Carrie Fisher’s death allowed many people to open up about how the actress helped them come to terms with their own mental health problems and, in some cases, tackle addiction.
Fisher, who passed away on 27 December 2016 after suffering a heart attack, spoke frankly about living with bipolar disorder on numerous occasions throughout her life.
Following her death aged 60, many took to Twitter to “out themselves” as being bipolar in a bid to remove stigma and honour the star.
MTV News correspondent Ana Marie Cox was one of the first to tweet, saying: “I’m pretty open about being in recovery; I’ve been more circumspect about mental illness. In honor of Carrie Fisher: I’m bipolar, too.”
Many followed suit revealing that they too suffered from a mental illness.
Following that, more people tweeted about how Fisher helped them overcome problems related to mental health and addiction.
Here are the people whose lives she helped change for the better:
1. “Carrie Fisher’s support for mental health somehow helped me overcome my anxiety/panic disorder slowly. I am forever in debt with her.”
2. “Carrie Fisher helped me safely talk about having a bipolar parent.”
Writing a piece for Geek Dad, Jules Sherred said Carrie Fisher helped him deal with his mum’s bipolar disorder.
“Carrie Fisher, somehow, just helped me be okay with it all on such a very small but very significant level, all at the same time,” Sherred wrote.
“I no longer felt alone. Bipolar was no longer this mystery that I had to hide. There was someone who was such an huge icon to people of my age who was giving a very human and real voice to this mental illness.”
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3. “I am deeply saddened by the news of Carrie Fisher passing. Her attitude to the madness helped me through the #bipolar extremes.”
4. “Carrie Fisher was one of the people that helped me realise that you could be self destructive and still come back from the edge and live.”
5. “Carrie Fisher taught me what ‘bipolar’ was and helped me understand when two friends later were diagnosed with it.”
6. “Carrie Fisher helped me realise I needed professional help.”
Writing a piece for Movie Pilot, Tisha Mae Eaton said that at one point in her life she found herself homeless and suicidal.
She went to the library to try and distract herself and it was there that she stumbled across two of Fisher’s books, ‘Shockaholic’ and ‘Wishful Drinking’.
“It was Carrie Fisher who finally made me realise I needed to get help,” she wrote. “Sitting there reading her book and her descriptions of her illness, I finally realised that even if I wasn’t suffering from exactly what she was, I definitely had something wrong with me.
“I finally went to a psychiatric hospital to get the help that I had so desperately needed for far too long.”
7. “Carrie Fisher helped me face my depression. She also taught me how to be a badass at any age. I’ll never forget either.”
8. “Carrie Fisher helped teach me that being bipolar is ok and doesn’t make me less than.”
9. “As an alcoholic in recovery, Carrie Fisher writing/speaking frankly about her addiction helped me tremendously.”
10. “Carrie’s memoir Wishful Drinking helped me come to terms with my own mental illness(es), and her outlook helped me further.”
11. “Honestly, Carrie Fisher helped me be more matter-of-fact about my depression rather than apologetic. Helped me crack jokes about it too.”
