[Dion]

Carrie Fisher’s most important work? Speaking out on mental illness

Fisher struggled with mental illness for much of her life, something she was outspoken about at a time when depression, anxiety and other diseases were heavily stigmatized. It took Fisher years to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and even longer for her to accept it, as she told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in 2000.

“I thought they told me I was manic depressive to make me feel better about being a drug addict,” she said, one of her first times speaking publicly about living with the disorder. “It’s what you think. If you could just control yourself … You had an indulged childhood … You were a child of privilege … I don’t know, that’s what I thought. You’re just a drug addict.”

“There is treatment and a variety of medications that can alleviate your symptoms if you are manic depressive or depressive," Fisher told USA Today two years later, after receiving an honor from the Erasing the Stigma Leadership awards for “speaking the truth about mental illness.” “You can lead a normal life, whatever that is.”

What made Fisher such an influential advocate for mental health awareness wasn’t just her willingness to speak on the subject, however. It was how she talked about her manic depression that set her apart: with a sardonic, darkly comic tone that made her battles sound normal, not tragic.

Even in her efforts to make light of her diagnosis, however, Fisher was upfront about the hard work involved in going about daily life with bipolar disorder. After experiencing a manic episode while performing on a cruise ship in 2013, she spoke to People about the experience, and how her relationship to mental illness was more tenuous than she made it seem.

“Over the years, writing about [having bipolar disorder] did help me to be able to talk about my illness in the abstract, to make light of it,” she said, still recovering from the incident at the time. “That’s my way of surviving, to abstract it into something that’s funny and not dangerous. But what happened was I lost the serious relationship with it. It is not an entertainment. I’m not going to stop writing about it, but I have to understand it.”

http://www.polygon.com/2016/12/27/14...-health-legacy