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Carrie Fisher: Electroshock Therapy Helps My “Whacked” Psyche

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For Carrie Fisher, growing up the daughter of Hollywood royalty wasn't easy. And despite her own successful acting and writing career, Fisher, 54, the daughter of legend Debbie Reynolds, revealed on The Oprah Winfrey Show Monday that she regularly receives electroshock therapy to "blow apart the cement" in her brain.

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The Star Wars actress says the shock therapy helps treat her manic depression, which she was diagnosed with in her early twenties. The disorder, says Fisher, stems partly from growing up in the shadow of her very famous mother and father, singer Eddie Fisher. My self-image is just whacked from having the movie star mom," said Fisher.

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Fisher has struggled with crippling depression for much of her life, and at times relied on illegal drugs to self-medicate. She was eventually put on anti-depression drugs, but they made her worse. "I was getting medication I could not handle. It feels like my brain gets moored down in cement and it kind of blows that apart. You can move on from whatever feelings you cannot resolve through therapy and medications."

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Today, she treats her manic depression with a cocktail of prescribed drugs and shock therapy treatments every six weeks. The treatments do have their side effects, like memory loss. "I don't remember movies I've seen so I get to see them over and over again," she says. "It's actually not bad."

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