GROWING UP, I daydreamed I was Princess Leia, in freakishly braided buns, traveling at light speed in the Millennium Falcon and hanging out with Ewoks.
Now, at 32, I’m obsessed with Carrie Fisher, whose one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, opened this month at Studio 54.
Fisher chronicles her experiences as Hollywood baby byproduct (of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher) and Star Wars sex symbol. She also addresses her lifelong battle with drug addiction and bipolar disorder, a disease characterized by dizzying highs and gut-wrenching lows I can relate to.
My parents are not celebrities—they are overbearing, neurotic suburban Jews. I was never a sci-fi icon, and my only addictions are to sugar and self-pity. My problem was mostly obsessive-compulsive disorder— until the summer of 2005, when I arrived at my new psychiatrist’s office a wreck.
The sickness I’d had most of my life infested the parts of my brain that made me think rationally and shower with any regu larity.
Medication offered little help, especially since I’d stopped taking it. I spent most of my time looking up the different cancers I feared I had and playing games like “count how many more letters you’re typing with your left hand than your right or your cat will die.”
The doctor suggested the drug synonymous with depression: Prozac.The last time I’d taken it, I tried to steal my friend Ken’s Integra and narrowly escaped a stay at the local clinic for damaged adolescents. But with few other options, I decided to try again.
Within days, it became clear that I was wrong about Prozac in high school. I had boundless energy and no appetite. I dropped 40 pounds from my obese frame. I rarely slept. I easily walked the five miles between my job in Soho and my shrink’s Upper West Side office. I darted up and down the 16 steps to my apartment. At work, I grew more social, more confident. I demanded and received a promotion.
By late July, cracks began to show. The Force, as the geek inside me would say, was no longer with me. My mood would tank. I’d cry hysterically for no reason. I got drunk and put my fist through a glass picture frame. My co-workers were concerned, yet my parents, thrilled that I was losing weight and keeping my apartment clean, were blissfully oblivious to any dark side of my treatment.
One August night, I showed up to happy hour at the now-defunct Pioneer Bar and chugged six gin and tonics—ordered two at a time—while reminding my friend Barry about the 60 Klonopin I had hidden in my drawer at the office (subtlety not being a side effect reported by the good people at Eli Lilly).
When I’d sucked all the available attention out of the room, I proceeded downstairs. The next half hour involved a fist-pounding bathroom breakdown, followed by me sprawled out on the floor blabbering about wanting to die to reluctantly participating friends and then, predictably, my expulsion from the bar.
My friend Mary, who had the misfortune of playing the role of caretaker that summer, escorted me to the emergency room at St. Vincent’s, where I yelled at her for letting me take advantage of her friendship and stormed out. I wandered the streets with the destination of the ever-elusive rock bottom. Just as I broke a discarded bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade with my foot, the cavalry arrived—or, in my case, four police officers and two EMTs. Mary finally did something right that night: she summoned me a new audience.
Once coaxed into an ambulance by Kevin, the EMT I called Eddie, I was driven to my home for the next 16 hours: Bellevue’s lock-down emergency psychiatric ward. I lied and told them my name was Carrie White, like in the Stephen King book. They took my shoes. I claimed that under New York State Law I had a right to know if they were videotaping me in the bathroom.When interrogated by a resident in flip-flops, I insisted that if I wanted to kill myself, I knew how because “I’ve seen Ordinary People several times.” I cried myself to sleep on an uncomfortable chair/bed hybrid.
The following day, sobered and sedate, I demonstrated my sanity by helping the staff fold towels and showing off my Trivial Pursuit skills. Shortly after the Scandinavian nurse’s aide proclaimed, “At vun o’cluck vee can vatch Urkel,” it was decided I was no longer a threat to myself, so I was cleared to leave.
My psychiatrist augmented my Prozac with a mood stabilizer.Within weeks, my bipolar summer ended and I retreated back to the safety of being a depressed obsessive-compulsive with a weakness for Cinnamon Toast Crunch and long naps alongside the cat.
Four years later, my OCD is under control. My medication and therapy are working. I’m happy for the quiet—really, I am.
But sometimes it’s boring. I feel bottled up. At those moments I yearn to be both Carrie Fisher and her celluloid alter ego, knowing that flying through space is sometimes worth the cost of the crash-landing.
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