Robin Williams, RIP
When I first heard the news of Robin Williams’ death I thought it shocking because he was “only” 63. When just a moment later it came out that he probably had killed himself, that was even more shocking.
But then, right after that, I realized that although it was shocking it wasn’t so very surprising. It had been clear for a long, long time that Williams’ genius came hand in hand with some pretty formidable demons.
Williams was an overwhelming comic talent and huge personality, but I never really participated in all the Williams veneration. I somehow missed “Mork and Mindy,” and although I liked some of his movies they weren’t my favorites. The one I liked best was “The Fisher King,” which I don’t see featured all that prominently in the obituaries and tributes.
Speaking of tributes, late last night when I finally got to a TV I was surprised that cable news seemed to be devoting hour after hour to Williams’ death, as though he’d been Lincoln or Churchill or some other major historic figure. I think that might have surprised him, had he known. It certainly surprised me; after all, it’s not as though these are slow news days. But people did love Williams, who (in the old cliché) made them laugh and made them cry, and was also a generous man who donated his time to many charities.
Reports are that Williams had suffered from “severe depression of late.” Severe depression is a different animal from ordinary run-of-the-mill depression, which is bad enough. Severe depression can make a person who is successful, adulated, rich, famous, and possessed of a loving family take his/her own life in a moment of terrible but hard-to-resist impulse because he/she sees no hope of respite.
We may never know what really happened with Williams. But it is tragic. Suicides, whether famous or not, leave behind a legacy of pain for their families and friends. Williams was a man who seems to have wanted to bring joy to people instead, and mostly that’s just what he did.
RIP.
So very sad. I was never really a fan of his comedy (too manic for my taste) but respected his talent as an actor. A couple months ago, I read this article from 2010. If I hadn’t seen this earlier, I would have been shocked by this news, but because of it, I wasn’t.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/sep/20/robin-williams-worlds-greatest-dad-alcohol-drugs
What goes up, must come down. Especially when emotional imbalance occurs.
Do you agree with Matt Walsh regarding Robin Williams?
http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/08/12/robin-williams-didnt-die-disease-died-choice/
Brad:
Interesting piece by Walsh, but I think it’s too simplistic. It’s not an either/or proposition. Suicide is a choice, just as Walsh said, but in someone suffering from severe depression his/her judgment is clouded by the depression. There are people who are biologically predisposed to depression, and they are at risk, especially if there is suicide in the family. So although it’s a choice, it’s not a choice made in a person of sound mind and body. Many suicides do it because their suffering is so great they can see no other way out, and even religion doesn’t seem to help some of them.
I am normally a very judgmental person and don’t shy away from having opinions, but in cases such as these I view the suicide as extremely tragic and leave it at that.
A sad situation, hard to believe he wanted to separate from his kids.
I enjoyed the *Birdcage* where he had to co star with Nathan Lane who stole the show for me !
As a Catholic that accepts as truth that we are created with free-will, I resist the current trending toward determinism. When it comes to depression, it would be a tough call to try and understand if a person in the throes of clinical depression is capable of making the “right” choice. I have experience with successfully helping a loved one through clinical depression. I believe in all my heart that God had a hand in the successful outcome. I believe we are spirit, soul and body and I am comfortable resting in this in Hebrews Chapter 4:
“12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
And I thank God that He is merciful.
Molly NH:
I love “Birdcage”. It’s a movie I can watch, again & again and laugh at all the same parts.
Neo, I agree with your assessment of the Walsh piece. When I was seeing a family member through that time of crisis, there was a UCLA study that came out and stated that for some people, emotional pain manifests in way akin to physical torment….something that many would find unendurable.
Sharon W:
When I was in the throes of my arm nerve injuries I felt as close to suicide as I ever care to come. I did not want to kill myself (and obviously I never did so), but my pain felt unendurable and it seemed that, if it didn’t get better, I might see no other way out. So I have a deep respect for how much pain, psychic or physical, a person can be in, and how it can affect their will to live.
The first time i met robin was before i did much work in entertainment. as a kid i did stuff as people i knew were kind of part of things, then there was a period of not being there, and then years later i ended up back
i saw him at the improv… i was on a date. it was the night his daughter was born. the hospital kicked him out as he was all hyped up (really hyped up. made his hyper apperances look calm!)… the date i was with decided to take a doll from someone next to her and heckle him. made for a very rememberable evening as he came to our table, and then proceeded to make a bout a 1/3 of his routine about us… (not so much me).
needless to say, there was no second date
but we did get to hang with him a bit after his piece and see how mad the commedians that were to come on after his insert were… not happy
later on, i met him from time to time at occaisonal events, but since most of my work was in fashion and a-list parties, i seldom would bump into him as he almost never came to such things. (jack nicholsons daugher was a more regualar meeting, as was the clintons family related to hillary..)
i will miss him very much, as i do all the people i meet and have met oer the years and had a tiny adventure with.
reality seems twisted when you grow up and have adventures. like the time i got drunk on xmas on the set of sesame street when they put the liquor where big birds nest was.
that was a great night. i wasnt too social, but ruth buzzy refused to let me sit aside… and i HAD to dance the macarena with her… another part of the evening, i was coming down a table of food, and madeline kahn was coming up the table. we met at the swedish meatballs… she went for it, i knocked her fork out of the way, then we were at it! what fun… sat aroud doing voices with Carol Spinner and others… (for a short time afterward “Bob” would call me to see if i had things to sell on home shopping network)
i have a long list of people i miss dearly and will join, with robin williams just the latest in a long chain
Odetta
Madeline Kahn
Ruth Buzzy
Maurice Seymour
Robin Williams
i guess you can add him to the list of others, like freddie prinze, and spaulding gray…
you die several times
the first when the body is gone
the next when everyone who knows you and remembers you passes
then your really gone
who is next?
in someone suffering from severe depression his/her judgment is clouded by the depression.
that fits the people who dont understand it… but maybe they are not clouded by it… maybe its just the right thing given what is their life… the propaganda of that point is so worn out as a point, its got holes in the bottom.
it speaks more to the fear of those who live than the condition of the person who is gone… one phrase, thousands of people, kind of like a horoscope…
Artfldgr:
Severe depression often does cloud judgment. However, to the depressed person, his/her reasoning feels very logical and correct and rational whether it is or is not, objectively speaking. However, people who make serious suicide attempts and yet live in spite of it (sometimes after being severely injured, or being in a coma for a while) report surprisingly often that they are happy they were saved and no longer feel depressed or as though they wish to die. And that is often true although their outer life circumstances do not appear to have not improved.
the hospital kicked him out as he was all hyped up
That would be the manic phase of his bipolar disorder–he used to joke about it. 1 in 5 people with bipolar disorder will complete suicide; attempts are even more common. Knowing those two things–I’m not particularly shocked or surprised by Williams’ death.
But I wanna live in the magic gumdrop world Matt Walsh lives in, where mental illness can just be wished away.
system wont let me respond… sorry
it erases my comments again
i will try
neo.. your point is an industry standard.
its an assumation that if X is the point, then Y is the thing its about… yes for many its an unanswered plea.. for others not..
its assumptive to say that someones reasoning is wrong… isnt it? its nicve for the living, but not so much for the suffering… in fact, you have to meet someone elses term of pain for the public to say, its ok that euthanasia was done…
if pain is subjective who are you to say its not enough? or of the kind?
if you were in a death camp, and could not make it, would it be erroneous?
the bar we require as people who dont want to commit suicide is something bad enough that someone who doesnt want to agrees it would want to!
if it falls short, then its bad, if it meets this, we will even help them do it!
funny people.
dead ends are sometimes dead ends
and when people have conditions other than depression that are uncurable… cant be fixed and they are stuck where nothing will change it, then what?
what if you were a 67 year old jew in 1933 germany and no way out? would you make a stand and wait to be tortured? would you deny your tortureers their pleasure?
this hopefully gets through…
oh, then there is the point that women cry for help more than men, and men do it as a sacrifice so as not to be a burden on a family they can no longer provide for. we dont accept that either, as its not horrible enough.
but being a burden and a target is not really a way to live if you cant do anything about it. is it?
whose is another person to declare that the meaning that makes life good is so meaningless you can change that and go on?
its very complicated and i fear that the industry does more for the living than the damned.. eh?
That would be the manic phase of his bipolar disorder—he used to joke about it.
no.. that was the cocaine he was openly using,. which was a major part of his problem that made him manic. i was hoping to avoide actually saying it.
“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
― David Foster Wallace
I think that comedians are tormented people, who laugh in the face of that inner torment as long as they can.
“Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.”
Peter Ustinov
Like all of us, I long ago recognized William’s comic genius. Like neo, I missed the Mork and Mindy period and while a fan of his talent, his manic energy could become draining and even annoying. I also decided that Williams needed a structure to work within, boundaries to contain that manic energy, otherwise he would be quite literally bouncing off the walls. When he had that structure, typically in movies, his comic genius was unparallelled.
After absorbing the shock and sadness at such a talent taking his own life, I came around to my version of Ymarsaker’s insight. What goes up must come down, life must balance and Williams could quite literally ‘take orbit’.
I too am not entirely surprised that he suffered from severe depression (perhaps exacerbated by rumors that he was having severe money problems) and ended up in taking his own life.
Williams was a liberal and I’ve never gotten the impression that he was religious, so he hadn’t any faith to sustain him through severe challenges.
So no faith in a beneficent ‘providence’, alcoholism, drugs, the ‘insanity’ of genius… could it have had any other ending? What a shame, what a waste. We are all our own worst enemies and Williams was no exception to that rule.
Robin Williams once said that, “Comedy is acting out optimism”. It seems he finally ran out of optimism.
I suspect that another one to watch out for is Jim Carey. Nowhere near the genius of Williams but the same ‘unhinged’ type of comedian.
“In America they really do mythologise people when they die.” Robin Williams
He will surely be mythologized, perhaps as much as was Jack Kennedy.
May he indeed RIP.
remember
No one gets out alive!!!
we all go… so a suicide is just taking the bus a bit early
“It is not seen as insane when a fighter, under an attack that will inevitable lead to his death, chooses to take his own life first. In fact, this act has been encouraged for centuries, and is accepted even now as an honorable reason to do the deed. How is it any different when you are under attack by your own mind?”
― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls
“Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don’t kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, “He fought so hard.” And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.”
― Sally Brampton, Shoot The Damn Dog: A Memoir Of Depression
“People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize.
Cowardice is nothing to do with it – suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
“Anne, I don’t want to live. . . . Now listen, life is lovely, but I Can’t Live It. I can’t even explain. I know how silly it sounds . . . but if you knew how it Felt. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. Ay that’s the rub. I am like a stone that lives . . . locked outside of all that’s real. . . . Anne, do you know of such things, can you hear???? I wish, or think I wish, that I were dying of something for then I could be brave, but to be not dying, and yet . . . and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching everyone fit in where I can’t, to talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not reach or to reach wrong . . . to do it all wrong . . . believe me, (can you?) . . . what’s wrong. I want to belong. I’m like a jew who ends up in the wrong country. I’m not a part. I’m not a member. I’m frozen.”
― Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters
Some of us die because we are beign imposed upon and forced to live a non existence… where others benefit from our living, and we cant… they reap the rewards that we create for them, and fail to be kind enough to leave us a few crumbs. some take away all that hope, and lock you into a corner, and then what? they say things that amount to you being happy if your someone else, but not you, which is fine if you are not you. and some of us, run out of our ideas as we are stopped along the way and watch others get to run with them, have children, and do the things we struggled, but they achieved for theft is easier than work, and honor is just a word -Artfldgr
Would you belittle a slave for denying his master the riches while his reward is torture and toil?
just curious…
Artfldgr:
Who’s “belittling” anyone?
Saying a person’s judgment might be clouded by depression is a statement of fact that implies no mockery or condescension, and certainly no implication that the person is unimportant. Most people have times when their judgment is less than perfect. I certainly would never say my own judgment has always been perfect, and I don’t consider that statement a belittling one.
Saying a person’s judgment might be clouded by depression (a depression that person acknowledges having) is also backed up by the evidence I cited of many people who say it about themselves and their own state of mind during the suicide attempt, after they have recovered from both the suicide AND the episode of major depression.
The question of whether some suicides are rational is one I cannot answer. But it is pretty clear that many of them are not.
Who is the “master” in your analogy?
Lt. Boyd said Williams was found in his bedroom “clothed, in a seated position, unresponsive with a belt secured around his neck.” There were also several cuts on his left wrist and a pocket knife with a dried red substance was found in the vicinity, he stated. The Academy-Award winner was 63. “The work of the coroner’s office is not complete at this time”
Artfldgr:
Also, I don’t know whether you saw this comment of mine, but it’s relevant.
Dick Cavett was so severely depressed his team sent for the medics. Being secure behind the typical NY City door (built like a vault, that is) it took hours to get into his flat. (IIRC)
Then he spent weeks under drug therapy to come out of it.
Though this was not Dick’s first bout, he admitted later that once the depression took hold, no amount of logic could bring him around to thinking his life was worth living.
&&&
Similar bouts occurred to Carol Burnett.
Both she and Dick had their careers ebb and flow around their periodic DEEP depressions.
%%%
Powerful mood swings are apparently the price of genius.
Like you, Neo, my first response was his ‘youthful’ age. ‘Fraid I seen way more than my share of suicides. One, very near, was my younger brother, Pat, who ended his late stage alcoholic despair with a .22-rifle barrel in his mouth. 26-years ago this month and a year+2-weeks after his 3-year older bro got and has stayed sober and engaged fully with life. There are no harder calls to make to a parent.
My favorite Williams film was his first, “The World According to Garp”. John Irvings incredible novel directed by the truly brilliant, George Roy Hill. R.I.P., Robin.
NeoConScum:
I am so sorry about your brother.
it is pretty clear that many of them are not….
yup…
didnt say all were…
what is the master wouild be more apropos than who…
and it doesnt matter any more than the 100 million faceless gone in the gulags and other lesser tortures. have you ever been erased till yout esistence is a shadow? what if your life is reduced to an endless series of unpreventable horrors in which there is no respite? where the closest people to you, do the worst things? and there is on way to prevent it, abrogate it, or do anyting about it?
Think robbin williams will matter in 500 years?
Think someone who is already erased will matter in 10?
sometimes the irrational is a rational choice.
most of the time it isnt… but what of the times it is?
who decides?
The one who suffers, or the sadist that watches, or the selfish that wishes?
If there are no contributions, then there are no losses
what is lost when a person has no real connections, or will have any?
what if the connections that do occur, are horrors?
not all lives are worth living… sadly… its the truth..
and no matter how much we want to think they all are
we do not live in a world that does anything but make that lip service.
all one has to do to know, is to go out and try to avail themselves of those things people believe are there and help them by their konwing that…
but what if they are not really there when you actually go seek them?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
we regret the passing of robbin
robbin doesnt…
oh… and what about the few driven to it? who is to blame, the person who could not undure or stop the other, or the other for putting them on that ride?
stuff like this is too deep for a blog in wich long posts are cut down in a procrustean way…
Woody Allen’s Bleak Vision
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/385148/woody-allens-bleak-vision-rev-robert-barron
Neo.. Thank you, Mam. But, know—as I did at the time—that he was instantly in a Far, FAR Better Place than he’d occupied for a long time. The utter pit of ‘Aloneness’ that the late stage alky exists in is indescribable.
Artfldgr:
As I wrote in my first comment on this thread:
Although I don’t tend to blame in the case of suicide, to answer your question–if I blame anyone, I have to blame both. I blame a person mistreating another person, whether the other person is driven to suicide or not. And I blame suicides for being so mired in the moment they can’t see alternatives, and they grievously (and probably permanently and irrevocably) hurt friends and family in the process.
Suicides would say “my friends and family would be better off.” But that’s not true in most cases, if you were to interview the friends and family afterward. Suicides would also say, “but there are no alternatives.” I think that in most cases that is shortsighted and incorrect. And those people who have tried serious suicide attempts and recovered, and are not so depressed or suicidal anymore, would agree.
As I wrote in another comment on this thread, when I was suffering from severe neuropathic pain in my arms, I felt that if my suffering went on any longer it would be unendurable. It went on for many many years, however. Fortunately (very fortunately) there was an alternative that finally helped, but it took me nine years of near-constant trying to find it before I did.
Robin Williams was a part of the Boomer Generation. Many, many Boomers admired him for his talent.
The media is glad to have a tragedy they can focus on rather than the awful images coming in from Iraq, Gaza, Ukraine, Liberia, etc. The world order is crumbling, but they would rather gain eyeballs by devoting way too much time to a tragic death.
For his family and friends, Robin Williams death is a shock and a time of grieving. To them (and to you Artfdgr) I send my deepest condolences.
R. I. P., Robin Williams.
artfldgr @ 3:30 pm-
Thanks for posting those quotes.
I tend to the view that each life is a quantum, of which Williams was but one. Not more than one. I am struck by the emotional out- pourings his apparent suicide has caused, and I am at a loss to share in these hand-wringings, the Fox special, the etc etc. He was not a particularly noble human, he was just another human, and why we put him on a high pedestal is beyond me. He was hyper-energetic and he made us laugh? That’s it?
It is symptomatic of our times and our societal misjudgments that he should be elevated to such high standing. He was a cinema figure, was he not? In what ways was he more?
I didn’t know that Robin Williams was a close friend of Christopher Reeves, and that he did much to lift Reeves’s spirits after he was paralyzed.
I think I read long ago that Reeves seriously contemplated suicide after his accident. Williams’s being there for him, to me, shows he was for life, no matter what. And that makes me think his own despair must have been profound.
Don Carlos,
I can’t agree. When a human being achieves public acclaim based on their inherent merits and, surely Williams qualified as such, their celebrity has societal meaning. Reportedly, Williams put his time and money where his mouth was and was quite active in various charities. How many of the famous and wealthy can say the same? That must qualify as some degree of ‘nobility’ in anyone’s book.
As for ‘only’ making us laugh I would in response offer a vision of another world where laughter is dismissed as unimportant; “There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun [or] joy in whatever is serious.” Ayatollah Khomeini
At least for some of us, you appear to mistake the normal sadness at learning that someone who had at least some admirable qualities has succumbed to their demons for overwrought emotionalism. I have yet to detect that here.
It is too painful and confusing to figure out self-killing.
I read somewhere today that RW was asked what made a comedian, and he said: “A melding of please love me and go fuck yourself,” which seems perfect, and has broader application.
Another article I read years ago (somewhere) I have never forgotten. It was about suicides at the Golden Gate. (The details are not made up, but precision is lost).
Twenty people survived their jump. Every single one, all of them, said the same thing after. “As soon as my feet left the rail, I regretted what I did. I wanted to undo. I was glad to survive and continue to be glad I live.”
Who knows what that means.
The World According to Garp is one of the all time best. RW made it so.
There are two movies which made me blubber. “Saalam Bombay” (not an RW movie), so rich and true.
The RW movie was Being Human, also rich and true, impossible to detect the difference between RW’s acting and RW.
Being Human holds the key to so much of human suffering.
Neo, I have to say that I usually find all these “outpourings of grief” for the famous annoying.
When it does happen I often use it as an excuse to stop watching, listening, or reading the news because it will be non-stop Dead Celebrity for a week.
But, I found your piece here quite tasteful and very well thought out, in addition, to being a nice tribute to a star who I didn’t find all that “great.”
His last show “The Crazy Ones” was rather badly written, in my opinion. I do wonder how much it being cancel helped to “push” him further into depression.
Oh, and I so agree with your assessment of pain – I had broken bones several years ago and the pain was much more than I ever experienced or expected. I knew it was getting better as I healed; but, the painful experience gave me a deeper understanding of those who suffer chronic pain, with little relief in sight.
While I can understand that others become intensely invested in the fate of celebrities, Diana comes to mind, I can not on a personal level become interested in the life and times of celebrities. Uncounted, individual, personal tragedies are happening 24/7 and many involve consequences for far many more (living) people….. ebola, isis, and the beat goes on. RIP RW indeed, but as a matter of what we need to focus on his tragedy pales in comparision to what is going down before our eyes.
I am forty eight years old, and I grew up having Robin Williams as a celebrity icon. I watched the Happy Days episode that introduced Williams to the rest of the world when it first ran on ABC. I was a faithful viewer of Mork and Mindy as a tween. I have thought for almost 40 years now that Williams was the most brilliant and natural stand up comic that ever lived. I realized early on, after seeing The World According to Garp in the theaters, that Williams was also a gifted dramatic actor- a belief that was only deepened after every performance he gave. His well documented short-comings over that time only reminded me how human all of us are.
Reading about William’s death this morning when I turned on the computer was like being punched in the gut. I even felt like crying.
That would be the manic phase of his bipolar disorder—he used to joke about it.
no.. that was the cocaine he was openly using,. which was a major part of his problem that made him manic. i was hoping to avoid actually saying it.
No reason both can’t be true.
Bipolar often compels people to self-medicate, and given how furiously bipolar whips you around, he prolly used both uppers and downers, depending on what he was trying to offset.
so he hadn’t any faith to sustain him through severe challenges.
Mental illness screws up the part of your brain that can perceive religious things. Most religious people have a hard time believing that THAT part of your self could be broken, so they can be a real pain in the ass to deal with. I’ve learned to stop talking to my co-religionists because their chirpy reassurances that I “can feel God’s love if only I would…” drive me to despair.
I already think that God won’t talk to me because I’m a loathsome, worthless individual. I don’t need people telling me that the way has always been clear, I just “don’t get it” or some shit.
It’s as if the secret to life were learning to wiggle your pancreas, but I have no earthly idea how to do it because there aren’t any voluntary muscles attached to it. I just sit there and say to myself, “well, I know I have a pancreas, but damned if I can make it move.”
And then people gush on and on about the joy of pancreas-wiggling. “Just wiggle it,” they chirp. “Up and down.”
“what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.”
Everyone needs to read that again.
The other selfish thing is to refuse to take the sufferer’s pain seriously because to do so would explode your personal notions of How Things Fit Together.
Having a mental illness is like being drugged against your will: you can only fight the drug’s effects so much, if at all – the rest of the time the sumbitch has its way with you.
Having clinical depression is like having an endless loop of YouTube commenters in your head, ripping you to shreds mercilessly but you can’t refute them because it’s your own voice saying those awful things. Your own voice is highly credible, especially if your voice has never said anything else for as long as you can remember. And besides, there’s no other voice in there.
I blame suicides for being so mired in the moment they can’t see alternatives,
They’re not “mired in the moment”; they’ve endured years or decades of anguish and torment. Thinking that “people would be better off without me” doesn’t come from rational consideration but from intense self-loathing that absolutely does not respond to external protests to the contrary. They might as well be trying to tell you that you ARE the green stripe in the rainbow, so we love and need you! The endorphins needed to respond positively to family just aren’t there.
I cannot on a personal level become interested in the life and times of celebrities
His celebrity meant that a lot of us knew who he was. His talent made us care. And learning that he was so tormented for so long that he took his life is heart-wrenching.
Please can you save your misgivings for another day?
“He will surely be mythologized, perhaps as much as was Jack Kennedy.”
Williams was a lot better at what he did than Kennedy was at what he did. I was living in San Francisco in the mid-70s when he was still performing in small comedy clubs there before he got national attention with “Mork and Mindy”. Nobody was surprised that he made it big. Incidentally, Dana Carvey came out of the same scene.
Williams traveled to Iraq to perform for US troops there which is to be commended. I heard once that instead of playing “Hollywood Star” he went to mess and sat down to talk personally to some of the men. If true it says a lot for him regardless of his politics or whatever personal demons he had that he was sadly unable to overcome. RIP.
There have been several suicides in my (very large) extended family, and so it’s hard for me to hear about any suicide without reliving the anguish and anger of those left behind. Art said that men do it when they can’t support their families, rather than be a burden to those they are supposed to support — and that is, indeed, the reason that one of my relatives did it. But the burden of bewildered anguished betrayed loss that he left on the wife and daughters he abandoned is so much worse, so much greater than what might have been, had he allowed himself to be a burden, that I have trouble getting to where I can understand what he must have felt to get him to that point. I realize he must have felt it, but I can’t get there. His wife and daughters live on — as do the father and brother of another — never the same, true healing impossible forever, their lives now as permanently broken as his ever was, only they cannot choose the escape that he did because they understand as he did not the mayhem they would cause to those they would leave behind them. This breakage isn’t what he would have rationally chosen, if he could have understood the true import of his act; he was a good and loving man who wanted to live right. The betrayal of the choice to leave. I’ve seen essays in the past couple of days arguing that suicide can be an act of courage or strength, but I can’t accept that. I know I sound blaming. I guess I am. I’ve seen too much surviving wreckage. I cannot understand.
One of the most disturbing and frightening things I’ve ever heard was my sister telling me that if I knew what she was feeling, I would be fine with her committing suicide because I wouldn’t want her to suffer.
I had no idea what to say to that. What I should have said was, “No. I wouldn’t want you to suffer. I would want you to *get better,* not to die.”
Thankfully, a combination of medication and treatment was able to get her out of her depression, and today she’s doing all right. But I still regret that I didn’t say that when I had the chance.
@MrsWhatsit 3:14:
I’ve seen essays in the past couple of days arguing that suicide can be an act of courage or strength, but I can’t accept that. I know I sound blaming. I guess I am. I’ve seen too much surviving wreckage. I cannot understand.
My uncle committed suicide before I was born. It haunted my mother throughout the entire rest of her life right up until her death last year. The effects of suicide on the survivors truly do last a lifetime.
Like Don Carlos and Parker, I too dislike the outpourings when a celebrity dies.
Yes he made people laugh – many entertainers do. I am 48, loved Mork and Mindy but he was an actor and while many people like to feel like they knew him, they didn’t. And if we died, he (like most celebrities) wouldn’t cry for us.
Sorry – the whole adulation of actors and other media figures bothers me beyond words.
I stayed off of Facebook for the day because I knew it would be filled with people emoting just as they did the day that St. Whitney of Houston died and was immediately canonized.
dicentra – you need to talk to a (traditional) Catholic. We have centuries of writings about the dark night of the soul, about God being missing when we need him most, and how he does this to the souls he loves. A liberal Catholic is more likely to be happy-clappy like your co-religionist.
As one of my favorites prayers (Hail Holy Queen – recited at the end of the Rosary) says: ‘To Thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To Thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”.
NEO: And I blame suicides for being so mired in the moment they can’t see alternatives, and they grievously (and probably permanently and irrevocably) hurt friends and family in the process.
what if they have a developmental disorder? give them any slack then? nope… we look too normal for that… so if we get upset, its a nervous breakdown, not stimming.
and what friends?
Aspergers people dont have any for the most part. my ‘friends’ invited me into a back yard so that i could have my head smashed in by a brick (i survived and when i woke up, i wandered out of the alley). another friend turned on me and people held me down and tore my hair out, and stepped on my hands bending my fingers back till amost all of them were dislocated as a kid. then there was the family member that drugged me and kept me for two weeks with his hard core gay boys doing all manner of things to me that i could not escape. they loaded me into a car figuring that i would get killed on the highway, and no one would discover what they did. then there was the friend that stole my lifes savings in a partnership… then there was the girlfriend that faked her murder, and destroyed my career. then there was the friend that diddled for 6 years until my technology and company that i was desperately trying to do, was not possible and all the tech stolen and usurped by my employer who deemd to let the chinese have it. then there was the boss that put me in a room for years that was smaller than a handicapped bathroom stall with one light over it (prison cells would be roomy), until i had a stroke, and spent the time pretending my work belonged to someone else and denying me even cost of living raises. and then they put me in a storage room when i complained, called it a breakdown rather than aspergers/autistic stimminf after being tortured for years, and told me that no matter what i do, or achieve i will never have a raise or promotion for the rest of my life – and they will take away my pension if that isnt enough…
shall i go on about friends, family, and others?
i can… it goes on for 50 years like this as i try to be friends, and the only ones available are sociopathic predators… (which is why i know so much about them, i have had lots of intimate times with them). normal people say “i have enough friends thank you”.
the only time it wasnt like this was when i was heading to academia, but they took away my money for women to go to college over us oppressors. regardless of other things.
lets see… tied down with a hot frying pan held to my feet… sliced, stabbed… this year assaulted twice, and just last week the knockout game… as i am big and iconic, and so, they think an easy target (but i am not thanks to the life above)
but this is what someone writes that knows me.
[but remember, they had tenure and diddled along till now my wife is going to go, my son no longer talks to me and had to leave genetics schooling for they dont want any more of him (or me) in STEM…]
that doesnt count… no matter how hard i work or how well it is after all, dr XXX never bothered to say thank you, and they erased it from my review. and no one will give me a chance. my current boss has not given me access to keep up and so is destroying what i have.. when i try to say something, its not believed, as its a passive agressiv way to accomplish things and you cant easily prove it if they lie.
worthless pap… given that i cant do a thing with it. it wont get me food, and it certainly wont get me a plus…
that work on my own time from home when i want married, was deemed to be trying to build my own department, and they destroyed me, had me up and nearly fired me for it!!! the docs took the tech and pretended it was their own.
my photos are all over the net, but no one pays me for them… thousands of images in all kinds of stock places and no one pays a dime for my work (to me)
the job i wanted to seek is with someone from lawrence livermore and the super computer. i have solutiosn to big data, urban pests, french flag, and dozens of other things. and i figured that they, having been over at LNL would have met people like me… harmlessly quirky, kind of ok to be with (when not stressed), and brilliant.
none of it counts… none of it will ever count… will it?
if i try harder they will make me homeless again, and i will lose my wife, and all the art work, prototypes and so on… i am a tall poppy to be cut down, and withotu mentorship or any guardian, or even a friend to ask advice, nothing i can do.
so tell me neo… what friends? online friends? cant call them up for a bbq, can i?
and if anyone deems i am depressed, well, that dont fit, as its my aspergers, not depression, not bipolar, not adhd… i dont get depressed like others do – all i need is a path to a better place i can earn, but no matter what i do, i cant get that, and they said so.
its also the politics that makes me the target of the anger of the others and defenseless as i cant tell freind from foe, and so far, its mostly foe. friends get frustrated that i am so normal and leave, and i cant do certain things, like change my focus… (like an autistic can change their special interest like others can). basically they get frustrated that someone with so much talent and brillance is so crippled by the condition that gives them that!!! what they want is the talent and brillance and normalcy… but how do normal people spend so much time studying to get that way? they dont.. they have friends and spend time with them. i had books and spent time with that. i used to only sleep 4 hours a night, the rest of the time was spent doing artwork, writing papers that would never be read let alone published, studying medicine, programming, QED physics, and more… my postman hated me cause of all the material i would get for free in the mail to study.
how long to i wait for a chance?
till i am eating garbage out of a can again (thats what happened when the person i though loved me cleaned me out and destroyed my career, and nearly put me in jail for her murder (she is still alive and thats that)
i guess the answer is yes… but when i am eating out of a can, who will be there?
when i asked lawyers about work conditions i got the “jury hates you we cant win speech” or the “what they did is legal”…
its been 7 years since someone called me on the phone to say, how are you ZZZ…
want to see my phone records? there is no place to show my art.. they either want people who established themselves on film in the 60s or 70s, or they want young people who they can have long period supporting (along with them being a protected class too). i cant afford to frame it anyway…
with aspergers there ARE no friends and family. and most of my family was exterminated last century, leaving old people who are now dead and gone…
there are no coworkers. for 10 years i eat alone at my desk and there is no one to be with, or talk to… mostly cause they work to earn some cash and are not interested in genetics, or computational biology, or aritificial intelligence, history, or the things i am interested in… the people who ARE interested in that, dont want to bother as i have no degrees…
yes… zero, zippo, nada… i am completely self taught…
and cant work if they find out… hows that for scary?
the autism center said i was a year too old to help me.. the people who help autistics dont want to be involved, they are trying to earn a living not help people. they make their money with children.. and are completely disinterested in old adults that are going to die soon anyway…
and yet… i keep going and going…
but all those bad things makes me a pariah…
cant talk about them. (but i cant lie either)
cant even refer to my hobbies…
no room for old men, only young people with promise.
and i am not young any more…
i will lose my job, lose my home, and be eating from garbage cans
why would you want me to live like that again?
cant wait for the next horror…
thats what my life has been so far
an endless chain of extreme horrors and punishments
with tiny pieces of hope that gets me to the next horror..
been hit twice for the nockout game.. maybe three times is a charm.
dont worry.. i wont suicide.
if that was my style, it would have happend decades ago…
i am just pointing out that sometimes, its ok
sometimes if you really love the person, you will let them go.
not selfishly pray for them to stay in such pain that cant be remediated.
and my life experiences have taught me that.
if you asked me years ago, i would have been on your side and spouting the platitudes. but now, i am on the side of the people who hurt so much. especially the ones whose problems leave them isolated from all human contact, unlike many others who suffer bad things…
i wont kill myself – thats a fact…
Just sign me waiting for the next horror…
i am sorry dicentra that you actually understand my points… wish that it werent so… 🙂
Williams traveled to Iraq to perform for US troops there which is to be commended.
i sent neo the video of that.
you should see his face when part way through his shtick they all stopped, stood, turned their back to him, and saluted
it was 17:00 and retreat was playing.
i think it affected him more than he thought it would.
Robin Williams as troops “Retreat” at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD9QAAEfQEA
Marine Corps kids respect on the playground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhkMwAhIOcU
Juli : he was an actor and while many people like to feel like they knew him, they didn’t.
this is VERY true..
we were working and dustin hoffman was around, and a producer was babbling about how he wanted dustin to be a part of his project. he said i know you and you would be perfect.
dustin replied
You dont know me, and which person did you want me to be?
ie. what you know is a facade and portrayal.. and that makes a large distance for the person as no one ever gets to connect with the REAL person inside the humunculous that is doing the acting.
the famous have some special problems. ESPECIALLY if they run out of childhood friends and people that knew them before they got that way. once they achieve, is a freind a friend, is a friend a frenemy, is a person with you for their own gain, and on and on it goes… you can no longer connct with anyone…
your pemanently alone in a crowd and can never leave to find a place with a friend…
of course.. being talented and smart is a prop.
what is a prop? its a way to over come the problem through other things… do great art, and people comt to talk to you… they put aside your quirks, and what others use to stay away…
but if your not allowed to do that, or show that, or that
then your a rat in a cage with no chew block
years ago my employer forbid me under pain of losing my job, life and so on… to stop my projects and home hobbies: OR else
its like being blind… and other people demanding you see or do somethig simple. ie. friends, if you have any, get frustrated as they cant imagine or understand what stops you that others find so easy
but if you could not tell friend from dibilitating and sadistic foe, would you be friendly?
This social awkwardness has been called “active but odd”..
and of course.. us loners are all sociopathic killers waiting for the day we explode and murder all the people around us… so we get treated that way before that ever happens… and other than the misdiagnosed lanza, i could find no examples of a person with AS doing any of that… in fact, quite the opposite, their desire to be with others has them be super non offensive as much as possible. shooting your friends is quite offensive.
people love that… especially family… who basically abandones you.. as do others… as do wives, and coworkers… (not so much in academia, but how do you get there when your the oppressor they have to exterminate?)
well, i am lucky.. i am not that way. i pose as normal most of the time. before i was here in thsi hellish place (of medicine), i was regarded as quirky but super talented.. now i am just a token who exists for the higher salary of the managers who earn by head count
well yeah.. i have to THINK of everything.. analyse people, and all that AND carry on a conversation that is not abnormal.. its exhausting…
and if people are posing as friends and backstabbing, my thinking is way off, and i have no way to defend or even address it.
Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS
so picking something else arbitrarily like others can do, is not possible… so i CANT change that…
Individuals with AS may collect volumes of detailed information on a relatively narrow topic such as weather data or star names, without necessarily having a genuine understanding of the broader topic
not me.. i am an in depth person, and my”thing” is understanding systems and “how things work”.. so i have incredible insights into things like genetic organization and all kinds of stuff like that, as those are systems… social systems too… but i cant think fast enough to keep up with micro displays of emotion and body signals AND think of what to say and so on.
often, i am told i am funny, as humor is a way around it. i was part of theater and the arts as acting was a way to get better at hiding.
i WAS lucky.. as i have savant skills
this is how i got to be in lincoln center performing and carnegie hall as a half deaf classical musician in an orchestra – first string soloist… (and have memorized thousands of song lyrics, and musical melodies. i can spit them out the way rainman used to spit out baseball scores – i shouold have been a piano man in a bar)
Asperger’s Disorder and Savant Syndrome
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/resources/articles/aspergers-disorder-and-savant-syndrome/
i had a college level reading ability by the time i was 5 and studied copiously since then… my memory and skills allowed me into bronx science…
then feminism killed my ability to go to college the way pc and social justice took away the mentors that would have allowed my son to be a geneticist. (he is normal – very normal)
Savant skills, while not universally present in Asperger’s persons, are very common, and generally include prodigious memory. When they do occur, in my experience, those special abilities in Asperger’s tend to involve numbers, mathematics, mechanical and spatial skills. Many are drawn to science, inventions, complex machines and particularly, now, computers. Some such skills lead to PhDs in mathematics or other sciences and a goodly number of Asperger persons are gainfully, and highly successfully, employed in computer or related industries because of the natural affinity of Asperger persons to organization, numbers and codes.
bingo! but here, they take my work, pass it off as their own, or that it dont matter. and thats that…. no remuneration.. unlike capitalists the socialists in academia are the evil ones. when in fortune companies they would throw money at me to do things, here they are afraid i will break something
and of course, people with savant skills tend to be living proof we are not equal… my IQ was last recorded as 175, but it depends on the test, i have scored higher and lower… i once got a 165 on a test in which the questions were omitted and i just figured out what the question should be so i could answer!!!
but you see..
Robin had talen and social skill
i just have talent and my social skills are easy to use as an excuse to brush things aside. i can invent, and have invented and designed tons of things, but who cares? my photography got me signed, but they stole the work and money… my other inventions allowed others a way to get close entough to empty my bank accounts… and others, generally dont reciprocate in kind when i do work for them in exchange for help
[medications tend to kill the abilities]
i often wish i can show you guys examples of my art and photography and inventions… a childish fantasy that stems from watching old hollyweird movies where the “star” is discovered.. 🙁
dicentra–“what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.” “Everyone needs to read that again.”
I have. And I also have the experience of walking 2 people through the very suffering you are describing. I wish I had saved the note. It so poignantly expressed the dilemma–knowledge that circumstances were not unbearable for many, and historical knowledge that so many bore so much greater a burden of pain and suffering, nonetheless a debilitating desire to bring the suffering to an end.
In both cases ONE THING stopped these 2 from the final solution–instead of hanging from a rope, they hung to the thread of caring more about the future pain it would bring to their immediate loved ones. They chose to endure the suffering rather than visit it on others.
In one case, psychiatry, medication–used as a bridge, not a crutch, and the support of family paved the way to sound mental health. One encounter–a text, “I hurt.” I leave my office to rush to be there, not knowing if I would be too late. It’s only ended up OK in the long run because this person (and the other) cared more for me than they did for themselves. That’s the God’s honest truth.
And in the aftermath…life…the ups, the downs and the in-between–above all, the future. The times we have enjoyed together, the travels, the holidays, the caring for the new baby in the family. No one and nothing could replace these individuals in my life experience.
Life involves the fellowship of joys and the fellowship of sufferings. Great sacrifices have been made by many for the benefit of others in every arena of life. Enduring mental anguish and seeking a solution for the benefit of not visiting that pain upon the family is truly a worthwhile endeavor.
The other has written a short book about his experience with future hopes of publishing it. When he writes of his encounter, holding a knife to his throat and drawing blood, and then dropping the knife because he pictures his parents at his funeral, he describes his desire to end his pain as “his last selfish act” should he carry it out.
Father Neuhaus wrote that “man is a problem-solving creature. If he didn’t have problems to solve he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.” Yes, these are complicated problems. I, thankfully can attest to solutions, but I would be remiss if I left out the God equation. Without steadfast prayer and fasting, I would not have a good report to share.
Guns & Suicide: The Hidden Toll
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine-features/guns-and-suicide-the-hidden-toll/
In 2010 in the U.S., 19,392 people committed suicide with guns, compared with 11,078 who were killed by others.
interesting article… on the one hand, save everyone from guns, when 2/3 of all gun deaths are self inflicted (and not broken down by why, or whatever)
then the same people, in another area, think its ok for MILLIONs to be exterminated before birth…
even more interesting is that the whole piece is a hack job throwing the kitchen sink at one, without a care as to rational points.
we have near 300,000,000 and they want ALL guns stopped for 11,078
you have to go back to 1919 to have car deaths be less!
1925 crosse the 20,000 threshold
1930 crosses the 30,000 threshold
the five worst years
1970 – 52,627
1968 – 52,725
1969 – 53,543
1973 – 54,052
1972 – 54,589
with 2010 giving a total of 32,999
lets get rid of cars before we get rid of guns
cars are much more deadly by a HUGE margin
forgot to add
Suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the U.S.; in 2010, 38,364 people killed themselves
I’m usually one of those disgusted with the coverage of celebrity deaths.
But I have to say, this one kicked me right in the gut. I was a huge fan, from Mork and Mindy to the present.
I had the chance to meet Robin Williams once. I was on a trip to San Fransisco with my then girlfriend. We saw him walking two small dogs. The two of us didn’t want to be rude, so we didn’t approach him. But he realized that we recognized him. He approached us.
What followed was ten minutes of manic graciousness. He asked so many questions, rapid fire that we were overwhelmed. But he was also very kind. Handshakes and laughs.
It was odd to feel so overwhelmed and yet so welcomed. We were dizzy when we left. I have met a few celebrities in my life but Robin Williams left the biggest impression. I also came away from the experience with an appreciation for the memory he must have had. The details of our lives that he would bring back into the conversation. It was amazing. I can’t say what kind of man he was. I didn’t know him. But I grieve for his family.
However, he was one of a small handful of celebrities willing to go all the way into Iraq and Afghanistan, when other USO performers stopped at places like Kuwait and Qatar and Germany.
To all those who don’t understand I can only say this: for some of us, whose childhoods were…less than ideal, never underestimate the effect of a man who can effortlessly bring smiles and laughter.
i am sorry dicentra that you actually understand my points… wish that it werent so…
It’s to the point where I wish everyone understood, even if it meant subjecting them to this anguish for a week or so.
People get so angry when you cry out in pain at their casual cruelty. YOU’re the one with the problem, because they, THEY are normal, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be, too.
It’s not wrong to try to stop someone who is suicidal. You should, in fact, make every effort.
However, it IS wrong to attribute selfishness to those who go through with it. That’s like saying the 9/11 jumpers should have known how traumatic their impact on the pavement would be to onlookers, so they should have endured dying in the fire instead.
No, you sorrow for the awful situation that the jumpers were in; you absolutely DON’T insist that you’d never have jumped, out of consideration to the onlookers.
Seriously. You have no idea how bad it hurts to hear people say stuff like that. It marks you as Yet Another Person we cannot turn to.
That that list is long enough already, thank you very much.
Women very rarely end it by gun. Men typically do. Women often survive their attempts. Men don’t. Hhmmmmmmmmm…. ((-:
NeoConScum:
When I was in college I did a big presentation on suicide. I remember the gender differences were prominent even back then.
See this for more current information, including this on hanging (in Europe), which may be somewhat of a surprise:
From a 2010 study of the US—the gender differences are great, but woman use firearms more than one might think (at least, more than I would have thought):
Men also commit homicide using a gun more often than women do.
I expect the success rate is similar as well.
I have no comment on the death of Robin Williams with respect to the circumstances or the justification for his final act.
Most of us have no frame of reference with which to evaluate. I have known people–including a brother–whose thinking was so foreign to anything I could imagine, that I simply concluded that they were wired differently, and left it there. I suppose that there are medications and therapeutic exercises that can help in some case–obviously not in all.
I do know he was unique. My daughter is a long time staff member at a major rehab hospital owned by LA County. Many Stars visit the facility for various reasons, perhaps from altruism or for publicity as the case may be. Robin Williams was a periodic visitor. My daughter said that he was, in addition to being very, very funny on an extemporaneous basis, a warm and charming individual in his personal interactions. My Grand daughter fondly remembers that he took time with a pre-teen with a mouth full of braces; and made her feel special.
sometimes lives are not worth living as they get to a dead spot that they are not allowed to get out of, and its imposed by others.. like mine… 🙁
dicentra: YOU’re the one with the problem, because they, THEY are normal, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be, too.
yes there is. i have aspergers
so they put me in a tiny room till i had a stroke
after years in there in total isolation and no raises
i complained and was upset.
this they called a melt down
now, i have no future, nothing i do counts
no matter what…
so now, i am watching my life die millimeter by millimeter and nothing i can do about it till the end.
i wont make 15 years of this…
i may not make it to next month…
been crying for help for years…
nothing that changes anything.
most of it amounts to holding your hand while you go
or drugging you up so you dont care what they are doing to you.
completely isolated, they can hurt me all they want
i will lose my wife… my home… my retirment
and no lawyer will take the case (so far)
what differnce does it make?
they could not last 3-4 years in complete isolation, but they sure can judge me when i couldnt take it any more…
isnt it nice what they are doing to a handicapped person? i hope every day that i dont wake up. but i do… then what? just more horrors and pain..