Carrie Fisher was pronounced dead at age 60 earlier today, December, 27 2016. The actress was known for her role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars series.
She will always be remembered as the story's first strong female protagonist. However, minutes after the confirmation of her death, another story was clearly appearing in her wake. As publications shared old movie clips of Star Wars, her individual fans instead took to Twitter with emotional tweets about the mark she made on the stigma surrounding mental health.More specifically, Carrie Fisher was a powerful advocate for bipolar disorder, having been diagnosed herself in her early twenties. Journalist, Hannah Jane Parkinson, took to Twitter as well, recalling Carrie Fisher's last advice column with the Guardian, which was published only one month ago:
The column on the Guardian recalls her struggle with the diagnosis early on until she finally became sober. In response to the writer, another person diagnosed at a young age, trying to combat bipolar, the late actress says, "You don’t have to like doing a lot of what you do, you just have to do it. You can let it all fall down and feel defeated and hopeless and that you’re done. But you reached out to me – that took courage. Now build on that. Move through those feelings and meet me on the other side. As your bipolar sister, I’ll be watching. Now get out there and show me and you what you can do."
Carrie Fisher's legacy is what it is today because she transformed her fandom into a community — a result of dropping the Hollywood veil and sharing her intimate, incredibly human stories. It took grit, pain, love, and it would be an insult for all of us to forget that.
About 8 years ago, Carrie Fisher took to paper and wrote an autobiography "Wishful Drinking," adapted from her one-woman stage play that explores the challenges of growing up in Hollywood and becoming a national icon. The cover alone—the precarious mash up of her iconic side buns she debuted as a 19-year-old, the fading script, a martini and discarded pills—illustrates the reality of her life as a star and combatant against manic depression.
As someone who has seen several family members and friends battle mental health and has feared for my own future mental health, her candidness in every interview and article hit home for me. Specifically, it reminds me not to be ashamed of how this particular human condition affects my life, but be proud of it and fight for new conversations around mental health. As Carrie Fisher reminds us in "Wishful Drinking:"
“One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of. They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.” — Carrie Fisher, 1956 - 2016
If you also struggle with bipolar or are passionate about mental health advocacy, you're not alone in this battle. For more conversations about mental health, stories from your peers, and resources, learn more about Spoon Healthier here.