Robin Williams

[Mr Mystery]

His wife has now 'revealed' that Robin had just been diagnosed with Parkinsons, and his sobriety was fine.

[eldargal]

Which is a good cautionary tale of making assumptions based on early media reports.

[Mr Mystery]

Well indeed. Would that we lived in a world where early media reports themselves served as caution against forming opinions based on whatever a media hack has reported at all.

[Gotthammer]

“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…

Kara Seymour @kara_michelle01
@TateLovett thank u for being right😂✊I love robin Williams but I think the way he died was his own stupidity. It's sad but his own fault

Darnell @Thathigga
Idk why everyone is so sympathetic towards Robin Williams. Yea he was a good actor and all but the dude killed himself. His own damn fault

Robin Williams dieing is sad but it was his choice What about the 1000′s of children dieing in Palestine that dont want to die thats sad too — TerryCrosbie (@Terry_Crosbie)

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.”

— [URL="http://www.tomclempson.com/2014/08/robin-williams-did-not-die-from-suicide/"]Tom Clempsom[/URL]

[Kirsten]

so very true, it is tragic that suicide is still viewed in such a way. friends of friends, when confronted with the massive suicide rate in the US simply dismissed it out of hand saying people had a right to kill themselves if they wanted and nobody should interfere. they had no interest in the cause, or any one of the simple steps that could cut suicide rates, it was just something people did, and was the suicidal person's problem, no need for anyone else to care.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I have to agree with them. I mean, after all, we all know that an inflamed appendix is lethal, but if you really wanted to avoid that sort of thing, you'd have studied medicine and learned to fix it with surgery, right? It's utterly shameful to seek help when your lungs are being devoured by cancer, for example, that's just something your body's doing and really it's your own problem.

[swoods]

I happened to be in my local pub on tuesday night, enjoying curry and a pint or 3. Anyway. One of the regulars, who was inebriated (don't get me wrong I like a good drink too) was discussing, rather loudly, robin williams' demise and then started spouting off about how depression/mental illness isn't real, it's all fake blah blah. Well... as a long term sufferer of acute depressive disorder I very nearly got up and stabbed the silly c**t with my fork. I, along with a number of others were so disgusted with him that we got up and walked out after explaining to him that at least three of us had a similar condition. Now I know we all do /say silly things when we're drunk, but even his little clique of "friends" were mortified.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that Robin Williams may have suffered from depression (and parkinson's-another disease I'm quite familiar with), but there are still ignorant arseholes out there who refuse to recognise it.

[Wolfshade]

I fear my view on suicide will not be terribly popular. If someone wants to end it all then they should do, they should not be guilt tripped into living, after all they have enough pressures on them that they cannot cope with how cruel it is to heap more upon that.

Certainly, be supportive and kind and listen to them. Talk with them and maybe they will choose to live, but ultimately it is their choice and they need to decide to live for themselves.

[Psychosplodge]

Exactly.
And while sad, it's certainly not the cowardly thing to do. It must take a certain amount of courage to end it all not knowing if that is it or if something more awaits or even worse, we've all seen beetlejuice right?

[CoffeeGrunt]

I think the aim is to try and divert people from that course if possible, by making them feel a bit better about life.