Trigger warning: This post deals with suicide and may be distressing for some readers.
By KATE LEAVER
Grieving for a famous stranger is weird.
I get that.
Robin Williams was a famous stranger… and yet news of his death today has crushed me. The shock of it momentarily took the air from my lungs. Dramatic? Maybe. But genuine. I’ve had his face — scrunched up in laughter, as it so often was — in my heart all day.
You may feel unusually moved by the death of Robin Williams, too. And that’s OK. It’s not just because we’ve lost a rare and extraordinary comedian. It’s because we lost him to depression.
Police investigating the actor’s death say Williams most likely committed suicide. In his sixth decade of life, he chose death.
This was a successful, kind man with a TV show, a film in production, a full family, friends, and millions of fans. He had all the trappings of happiness, all the signs of satisfaction.
But in taking his own life, Williams proved that none of that matters, when you’re being tortured by depression. Mental illness does not discriminate. It’s savage and it’s powerful enough to knock out one of the funniest men on the planet.
Excuse my French, but that’s a fucking bleak reality. Especially at 8 o’clock this morning, when news broke of his death.
But by 5pm, the conversation had turned to how we can protect people from suicide. For that, I am grateful. #RUOK is currently trending worldwide on Twitter. It doesn’t take away the tragedy of Robin Williams’ death (and those three words can’t save someone on their own) but it’s heartening to see that millions of people have chosen today to take depression seriously.
That’s the power of a high-profile death. It forces us to remember how fragile we human beings truly are.
Williams struggled with depression most of his life. He fought addiction and checked into rehab as recently as three weeks ago. Over the years, it’s been reported that Williams had bipolar disorder, though he never publicly confirmed it. This was a deeply troubled man. But to look at him, you’d never suspect it.
If you ever saw Williams do stand up, you could be forgiven for assuming that he never got sad. He was infectiously, irresistibly happy. He made people laugh for a living. It’s always most confronting to see a jester struck down by clinical sadness.
Because depression does not manifest itself physically — its victims don’t limp or cough or lose a limb — it’s so easy to assume that anyone who looks happy is happy. It’s absolutely forgivable to think, But how could someone who makes so many people happy, possibly be sad?
You might know someone like Robin Williams in your own life. In fact, given that 1 million Australians and 19 million Americans suffer from depression, you almost certainly do. They present as jovial and social, they make jokes, they laugh, they turn up to parties, and they function at work.
But a lot of people who go that far ‘up’ have to come down. Often the brightest, funniest people are struggling the most — and all they need is someone to see through the act.
RIP Robin Williams. Oh captain, my captain.
If you or a loved one need to talk to someone, please consider calling Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
Top Comments
I really am saddened by Robin's death. Suicide is such a shock in any circumstances - just thinking about that heightened level of hopelessness that people experience before they take their lives is just heartbreaking. And yes, people say a billion other people die from this and other horrible things on a daily basis, but it's normal to have some compassion for someone who has been a part of our lives. I think it would be strange if we didn't care.
For me, Robin was someone I grew up with. I think as I get older and other celebrities that I love and admire pass on, I'll be touched by their deaths too. It brought up for me so many unexpected memories in the back of my head that I didn't even know I had about Robin. How much I loved Mork as a 4 year old and watching Popeye over and over; My big brothers yelling out 'Good Morning Vietnaaaaaam'; How much an ex boyfriend admired him. I can't help but be a little sad about these connections that I had with Robin and different aspects of my life.
Life is just like that in this day and age - celebrities are so familiar to us. And it is a loss for us, because he had such a big impact on the world in his own special way.
I work with drug and alcohol addicts and can also see that side of his pain and struggle. It's a daily struggle, along with depression - and I can understand how sometimes some people just have 'enough' of this world. I'm not saying suicide is ok - I wish people could just return to a happy and content place - but that's easy for me to say and it annoys me when people think people can just 'get over it'. But depression and addiction are black holes on their own - let alone together. And that's where I really feel for Robin - that despite everything else he had, it wasn't enough to fulfill him completely. I always felt I saw sadness in his eyes, but I didn't expect this.
I also feel that it's sad to think that the concept of these circumstances around Robins death is what we will remember when we think of him hereon, like we do with Heath Ledger and other icons. It's a sad end to a wonderful life and a little part of me went with him, and such is the nature of loss. But he left a legacy of laughter and that will never leave us. In a way, maybe his work on this planet was done. But it's difficult to accept that when he chose to end it himself.
He was in the seventh decade of his life at 63 years having already completed six on his sixtieth anniversary of his birth.