Robin Williams didn’t die from suicide. I only just heard the sad, sad news of Robin Williams’s death. My wife sent me a message to tell me he had died, and, when I asked her what he died from, she told me something that nobody in the news seems to be talking about.
When people die from cancer, their cause of death can be various horrible things – seizure, stroke, pneumonia – and when someone dies after battling cancer, and people ask “How did they die?”, you never hear anyone say “pulmonary embolism”, the answer is always “cancer”. A Pulmonary Embolism can be the final cause of death with some cancers, but when a friend of mine died from cancer, he died from cancer. That was it. And when I asked my wife what Robin Williams died from, she, very wisely, replied “Depression”.
The word “suicide” gives many people the impression that “it was his own decision,” or “he chose to die, whereas most people with cancer fight to live.” And, because Depression is still such a misunderstood condition, you can hardly blame people for not really understanding. Just a quick search on Twitter will show how many people have little sympathy for those who commit suicide…
But, just as a Pulmonary Embolism is a fatal symptom of cancer, suicide is a fatal symptom of Depression. Depression is an illness, not a choice of lifestyle. You can’t just “cheer up” with depression, just as you can’t choose not to have cancer. When someone commits suicide as a result of Depression, they die from Depression – an illness that kills millions each year. It is hard to know exactly how many people actually die from Depression each year because the figures and statistics only seem to show how many people die from “suicide” each year (and you don’t necessarily have to suffer Depression to commit suicide, it’s usually just implied). But considering that one person commits suicide every 14 minutes in the US alone, we clearly need to do more to battle this illness, and the stigmas that continue to surround it. Perhaps Depression might lose some its “it was his own fault” stigma, if we start focussing on the illness, rather than the symptom. Robin Williams didn’t die from suicide. He died from Depression*. It wasn’t his choice to suffer that. –Tom Clempsom
Well said. It is ime that information about what depression really is and how it affects people is published so that people recognize the signs and know how to get help. And so others who do not have depression or understand it’s effect stop talking non-sense about something they don’t understand.
Robin Williams was a gift to all who enjoyed his comedy, his movies, and his kind and generous spirit. He is greatly missed.
Very well said. Thank you for putting into words what so many of us face every day, myself included.
Wow! That was my first thought, after hearing the news of Robin’s death…He died of depression. I have struggled with depression and have contemplated suicide and neither condition is ‘who’ I am or weakness in any way. I wish the world could understand that and be educated in helping or getting help for the depressed person.
Kathie,PLEASE still have hope…your book is wonderful, and those people who rejected it don’t know what they are talking about. Idiots! I say keep po3eiivtRs0;who knows what will happen with the other two.