And this will be my last posting about Robin Williams … I think. Still am stunned that it has affected me so much. I think I’ll go watch Dead Poet’s Society again tonight.
Enjoy the reblog here. I suggest you go to the original via the link. There are several excellent links to interviews by him … including the one by Terry Gross in 2006 that I have mentioned here already.
Comedian and actor Robin Williams died today at the age of 63. Here are five in-depth interviews with him.
1. Robin Williams: ‘The Night Listener’ (Terry Gross, Fresh Air, Aug. 3, 2006)
Terry Gross talks to Robin Williams, and, towards the end of the interview, asks him about depression: “Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah.”
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Happy Holly Project 
Hi – I stumbled across your series of posts this week as I’ve been searching for other’s who are affected as deeply as I have been. I’m a wreck. I am close to tears even now, five days later. His death has triggered SOMEthing in me, but I cannot place it. Life is good, more or less, I’m safe, I’m healthy, I’m happy more or less…
I read earlier on some pop psychology site that this reaction, this overwhelming fragility in response to a celebrity’s death is common. But I still want to know, why?
Thanks for the links to Anne Lamott’s Facebook post. While I resist accepting the fact that I cannot make sense of it, I get that that is the case.
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Holly, I’ve been unexpectedly thrown by his death as well – I think about him living with his illnesses for 63 years and essentially dying because he couldn’t live with them another day. Does it matter that the act came by his own hand? Why do we judge mental illness so differently than dying from cancer or heart disease when they are all life-sapping diseases that sometimes end in death?
Who has the power to judge someone like Robin and decide he doesn’t deserve a hospice for mental illness? Why can’t he decide to stop “treatment” and receive end-of-life respite? Is that too abhorrent to a society that prefers to keep mental illnesses and addictions hidden?
Sure, people say reach out, get help. Treatments are available and work for many. But anyone on medication for mental illness will tell you the “cure” is often as destructive as the illness. He did all those treatments over and over for 63 years. He did everything he could, and his courage to get out of bed every morning was enormous.
I ache for him and you and me and everyone who lives with black holes and addictions.
I’m not blogging about him, but I’ve grieved aloud on blogging sites. Write about him anytime you need to. I, for one, will be living this loss for a long, long time.
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Well said, Sammy D. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Robin Williams has struck a chord in me on many levels, both personally and with friends.
I’ve heard from others ‘Well *I* had this-and-that and *I* didn’t do such-and-such”. Well, good for them. But each of us gives and does and chooses as we see fit. As we are able. As we think best.
I strongly suspect that it wasn’t that he wanted to die … he just wanted the pain to stop.
Thank you so much for your well worded comment.
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I have heard that said about those who commit suicide -“they don’t want to die; they just want the pain to stop” and that makes sense to me – especially in the tragic suicides of our youth who don’t understand how many years they have ahead of them that might be better than where they are now.
In Robin’s case, it’s the first time I gleaned an intuition that he knows EXACTLY what he has to live with in his future days, and he saw little “living” in them, only slow anguishing existence. Especially finding out another chronic neurological illness was approaching to attack with yet another daily battle.
To me, the above are two vastly different scenarios. The first is one where we should do all we can to get someone through that youthful moment of unbearable pain. The latter, where someone has fought the good fight for 3/4 of his life and is in the twilight years, knowing full well what his capacity for future coping and quality of life is …. shouldn’t we, at the very least, be discussing whether there are more compassionate, caring endings for people like Robin and his family.
I guess the older I get, the more I become an advocate for assisted end-of-life decisions, even when it’s mental illness and not a quantifiable physical end.
I guess that’s what Robin’s death has stirred for me. For most, it seems they clamor for the afflicted to reach out in that “one moment of unbearable pain”. Now I clamor for a humane way for the Robin’s of the world to say I’ve done my utmost all my life, and I cannot sustain this to fight an illness or have a reasonable quality of life for the next 20-30 years.
Too controversial? Missing the point? I don’t know, but this conviction is hardening in me for a more humane ending for our dear Robin.
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