Carrie Fisher Discusses Addiction, Creativity
A.V. Club has published an interview with Carrie Fisher, best known as Princess Leia from the Star Wars trilogy, but perhaps better described as an author, who has written such works as Postcards from the Edge. She has been very public about her bipolar diagnosis, and in this interview, addresses two issues that are very common among people with bipolar disorder. First, she discusses her issues with addiction and her new book Wishful Drinking
Commentary
Carrie Fisher is has been very helpful in promoting the awareness of bipolar disorder, without at the same time whitewashing its more difficult elements. If you’ve seen her in interviews, you’ll know that she doesn’t “present well”, as they say. She comes across as bipolar, and you can see that she is really struggling with the condition. At the same time, you can see that she is basically happy, and has done a good job of integrating her condition into her life.
The two topics in this interview are especially interesting. First, she points out that her addictions were a large part of the problem with being diagnosed, because one can’t actually be diagnosed with bipolar disorder while on drugs (because it is too easy to confuse the symptoms). Because of her addictions, she wasn’t actually diagnosed with bipolar disorder until she was 30 years old. Second, she discusses the way that writing helps her focus her manic thoughts. I myself have always been wary of creative expression during my manic and hypomanic episodes, because I worry that creativity can make things worse (and, on some occasions, it has). However, the idea of writing specifically to focus one’s racing thoughts has some appeal, and is something worth discussing with my therapist as a possible strategy.
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