Aviously

Every morning since Monday, I have gone online and read more stories about the greatness of Robin Williams and everything he did for people, to make them feel comfortable or to make them look good in the eyes of others.

Two easy examples are Norm Macdonald’s first meeting with Robin (HERE) and Jim Norton’s wonderful piece for Time (HERE).

Everyone this week that I have talked to about Robin’s death has sounded somewhat similar, usually “I can’t believe he would do that to himself” or “Didn’t he realize how many people liked him?”

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‘YOU’ for the next few paragraphs refers to a depressed person.

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I don’t think people fully understand the affect that depression has on people…it doesn’t matter if people say “We are here for you”…it doesn’t matter if they try to help you…it doesn’t matter if you take pills or not…it all comes down to the mind.

The mind plays horrible tricks on you, and drives you into a dark place. And the more you try to pull out of it, the more you contemplate what put you in this position in the first place…and it just digs the hole deeper.

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Robin Williams needed to close his eyes and listen to some music or comedy on his iPod, not to try and fix himself…but to try and pull himself through it. And I think that after years of doing just that, he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, make himself fight it any more.

And the strongest thing to listen to in that mind state…is Robin Williams.

Holly Thomas has a great piece in The Independent (HERE), criticizing the Academy’s tribute to Robin, and she is 100% correct.  Here are two quotes that stood out to me from her article.

While someone who is not suicidal might look at the picture of the genie and find comfort, someone whose mind is weighed heavy by depression may see something dangerously different.

Had Robin’s death been the inevitable end of some physical illness, The Academy’s message would have been appropriate. But while his fate today is irreversible, on Sunday it was not. His passing was the conclusion of a terrible thought process which convinced him that he had just one way out. And any suggestion that suicide might be an agonised mind’s only route to peace must surely break the heart of anyone now battling to help a loved one see a different light.

The world is really going to miss him.

I am going to miss him.