Like Artest, the people in "Peer to Peer" are trying to get better. We have all shared our stories while we learn how to guard against possible relapse. At a time when health care costs remain excessive for many, it is a credit to NAMI that it offers this program, a nine-week course, free of charge.
Perhaps, some day, the press will report more on such success stories. In the meantime, we do have Ron Artest. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism.
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Top Story:. You May Also Like Originally signed to a day contract because of the injuries that destroyed…. With so many players on the Los Angeles Lakers going in and…. News Podcasts. He owns one. Artest was not preparing to strut into some Hollywood party or a TV studio to tape any of the numerous talk shows he'd been on since the Los Angeles Lakers had won a second straight NBA championship.
Artest was in a small, dingy classroom set off to the side of a middle school auditorium in East L. As he helped himself to the fruit on a table also set with pastries and coffee, in walked security agents surrounding California Rep.
Grace Napolitano. She nearly squealed upon seeing Artest, then checked herself and calmly said hello and shook his hand. It was an unlikely liaison: he a star athlete fresh off his first NBA championship; she a U. Yet there they were, at Eastmont Intermediate School to promote federal legislation HR , the Mental Health in Schools Act, and to encourage students to seek counseling if there was trouble in their lives. Artest nearly backed out.
Overwhelmed by the idea of having to face publicly not only his own mental health issues but also the pressure of what impact that might have on young, impressionable minds, he was close to canceling.
Artest's past actions have caused many people to think, "That guy is nuts. During the NBA playoffs last season, he told reporters on either side of him that they could ask questions at the same time "because I can handle that. You're there; you're there," he said, pointing to each ear. And, of course, there was the infamous "Malice at the Palace" in , when Artest charged into the stands in Auburn Hills, Mich. He was suspended 73 games and labeled a social pariah. Oh, yes, and crazy.
But his comments after winning the NBA title in June sparked all this current interest in him and created the unlikely alliance between the representative and sports star. It was one of the more irreverent thank-you interviews in recent memory. But the much-maligned and, he said, misunderstood Artest wanted everyone to know that he had not gotten his first ring alone.
At that moment, Dr. Santhi Periasamy, a licensed psychologist, was at a concert in Houston, where she lives, with one eye on a television set that had the game on. She had to hide her interest. Because the sound was low, she didn't learn of Artest's thank-you until the next day. A fellow psychologist with whom she had gone to school heard Artest thank "Dr. Santhi" and phoned her from the bathroom in her Los Angeles house.
Although she didn't know Periasamy was seeing Artest, she didn't want her husband to hear the conversation, because of her own concerns about confidentiality. Periasamy began working with Artest in when he was with the Houston Rockets. A court in Sacramento, when he was with the Kings, had ordered him into therapy after he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor domestic violence. Artest declines to speak about specifics of what happened the night he was arrested, but he spent 10 days in a work-release program and was ordered to undergo counseling.
They suggested you take a marriage class, which I did," he said. When Artest was traded to the Rockets, he still hadn't finished what the court mandated, so he went in search of a new therapist and found Periasamy.
When he completed the court requirements, he decided to continue to see her, finding a soul that calmed him, helped him focus and, he said, helped him become a better basketball player and better man. It wasn't the first time he had sought help.
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