Carrie Fisher Was Champion For Education On Mental-Health Issues
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — There's no doubt that actress Carrie Fisher to many was their favorite princess, but many didn't know Fisher battled a serious mental illness.
Zoey Tur, before transitioning from a man to a woman, dated Fisher in the early 2000s. The two kept a close friendship through the years.
"She was bipolar, extraordinarily bipolar, and she did the best she could with it," Tur said Tuesday after the announcement of the death of Fisher at the age of 60. Fisher suffered a massive heart attack Saturday during a flight bound for Los Angeles and never regained consciousness.
Fisher hit the stage in 2008 with a one-woman performance called "Wishful Drinking" about everything from being born into Hollywood royalty to her bipolar diagnosis and her decision to have electric-shock therapy, something Tur says was important to her to fight the stigma around mental illness.
"I'm in the abnormal-psychology textbook," Fisher said in her show. "How cool is that?"
"You know, a lot of people would be ashamed or would hide, but she was open about it, and she thought it was important to educate people with the seriousness in mental health," Tur said.
"Carrie's illness, and the fact that she was so open about it, helped a lot of people," Tur said. "It saved a lot of lives, and that's really what she was about."