Carrie Fisher normalized mental illness. These 13 tweets show why that matters. (upworthy.com)

Dana Brown (PACEs Connection Staff) 12/30/1610:39 AM

The "Star Wars" legend, who died at age 60 less than one week after suffering a heart attack, was more than an actor. She fought for animal welfare. She railed against sexism, body-shaming, and ageism in Hollywood. And she often spoke candidly about living with addiction and bipolar disorder.

To many fans, Fisher's openness about living with mental illness made a big difference.

Helping to stomp out the stigma against mental illness quickly became one way that fans honored Fisher's legacy.

To read more of Robbie Couch's article, please click here.

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Corinna WestMember

13 Public comments that show the other side of the story:

pulpamor January 2, 2017 at 2:47 pm on MadInAmerica.com

I’ve been beside myself regarding all of the blatantly false information whirling around, so thank for shedding a bit of light and justice to the cause here!

In my own journey, I find the allure for a biological narrative, which offers powerful validation, to have been seductive. Falling for this narrative has prevented healing and kept me sick (and many times sicker) longer with psychotropic drugs.

registeredforthissite January 2, 2017 at 11:23 am on MadInAmerica.com

I had a psychopathically abusive father. Caused me a lot of depression. I also had mania caused due to SSRI antidepressants (which subsequently led to a bipolar diagnosis).

How can a chaotic childhood not be a risk factor for experiencing depression, something that is part of the label of “bipolar disorder” (which just says that a person experienced depression and mania and not why they happened).

“Saying that bipolar disorder is itself the problem is akin to saying that one’s head hurts because one has a headache, and it is the headache that is causing the head to hurt. This logic, quite literally, gives me a headache.”

Matt Stevenson January 2, 2017 at 12:26 pm

It is strange how time and again, the notion that “your borderline disorder” or “your bipolar illness” is causing distress keeps popping up. I have repeatedly stated this to people – a psychiatric label is not a direct cause of anything (distress is usually a derivative of other complex causes). A psych label is simply a label for an experience. Exactly what you said.

Etc... I could come up with 10 more random comments. I will eventually. Not everyone is helped by the type of disease label identification promoted by Carrier Fisher (and this site all too often).

1/2/1712:17 PM