Carrie Mathison's Diary

Caroline Anne Mathison, known as Carrie, is a fictional character from the television series Homeland.  She was born on 5th April 1979, making her aged 31 in season one of Homeland and aged 36 in the latest season five.

 

Carrie studied Near East Studies and Linguistics at Northweatern University then a degree in Arabic Languages and Literature at Princeton University which was when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mood disorer characterised by extreme mood disturbances ranging from mania and, in Carrie's case, borderline psychotic to severe depression.  She was diagnosed after a manic episode at university where she ended up running naked through the snow to a professor with an in depth thesis claiming to have "reinvented music".

 

After university, she was recruited into the CIA by Saul Berensen, a veteran CIA agent who became Carrie's mentor and close friend.  At first, Carrie concealed her mental health issues from her work colleagues by obtaining clozapine, an antipsychotic medication, from her sister who is a psychiatrist but her condition is revealed in the pilot episode where her medication is discovered by another character.

 

Throughout the seasons of Homeland, Carrie's roles within the CIA and outside of it are volatile and intense.  This is partly linked to her illness but also due to her intense, hyperaware personality which both contributes to her natural ability for the job and to her difficulties with boudaries and emotion regulation.

 

In season four, Carrie has a baby daughter called Frannie after her father, Frank Mathison.  During the first three seasons, Carrie became obsessed with a prisoner of war from Iraq called Nicholas Brody, and was fixated with the idea that he had been "turned" by a terrorist organisation led by Abu Nazir.  Over the course of the first three seasons, she eventually fell in love with him and became pregnant with his baby.  She later has a series of relationships with other men, but so far no long term commitments.