14 DAY TRIAL // In mid-July, former “The O.C.” star Mischa Barton was admitted under 5150 statute to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after the police and an ambulance were summoned at her apartment by friends upon a worrying mental breakdown. Initial reports had it that a combination of stress and drugs or alcohol were the cause of the meltdown, but the star is now denying such speculation, telling Time Out New York that it was entirely due to the pain following a botched surgery on her teeth.
Mischa says reports of her binging on drugs for three days before the breakdown are bogus, since the only problem she had was the pain from the surgery, combined with the stress of knowing for certain she could not fulfill her contractual obligations because of it. She couldn’t take prescription pills either, she reveals, because that would have interfered with her acting. So, she hit “rock bottom,” as she puts it, and had to seek professional help.
“Here’s what happened: Before the show started, I was traveling abroad for contract stuff and I went through a terrible surgery – a wisdom tooth surgery, all four removed. It was a nightmare. I’ve never had surgery before – it all went wrong and I had to have a second surgery and it almost delayed shooting because it was a nightmare to me, because I couldn’t deal with the thought of not getting there on time. So with the travel, and surgery and prep for the show – it was hell.” Barton says of the days prior to the involuntary stay at Cedars.
It wasn’t just the pain that made it hard for the actress, she explains in the same interview. The “nightmare” only got worse when she realized she couldn’t take anything for the pain, because that would have ruined her acting. At the same time, she couldn’t work either way without pills, because the pain was too unbearable. The fact that the media was constantly on her back, attacking her from all sides and making up stories on her condition didn’t help either, she points out.
“I was down in the dumps about everything there for a while. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom about things and have to get the most stressed-out just to feel better again. I got completely stressed-out and couldn’t handle everything, and now I feel really in control.” Mischa adds. As per her own words, they didn’t teach her to “deal with the pain” at Cedars, but the stay there did help her realize that getting back to work would be the only thing that could relieve some of it. Said and done, Mischa Barton is now back to work and in better shape than ever.