Schizophrenic Tries Out For American Idol

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Tracy Moore finds help to control her schizophrenia, allowing her to use her singing talents for a try at stardom on "American Idol"

"American Idol" judge Simon Cowell is known for being critical and blunt, but never tongue-tied.

Yet that's how a Southwest Portland woman says she left Cowell when she auditioned for the hit Fox reality show last fall in Hollywood, Calif.

Tracy Moore, 22, said she walked into a room in the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in September and told Cowell that she suffers from a mental illness.

"They asked me what I wanted to do with my life," said Moore, who beat more than 10,000 other pop-star hopefuls for a chance to audition for the show's celebrity judges. "I think they expected me to say I want to be a famous recording artist. I told them I want to start a foundation for schizophrenics."

Moore said Cowell, famous for his scathing critiques that frequently reduce "American Idol" contestants to tears, was briefly stunned.

"Simon just blinked and said, 'What?' " Moore said, mimicking Cowell's British accent. "I told him, 'I'm a schizophrenic.'

"It was the first time I've ever seen him speechless."

Moore, who discovered her voice while performing in musicals at Wilson High School, always thought her talent would make her rich and famous.

But while attending Musictech College in Minneapolis, a school for performing artists, Moore gradually began to withdraw into a world of delusions.

"I would go to school and act bizarre," she said. "I'd start thinking weird things and not know what the truth was. I'd talk to people who weren't there."

Once, she spent an entire day walking in a circle, convinced that was the only way to stop aliens from entering her body. She wore sandals in the snow.

Moore said her classmates were wary of her. "They didn't want to be my friend, but they were civil," she said. "They still wanted me to sing in their bands."

During her third term at Musictech, Moore said she called home and asked her mother to sit down. "I told her, 'I'm insane.' "

But even that insight quickly disappeared. "As my symptoms got worse, I lost my awareness of the illness," Moore said. "After a while, I didn't know I was crazy. You couldn't convince me that Earth wasn't being threatened by aliens."

After a hospitalization in Minnesota, Moore's parents, computer network engineers Pam and Don Moore, moved their daughter home to Portland, where a psychiatrist diagnosed her with schizophrenia, a chronic and debilitating mental illness marked by psychosis, delusions and disordered thinking.

The woman who once dreamed of seeing her name in lights had to struggle to hold down minimum-wage jobs. She says she was fired from nearly "every fast-food job in the state." At times, Moore was afraid she'd lost not only her mind, but her future, too. "I was really scared of what was going to become of me," she said.

There's often no cure for the illness, but by working closely with a doctor and other mental health professionals, some people can successfully manage their schizophrenia.

Moore's doctor experimented with several medications but found that one of the newest medications available to treat schizophrenia, Abilify, helped mute most of her symptoms and let her think more clearly than she had in years. Last summer, after six weeks on the drug, Moore said she began to believe it wasn't unreasonable to dream, once again, of a music career.

In late July, Moore talked a friend into driving her 16 hours to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., where she waited in line for three days for a chance to audition for "American Idol."

Moore's waist-length hair, dyed electric blue, helped her stand out from the throng of auditioners lined up outside the stadium.

On Aug. 1, her 22nd birthday, Moore was selected from the crowd to sing on "Good Morning America." Later that day, Moore made the first cut when just 250 contestants -- out of the original 10,000 who showed up at the Los Angeles tryouts -- were selected to go on to the next round.