Celebrity and Depression

Carrie Fisher, the American actress, writer, and humorist, who died at the end of 2016, was a celebrity, well known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars film series. She had spoken openly about her struggles with alcoholism and bipolar disorder. She also was an advocate for mental health awareness and treatment.

Carrie was diagnosed with bipolar, just one of the many labels of depression.

Since early childhood, she demonstrated high risk for depression, when she became both mesmerized by the performances and successes of her parents, as well as consumed by the awareness of their transience and impermanence. She was hesitant about stepping into the shoes of her parents. Finally, she did, and she became depressed, leading to drug abuse and alcohol addiction that haunted her for decades.

Drug abuse and alcohol could not have changed Carrie's mental state because they were the norms, and not the exceptions in the struggle against depression. What could have changed the whole picture was the Carrie's recognition that all thing in life follow a natural cycle: what goes up must eventually come down; life inevitably and eventually begets death. This natural cycle continues in everyone's life, and it is just a matter of time.

"Their bright, white, hot star of celebrity was slowly dimming and fading and cooling. It scared me. I saw what it did to them. It hurt them," she said.

People mistake celebrity for acceptance or love and believe they can maintain some "fantastic level" of fame forever, but that isn't the case, she said. Seeing what the effect that reality had on her parents led her to believe that "celebrity is just obscurity biding its time," Fisher told CNN.

The bottom line: attain achievement without glorification; excel without fanfare; do what you can with what you have, without expectations of results; most important of all, diminish the ego without its many attachments.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau


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Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau