Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) Wrote Books and Had a Service Dog

[Image description: Three images related to Carrie Fisher. From left to right, Carrie Fisher wearing glasses and kneeling next to her service dog, the French Bulldog Gary, at a red carpet event; Carrie Fisher dressed in white as Princess Leia with her iconic hair buns, surrounded by Stormtroopers; and Carrie Fisher’s book Wishful Drinking, which has her name, the title, and an image of Carrie Fisher with hair buns facedown on a table with a martini glass in her hand.]

In high school, it was mentioned to me in passing by someone that Carrie Fisher, whom I knew as Princess Leia, had bipolar disorder.

I shrugged, and said, “Oh, okay.” She was still Princess Leia.

Sure, depressive episodes and generalized anxiety made up a majority of my days, a damp humid cloak like the Georgia summers I liked to wander down the streets in – alone. An autistic, depressed, anxious wreck, isolated and considered socially unacceptable. But Carrie Fisher was just Princess Leia, right?

I never thought she meant much to me besides her role in Star Wars until a short while ago. In college, I became invested in disability rights and later, after my first and second hospitalizations in a psych ward, mental health rights as well. Each discharge from the hospital read that I had major depressive disorder, not bipolar disorder. Each hospital had only seen me for suicidality. They didn’t see the times I felt higher than the hills I once wanted to die on, and faster than the too-fast DC Metro trains. I find the Metro a relatable metaphor. I too sometimes go too fast, experience frequent malfunctions, and occasionally derail.

But I find her more than a relatable metaphor. Carrie Fisher was a bipolar person who dealt with substance abuse issues. She was often considered socially unacceptable. She openly spoke about her mental health disability, and substance abuse issues (which were in part an attempt to keep her manic episodes in check). She was open about her dog Gary’s role as a service animal and took him to public events. And she was also the actress who played Princess Leia, a mother, an author, and a script doctor who edited scripts.

She was Princess Leia, and she was also an outspoken mental health advocate.

I owe her a lot.

For talking about about everything in the open. For being Princess Leia but also someone who employed a great number of coping strategies for her mental health, and talked about them. For sometimes being considered socially unacceptable.

For showing me that she, Carrie Fisher – Princess Leia – was as outspoken in real life as she was on screen. For showing me that it’s possible to be vocal about personal struggles and what you don’t like – and what is good – about your brain and yourself.

Autistic Unemployment: False Solutions and the Tech Industry Narrative

A Response to the WIRED Article “Autistic People Can Solve Our Cybersecurity Crisis” by Kevin Pelphrey

I have a familial connection who used to work for a medical technology company. Her then-supervisor knew I’m autistic. Then-supervisor would ask familial connection if there was a way to get me involved with the company. Familial connection would inform then-supervisor that autistics were not all the same: that I was not, in fact, a software programmer and also could not read code at superspeed and catch errors. Repeat cycle several times.

(I am good with social media, perhaps. But I can barely scrape together rudimentary HTML to put jump links on the Resources page for this blog, and it took hours of Googling and many failed attempts. I can’t write CSS. I can’t write JavaScript. I can’t design webpages or websites.)

There is nothing wrong with autistics who are good or excel at coding and software programming and technology and mechanical things. Autistics who are good at those things definitely exist. There are many things wrong with assuming all autistics are the same, that we all have the innate ability to be computer, mechanical, and software geniuses. To take it a step further: it is also wrong to assume that autistic people are valuable because of a handful of us do possess that kind of technological and mechanical ability.  

(…We’re people and have a wide array of skillsets and interests, and some of us are really good at computers, like some non-autistic people are!)

Those things are what is wrong with the WIRED article “Autistic People Can Solve Our Cybersecurity Crisis,” along with many other direct messages and subtle implications (including a not-so-pleasant quote referring to autistic children growing up as “the coming tsunami of adults with autism”).

Author Kevin Pelphrey, director of the George Washington University’s autism research institute, argues that we can fix the 70-90% unemployment rate for autistics by hiring us in the cybersecurity industry. He further argues that the this industry has a shortage of labor, so hiring us would fix that problem. His main evidence behind this argument seems to be the fact of Alan Turing’s existence.

In his argument, he utterly dismisses autistics with intellectual and/or other cognitive disabilities as having worth by writing, “At the same time, more than three-quarters of cognitively able individuals with autism have aptitudes and interests that make them well suited to cybersecurity careers. These include being very analytical and detail-oriented as well as honest and respectful of rules.”

It’s hard to know where to begin with unpacking the ableism toward autistic people, especially autistics with cognitive and/or intellectual disabilities, in that quote. It employs a number of tropes, reminiscent of the film Rain Man and common literary tropes. Lastly, he simplifies the solution to a complex issue around employment the cybersecurity industry hiring “cognitively able” autistic people.

Since only some of us are good at tech and we are not, in fact, all Alan Turing, this proposed solution will result in employment for far fewer people than Pelphrey envisions. This is a grievous disservice to autistic people, many of whom are struggling to find employment – and quite often in fields other than tech. This article tells employers that autistic people are only good at tech. It tells the general public that our only redeeming quality is being good at tech, and that we are only worth something if we stop the “monumental waste of human talent.”

The author heads a research institute on autism, but rather distressingly, cannot seem to move past a trope that all autistic people should be employed in tech. Our skillsets and interests are as varied and diverse as autistic people’s traits are. If we want employment, we should receive support to work where we want to. We should receive support to engage in our interests. Our contributions are valuable, regardless of whether they are in the workplace.

The solution to the unemployment rates lies not with increasing supported employment to only one industry. Whether it is through a government vocational program or an autistic youth’s transition planning in school for adulthood or a disability advocacy group, it lies with increasing support for us to do what we want to do.