Robin Williams. Can't help but think....
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Anonymous
My father died from the same illness. Was not easy watching him deteriorate. |
Anonymous
But Robin Williams did not die from stigma. He was lauded and praised by everyone (except maybe his first wife). Unrelated to Robin Williams…If anything, we are too quick to excuse behavior and diagnose everything instead of realizing that it is normal to feel down sometimes (and we actually have some agency in preventing depression or anxiety from becoming chronic). Bipolar mania is hard to live with, even when you understand it intellectually and don’t blame the sufferers; same with schizophrenia, etc. |
Anonymous
| Speaking of, just watched Awakenings on Netflix last night. Great movie based on a true story! |
Anonymous
The OP’s confusing post referring to mental illness, most likely means: - the OP struggles with her own mental illness. |
Anonymous
Is your point that you don’t know how to write, & are blaming this lack on overrated dead comedians? |
Anonymous
NP...that is mean. But, OP no one really knows for sure why anyone kills themselves. Don't practice psych w/o a license. Get help. |
Anonymous
NP. The bolded reflects a misunderstanding of how stigma harms people. Mental health stigma works in a bunch of different ways. Many people are fearful of being diagnosed with a mental health issue (because of the associated stigma) so they don't seek treatment and pretend to be okay. Other people get diagnosed and treated but experience stigma because friends, family, and employers do not view their mental health issues as "real" or think the person is being over-dramatic. Other people deal with internalized stigma, even if friends and family are supportive. The stigma becomes part of the mental illness, where their depression or anxiety worsens because they are blaming themselves, getting angry with themselves, asking themselves why they can't just get over it. Sometimes people experience a form of C-PTSD where the attitudes of their caregivers towards mental health when they were children create a stigmatizing environment for them even when they are adults or even when they are away from those caregivers, because the stigma assigned to mental health issues when they were kids continues to impact them. And so on. A person can be professionally successful and wildly praised and liked, and still experience mental health stigma. In some cases, being very successful could make the stigma more damaging, because the fear of losing status if people find out, or the sense that many people rely on them to "be strong" and not need help. Anyway, much of what Williams said about depression when he was alive reflected the experience of someone who had dealt with both external and internal stigma as he struggled with these issues. The one that always sticks with me is when he said that people don't fake being depressed, they fake being okay. I think about his public persona and how often he must have used comedy and goofiness to mask depression, and the many reasons he would have had for doing that. I'm not a professional comedic actor but I've done the same many times, using jokes or bits to distract from how I'm actually feeling or to convince people I'm doing great when I'm not. |
Anonymous
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His partner for the last 7 years of his life gave a very good interview 10 years ago on the subject of why he did it. In the article she states that starting in 2013, Robin knew something was wrong.
https://www.eonline.com/news/712507/susan-schneider-reveals-the-real-reason-behind-robin-williams-suicide-we-were-living-a-nightmare "In November of 2013, he had a little gut pain. Next month, it was another symptom. It was like this endless parade of symptoms and not all of them would raise their head at once. It was like playing Whack-a-Mole. Which symptom is it this month?" Schneider recollected. "I thought, 'Is my husband a hypochondriac?' We're chasing it and theres no answer. By now we tried everything." The months of visible depression, anxiety, and paranoia led to a diagnosis that Williams was in the early stages of Parkinson's disease. However, according to Schneider, it was his undiagnosed mental illness that truly led him to take his own life. "Lewy Body Dementia killed Robin," she said definitively. "It's what took his life and that's what I've spent the last year trying to get to the bottom of." While they did not know the culprit behind his mental battle at the time, Schneider says her husband knew something was definitely wrong from the start. "He was aware of it. He was keeping it together as best as he could, but the last month he could not. It was like the dam broke." she said, adding that while he was scheduled to go for neurocognitive testing around the time of his death, she believes his suicide was his way of regaining control. "I think he was just saying no and I don't blame him one bit." As someone who has a parent with dementia, it's a terrible thing to watch. Especially early on when they are aware that something is amiss and they are aware that they are forgetting things they shouldn't. They get angry and depressed that their mind and body are failing them and there's nothing they can do. And then as it progresses, they become a shell of a human. My dad is at the stage where he's losing most of his words. He has things he wants to say and needs to say, but can't make them come out, so it's lots of grunts and pointing and frustration on his face. It's heartbreaking. |
Anonymous
Unfortunately people with mental disorders do a lot of self-sabotaging things and have issues with their thinking. All we can hope for is that science catches up and helps people see scientifically how to better handle these diseases. As adults they have agency and most people want to keep this agency for themselves. |