Tatum O'Neal has endured a harrowing couple of the years, something that until very recently only a handful of people close to her knew.
Tatum has shared that in May 2020, she overdosed on a combination of prescription medications intended to help her deal with pain. A friend found her in her apartment and brought her to the hospital, where she spent six weeks in a coma.
Her oldest son Kevin told People, "It was the phone call we'd always been waiting for. She also had a cardiac arrest and a number of seizures. There were times we didn't think she was going to survive."
There were also worries that if Tatum did make it, she would have lost her abilities to walk and to speak.
Tatum has spent the last three years working on rebuilding her strength and tenacity.
She and her children all sat down for interviews with People to dive into what happened and why.
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Tatum had been using medication prescribed for back and neck pain and her rheumatoid arthritis early in the pandemic, and in May 2020 she overdosed on a combination of pain medication, opiates, and morphine.
Her son Kevin shared: "She had become very isolated. With the addition of morphine and heavier pharmaceuticals, it was getting scary. COVID, chronic pain, all these things led to a place of isolation. In that place, I don't think, for her, there was much hope."
She was ultimately diagnosed with aphasia, "and had damage to her right frontal cortex." Kevin adds, "At times, it was touch and go. I had to call my brother and sister and say she was thought to be blind, deaf and potentially might never speak again."
Since then, Tatum has been working to regain her memory. While she is making progress, Kevin also shares that some of her old demons are still there. He said, "Emotionally the things that made my mom want to take drugs in the first place, those things are still very present."
Kevin also recognizes that his mother has struggled for a long time. As he explained, "She has embraced this attempt at recovery. She was always a very loving mom but when isolated, I think it was hard to find any love for herself."
Kevin, who has been in recovery for over three years himself, believes in his mom more than ever now. As he put it, "In the world of recovery, there can be a moment where you feel, like, 'I can't keep living this way.' And I think that is what finally occurred. Now I see an enormous amount of hope."
