Robin Williams

[days_unfolding]

The death of Robin Williams has really shaken me up for reasons I can’t entirely explain, although having battled clinical depression for the last year gives me an inkling of what he might have been going through. Bipolar depression is especially lethal; one in ten people with bipolar disorder wind up killing themselves. Not attempting suicide, which is a much higher rate (some studies say 50 percent), but killing themselves. And depression is no respecter of talent. In point of fact, the very talented set high standards for themselves, and not meeting those standards can be difficult to take. “Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.”

And of course, he was an enormous talent, and a great loss.

Someone made a comment that, by all accounts, Robin Williams was a great support to Christopher Reeve after Christopher Reeve’s accident, and the person wished that someone could have been the same support to Robin. But it’s not that simple. Depression can make you retreat inward at the moment that you need help the most.

Someone in the comments on the New York Times site ("Sam from Seattle") said, "I haven't felt a loss of this magnitude from the death of a non-family member since John Lennon died." It felt like a punch in the gut to me.

Requiescat in pace.

P.S. I'll virtually smack anyone who says that his suicide was "a permanent solution to a temporary problem". That's the most glib, patronizing thing that someone could say. And given that most people who have suffered depression have suffered it on and off MOST OF THEIR LIVES, it doesn't even apply. Some people lose the battle.

Comments

[platofish.livejournal.com]

the other glib comment I've heard 'such a selfish act'. But, from the little I know about it many people commit suicide in the belief they are saving family and friends from pain and disappointment.