not that bad in my stomach. Much of my anxiety seems to be trapped in my throat, like that frog-in-your-throat kind of feeling. It’s probably also from so much crying.
Since high school, I spent a semester at college, dropped out and have had about 30 jobs. I’d quit or miss shifts and get fired. I just don’t want to leave home. I’m on welfare and feel like a complete drain on society. I want to get a job.
I try to have a little hope. I’m supposed to start school in January at George Brown College. I hope it works out. But I’m worried already that I’ll have to take substances to go. Or I’ll miss class and fall behind. I’m just worried about everything all the time.
It’s hard to even walk down the street. I think people are looking at me, judging me and I feel uncomfortable. It’s scary. I’m lightheaded. And I’m always crying, even outside, even on the bus. And a lot of people don’t get it. They think I’m weak, but I just can’t help it. It’s me. I’ve become anxiety. I’ve become depression.
lcasey@thestar.ca
One of my twitter followers posted the original Daily Star article about Amy Winehouse and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Of course, I’d had Amy on my Celebrities with Possible BPD list for many years. If you want to read all of my articles about Amy Winehouse click here. I have no idea why the title includes ‘Mental Illness’ in quotes. Maybe it was because they were quoting the relative or maybe it brings up the question as to whether BPD is an actual mental illness. Here is the text of the article (and my comments below):
TRAGIC AMY WINEHOUSE HAD ‘MENTAL ILLNESS’
TROUBLED Amy Winehouse suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness, a relative has revealed.
The talented soul singer could have been struck down by the little-known Borderline Personality Disorder.
Sufferers have feelings of anger, emptiness, shame and guilt and become emotionally volatile.
And it can also push them into substance abuse and eating disorders, both of which Amy succumbed to.
Yesterday a member of the Back To Black star’s family said: “It was never diagnosed, because unfortunately she would never agree to a proper diagnosis.
“I’m not an expert, but from what I’ve read on Borderline Personality Disorder it kind of fitted with her.”
Meanwhile Amy’s dad Mitch, 61, said he wished his daughter, who died in July aged 27, had sought counselling.
He said: “She never stopped trying.
“She hated the way she was when she was drunk and when she was ill.
“And you know, the way I look at it, she died trying.
“She didn’t give up. She died trying to make her- self better.”
This article, although short, points out several interesting things about people with BPD. Since there’s no guarantee she had it, I’m going to generalize a bit. First of all, it is tragic that BPD is “little known” because it is much more prevalent than bipolar disorder. The article says: “Sufferers have feelings of anger, emptiness, shame and guilt and become emotionally volatile. And it can also push them into substance abuse and eating disorders, both of which Amy succumbed to.” This is very true. A person in extreme emotional pain will do anything to stop the pain. The article ends with “She died trying to make her- self better.” I’d like to amend that statement to “She died trying to make feel her-self better.” That’s the nature of the disorder and that’s what many non-BPDs do not understand. It’s all about his/her feelings (IAAHF) and not about controlling, manipulating or calling for attention.
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Release date December 6, 2011.
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An article from pain.org regarding BPD, emotional lability and Opiate Abuse:
The medical borderline: personality characteristics that promote increased risk of opioid misuse
Geralyn Datz, Melissa Bonnell, Toni Merkey, Todd Sitzman
Forrest General Hospital, Hattiesburg, MS, USA,
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA, Advanced Pain Therapy, PLLC, Hattiesburg, MS, USA
Purpose
 Opiate Abuse Undiagnosed or untreated psychiatric comorbidities may contribute to medication misuse. In particular, personality disorders may place patients at risk for medical nonadherence, via negative coping styles. Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) utilize medical services more frequently than those without BPD and are less likely to adhere to medical regimens. Patients with borderline traits have greater incidences of risky behavior, including abuse of prescription medications. We examined a large outpatient sample of chronic pain patients being screened for appropriateness of long-term opioid therapy in order to determine correlations between high-risk behaviors and personality type.
Method
Participants were 96 patients who were assessed in an outpatient pain management program. Participants were administered the Millon Behavioral Medicine Diagnostic (MBMD), which measures psychosocial assets and liabilities that affect treatment response, and the Screener and Opioid Assessment for Patients with Pain – Revised (SOAPP-R), which is a measure designed to predict aberrant medication-related behavior. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to evaluate which psychiatric indicators of the MBMD would predict total SOAPP-R score. Each analysis adjusted for age, gender, duration of pain, and number of pain sites.
Results
Hierarchical regression analysis was used to evaluate which psychiatric indicators of the MBMD would predict total SOAPP-R score. Each analysis adjusted for age, gender, duration of pain, and number of pain sites. Model 1 included demographic variables, duration of pain, and number of pain sites, F(5,91)=5.81, P<.001. Overall, the model explained 24.2% of the variance in SOAPP-R scores. Results indicated that age and number of pain sites significantly predicted SOAPP-R score. Model 2 added the psychiatric indicators of the MBMD. Overall, Model 2 explained 42.7% of the variance in SOAPP-R scores, F(5,91)=6.42, P<.001. Number of pain sites and emotional lability significantly predicted SOAPP-R score over other psychiatric indicators.
Conclusions
Identifying “at-risk” patients for opioid misuse has significant importance in today’s climate of increased scrutiny towards pain medications. These findings suggest personality assessment serves as an effective adjunct to risk stratification. Personality factors such as emotional lability and traits of borderline personality may increase opioid misuse potential. Clinical interview, history taking, and psychological assessment are valid ways pain specialists can assess personality. Prescribing strategies such as prescreening, close monitoring, limit setting, inclusion of psychological support can mitigate risk. Personality traits are key factors that may contribute to aberrant behavior and are of importance to prescribers of opioid regimens.
People with BPD are in a great deal of emotional pain. Since emotions are immediate and primal, emotional pain is also immediate and primal. As I have said, emotions represent a land-bridge between the body and the mind. Emotional pain manifests itself in both mental and physical ways. If you have ever been depressed or “fraught with grief” over the loss of something or someone important to you, you will know what I am saying in this regard.
Depression and grief can be a trying experience for anyone. You feel pain in every area of your body and mind. Sometimes you will just want to retreat to your bedroom and go to sleep for hours, just to get some relief from the physical and mental anguish you feel. The sleep represents a distraction of both the mind and the body from the experience of complete pain. You might also use alcohol to relieve the pain by “turning off your mind.” Many people “drink themselves into a stupor” and, in doing so, extinguish the pain for a short period. Pain-killers, whether over-the-counter or prescription, can also remove pain by working on the pain at its source (in the brain where pain is actually felt). Once, when I was asked by one of my daughters about how the Tylenol knew to go to her foot (which was in pain), rather than to her head (because she’d taken it for headaches before), I explained that it acts in the brain where she feels the pain, not where the pain actually “is.” In the case of emotional pain, the pain seems to be both in the body and in the mind, but the pain-feeling area of the brain is where these drugs act. See below about substance abuse.
People with BPD are likely to feel emotional pain many times a day every day. Since these emotions are basic (like fear, sadness and anger) the reactions to them are both physical and mental. These emotional pain-states are powerful and have the ability to overpower rational thinking. When you are in pain, regardless of the source, the main reaction of the body and mind is to get out of or to relieve the pain as soon as possible and by whatever means necessary. I used the example of someone who is literally on fire. This person will try to douse the flames in any way, without thinking about the people around her and what harm may come to others if the flames spread. This situation is analogous to a person in deep emotional pain. The person will do anything to stop the pain, which is why my Internet site and Internet list are called “anything to stop the pain” (ATSTP). This “anything” includes self-destructive and relationship-damaging behaviors. Continue reading Ask Bon: Why does my loved one with BPD do such dangerous things? (like cutting, drugs, etc.) →
Before her death, I’d written about Amy Winehouse and my analysis of why she was very high on the BPD-o-meter. Here is an article from the NY Times about addiction that mentions both Amy Winehouse and Borderline Personality Disorder (but not as her having it). Here are some interesting quotes:
Clinicians have long been aware that patients with certain types of psychiatric illnesses — including mood, anxiety and personality disorders — are more likely to become addicts. According to the National Institute of Mental Health’s Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study, patients with mental health problems are nearly three times as likely to have an addictive disorder as those without.
Conversely, 60 percent of people with a substance abuse disorder also suffer from another form of mental illness. Still, it’s unclear whether addiction predisposes someone to mental illness, or vice versa.
Scientists do know that having a mental illness doesn’t just increase the chance of intermittent drug abuse; it also significantly raises the risk of outright dependence and addiction. The conventional wisdom is the link represents a form of “self-medication” — that is, people are using drugs long-term to medicate their own misery.
And of course, I can’t overlook this one:
Certain personality disorders also raise the odds of drug abuse and alcohol abuse. Narcissistic patients, who constantly battle feelings of inadequacy, are frequently drawn to stimulants, like cocaine, that provide a fleeting sense of power and self-confidence. People with borderline personality disorder, who struggle to control their impulses and anger, often resort to drugs and alcohol to soften their intolerable moods.
Maybe that is an interesting factor for understanding the difference between NPD and BPD. In my experience, those with BPD are usually drawn to benzos, alcohol, and opiates. In my poll about substance abuse over 75% of respondents said they have had problems with substance abuse. Because of the u-opioid study by Stanley and Siever (and others), it seem natural for borderlines to seek pain-squelching medications, illicit or not.
It appears that Amy Winehouse has joined the “dead at 27″ music crowd (Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, others). It’s sad and unfortunate. She was #1 on my BPD-o-meter because of her erratic behavior.
Singer Amy Winehouse Found Dead
London (CNN) — Singer Amy Winehouse was found dead at her apartment in London Saturday, the UK Press Association reported. She was 27.
London police said they were called to a home, which matches Winehouse’s address, Saturday afternoon in response to “a woman found deceased.”
“On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene,” a police statement said.
“At this early stage it is being treated as unexplained,” police said.
The “Rehab” singer had a history of battling drugs and alcohol and recently left a British rehabilitation program that a representative said was intended to prepare her for scheduled European concerts.
But she cut short the European concert tour in Belgrade, Serbia, last month after she staggered around the stage and stumbled through several songs.
Audience members booed Winehouse off the stage that night just a few songs into the first concert of the tour.
Winehouse rep Tracey Miller told CNN at the time that the singer “agreed with management that she cannot perform to the best of her ability and will return home.”
“Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen,” representative Chris Goodman said in a statement in May.
Winehouse’s throaty vocals brought the British musician stardom in 2007, but her off-stage life gained her notoriety. The lyrics of her songs, especially the hit “Rehab,” chronicled her troubled life.
The song, in which she sang “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no,” helped form the public’s view of Winehouse.
“I don’t care enough about what people think of me to conform to anything,” she said in a CNN interview.
Winehouse, born in London in 1983, became a picture of a tattooed teenage rebel after she was expelled from a prestigious performing arts school.
Her first album, “Frank,” debuted in 2003, when the singer-songwriter was 19.
International success came with her 2007 album “Back To Black,” which in included the single “Rehab.”
Here is a quote from Infinite Jest about “depression” or the “Great White Shark of Pain”. I think it helps illustrate the difference between the chronically depressed and those in emotional agony. I see that people with borderline personality disorder are more likely to be in the second category. I have bolded some key points here. The “suicide contract” is exactly the same as a “behavior contract”. With a person in this much pain, it ain’t gonna work.
That dead-eyed anhedonia is but a remora on the ventral flank of the true predator, the Great White Shark of pain. Authorities term this depression clinical depression or involuntary depression or unipolar dysphoria. Instead of just an incapacity for feeling, a deadening of soul, the predator-grade depression Kate Gompert always feels as she Withdraws from secret marijuana is itself a feeling. It goes by many names — anguish, despair, torment, or q.v. Burton’s melancholia or Yevtuschenko’s more authoritative psychotic depression — but Kate Gompert, down in the trenches with the thing itself, knows it simply as It.
It is a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it. It is a sense of radical and thoroughgoing evil not just as a feature but as the essence of conscious existence. It is a sense of poisoning that pervades the self at the self’s most elementary levels. It is a nausea of the cells and soul. It is an unnumb intuition in which the world is fully rich and animate and un-map-like and also thoroughly painful and malignant and antagonistic to the self, which depressed self It billows on and coagulates around and wraps in Its black folds and absorbs into Itself, so that an almost mystical unity is achieved with a world every constituent of which means painful harm to the self. Its emotional character, the feeling Gompert describes It as, is probably mostly indescribable except as a sort of double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible.
It is also lonely on a level that cannot be conveyed. There is no way Kate Gompert could ever even begin to make someone else understand what clinical depression feels like, not even another person who is herself clinically depressed, because a person in such a state is incapable of empathy with any other living thing. This anhedonic Inability To Identify is also an integral part of It. If a person in physical pain has a hard time attending to anything except that pain [(the big reason why people in pain are so self-absorbed and unpleasant to be around)], a clinically depressed person cannot even perceive any other person or thing as independent of the universal pain that is digesting her cell by cell. Everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution. It is a hell for one.
The authoritative term psychotic depression makes Kate Gompert feel especially lonely. Specifically the psychotic part. Think of it this way. Two people are screaming in pain. One of them is being tortured with electric current. The other is not. The screamer who’s being tortured with electric current is not psychotic: her screams are circumstantially appropriate. The screaming person who’s not being tortured, however, is psychotic, since the outside parties making the diagnosis can see no electrodes or measurable amperage. One of the least pleasant things about being psychotically depressed on a ward full of psychotically depressed patients is coming to see that none of them is really psychotic, that their screams are entirely appropriate to certain circumstances part of whose special charm is that they are undetectable by any outside party. Thus the loneliness: it’s a closed circuit: the current is both applied and received from within.
The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death suddenly seems more appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who jump from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
But and so the idea of a person in the grip of It being bound by a ‘Suicide Contract’ some well-meaning Substance-abuse halfway house makes her sign is simply absurd. Because such a contract will constrain such a person only until the exact psychic circumstances that made the contract necessary in the first place assert themselves, invisibly and indescribably. That the well-meaning halfway house Staff does not understand Its overriding terror will only make the depressed resident feel more alone.
By (author) David Foster Wallace
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You may or may not remember this story from 2009. Diane Schuler, a mother and aunt with her children and her sister’s children in a min-van, goes the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway in Westchester county and plows into an SUV head-on killing three in the SUV and 4 children and herself in the mini-van. Toxicology reports showed she had a blood alcohol level of .19 over twice the legal limit of .08. She also reportedly smoked marijuana and had several ounces of undigested alcohol in her stomach. Here’s an article that analyses the NY Magazine article about her husband Daniel Schuler. This analysis from Jezebel.com, points out the problems, isolation, secrets and tragedy that can exist when a spouse is unable to communicate his/her emotional pains.
Diane Schuler’s Story Is One Of Isolation, Denial, And Rage
Anna North
One of the saddest news stories of the summer just got sadder — the husband of Diane Schuler, whose wrong-way drunk-driving crash killed her and seven others, tells New York Magazine he still believes his wife was essentially perfect.
New York’s Steve Fishman tells a depressing tale of denial and rage. On one side is the bereaved Schuler, struggling to go on after the death of his wife and daughter, and on the other is the Bastardi family, two of whose members were killed when Diane Schuler’s Winstar struck their TrailBlazer. Mike Bastardi lost his father, Michael Sr., and his brother Guy, and is angry at the whole Schuler family for what he sees as their role in the accident. He says, “They make like it was not even their fault. I think they knew she was drunk and stoned.” Bastardi’s wife Jeanne is even harsher. She says, “Not even a second have I felt sorry for Danny. This becomes a man you can’t hate enough.”
Part of the reason the Bastardis are so angry with Schuler is that he won’t own up to his wife’s guilt. After the crash, he said at a press conference, “She did not drink. She is not an alcoholic. My heart is rested every night. Something medically had to have happened.” He’s stuck to this story ever since, hiring a private investigator and a lawyer who speculated that a small stroke or abscess might have caused her to suddenly lose judgment and down ten shots of vodka before getting behind the wheel. Not only was his wife not an addict, he says, she was nearly flawless. Though he spoke to the investigator about “ups and downs” in his marriage,” he told Fishman, “There were never any downs. Up for twelve years.” He says they were “perfect” for each other, she was an “outstanding” mom, and, tellingly, “She never complained. I do; she doesn’t.”
Diane Schuler’s friends also portray her as keeping her feelings — especially negative ones — to herself. One says, “I’ve never seen her mad or angry,” another, “she infrequently talked about personal feelings.” She never talked about her parents’ divorce, and refused to speak to her mother — some friends even thought her mother was dead. When Fishman asked Danny “how well he really knew” his wife, Danny answered, “She’d talk to me if things came up.” His examples: “The house needs painting, the gutters need to be cleaned.”
To hear Fishman tell it, the Schulers’ story seemed like a long, drawn-out, and bloody example of the consequences of secrets in a marriage. Did Diane Schuler feel pressured to be the perfect mom — Danny mentions her expertise with birthday cards and holiday decorations — and thus keep her substance problems to herself? Did she feel she couldn’t confide in her husband because their work schedules meant they were rarely home at the same time? Did her parents’ divorce make her feel she couldn’t rock the boat in her own marriage? Why didn’t her friends know more about her troubles? Probably these questions will never be answered, but if there’s a tragic flaw in the whole Schuler saga, it’s isolation.
Despite her supposedly close-knit family, Diane Schuler apparently kept herself hidden from everyone. This led not only to her death and the deaths of seven others — it also plunged her husband into denial and the surviving Bastardi’s into fruitless anger. They won’t be satisfied until he admits guilt; he won’t be satisfied until he proves his wife was blameless. It’s hard to know how much of this cycle of despair was caused by Diane Schuler’s own particular pathology, and how much by an American idea of marriage that often positions the spouse as sole confidant even when, as was the case with the Schulers, that spouse may be physically unavailable. Only one thing is clear: if Schuler had felt able to open up about her own life, she might have avoided destroying countless others.
I’ve had conversations with several BPD “experts” about borderline behavior. There seems to be an assumption that many people with BPD are “silent” or “high-functioning” and do not engage in dangerous and/or ineffective behavior often attributed to the “typical” borderline.
In my group recently, a non-BPD was questioning his own “sanity” (I put it in quotes because I don’t believe that people with BPD are insane) and speculating that he was the one with BPD. One of our longer-time posters replied:
If you’re not throwing full-blown temper tantrums, freaking out because EVERYONE is out to get you, threatening to hurt or kill yourself, running away from those who love you because you’re afraid they’re going to leave you first, complaining that NOBODY loves or respects you AND popping pills and guzzling alcohol all at the same time… then, I think, you can go ahead and disqualify yourself.
Based on the polls that I have conducted over the past few months, I believe that she is right on the money. Here are the poll results from the last few polls about borderline behavior:
 Borderline Behavior Poll Results As you can see by these polls results, more than 73% responded that their borderlines (or themselves if they have the disorder) indicated that they have engaged in self-injury, suicide attempts and/or substance abuse. While these polls are certainly not scientific and it’s pretty much impossible for me to understand the profile of a person that responded, they results are, for me, striking. If 7 out of 10 (or more) individuals engage in these “low functioning” or ineffective borderline behaviors at some point in their lives, what should that tell us?
I believe that it tells us that the “typical” profile of someone with BPD is the “low functioning” or “classic” borderline. While I am sure there are others out there that operate in pretend mode (and pretend everything is ok while they “white-knuckle” their way through life), the vast majority of people with BPD seem to be caught in a spiral of ineffective and often dangerous behavior. They seem to me to be sending the message that they are in a great deal of emotional pain and are suffering greatly – that they will do anything to stop the pain that they feel. It also indicates to me that it is vital for parents of child with borderline-like traits and feelings do their best to get the child into appropriate treatment before their teenage years.
Lindsay Lohan’s judge makes a statement about Lilo:
Sautner disagreed with the recommendation Wednesday, saying she didn’t think Lohan had a substance abuse problem.
“She has other problems, which she self-medicates,” the judge said.
I wonder what those “other problems” are? Perhaps you can check here for more information on the behavior of Lindsay Lohan.
Here’s the full text of the article:
Lindsay Lohan says she’s glad theft case resolved
LOS ANGELES – A lawyer entered a no contest plea Wednesday for Lindsay Lohan in the theft of a necklace, setting the stage for a summer of confinement, counseling and community service.
Defense attorney Shawn Holley made the plea for the actress, who did not appear in court in the misdemeanor case involving a $2,500 necklace taken from an upscale shop in the Venice area of Los Angeles.
Lohan, 24, did not acknowledge guilt through the plea, but the court will log the case as a conviction.
She said later in the day in a written statement that she was glad to put the case behind her and has already started her 300 hours of community service at a shelter for women.
“I hope to be able to fulfill my obligation without any press attention,” Lohan said. “I think the media spotlight should be on issues such as homelessness and domestic violence instead of on me.”
Lohan did not have to attend the hearing because she was facing a misdemeanor charge.
Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner ordered Lohan to serve a 120-day jail sentence and remain on probation in a 2007 drunken driving case while she completes a total of 480 hours of community service and undergoes psychological counseling.
Along with the women’s shelter, she will do 120 hours of community service at the coroner’s office, with the remainder to be decided.
The judge ordered the additional counseling after reviewing a probation report that showed Lohan tested positive for alcohol in February, a little more than a month after she was released from rehab.
The report also said authorities found evidence the actress had been drinking in December while receiving treatment at the Betty Ford Center.
Lohan had been sent to Betty Ford for three months of treatment last year after failing a drug screen. The report indicated she had tested positive for cocaine and amphetamines during the court-mandated drug test in September. Continue reading Interesting Statement from Judge in Lindsay Lohan Case →
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