Don't read the sidebar, read the content, silly pants.
www.deviantart.com
I want to briefly address the tragic loss of Robin Williams, because there has been a lot of misunderstanding of suicide, depression, and their effects on people.
Robin Williams was a beautiful person: loving, generous, and one of us. He was a gamer with a love of Zelda and WoW. He was a gifted actor and entertainer. But above and below all of that, he was human. Just like us.
Just like any other human he had his demons. He talked of cocaine as something to calm himself down. His mind was never off. Always going, always on. What tortured him is part of what made him such a vivacious and brilliant comedian.
That sort of brain wiring comes with a cost.
I've seen people call him selfish, or a coward, or imply that his fame and supposed fortune meant he had no right to feel the way he did (conveniently ignoring his openness about his issues and his money troubles since the divorce that cost 30 million).
To that I call utter bullshit
Anyone, anywhere, at any stage in life in any profession can suffer from clinical depression. I myself have demons that I can't rightly identify the source of; that doesn't make me less worthy of having them. I've been suicidal. You literally cannot think that it will get better, for me, it was all about how ashamed I was of myself and how much I hated having to be here. Having to live for other people when I didn't want to be alive. You're not in a "safe" place in your mind and heart when you feel that way.
It isn't your fault.
It is t anyone's fault.
We want to blame - blame the person who is gone, blame the people left behind, hell, I felt like I was partially to blame because I couldn't show Robin Williams that he was loved by millions and he didn't even know I existed. But blame is useless at this stage, and in many cases, wrong. Callous. Cruel.
So I ask each of you who feel the need to question how he could go like that when from your view he had so much to live for, or those that think suicide is cowardly, to stop. Do some research. Try and understand depression and how the mind works.
And ultimately, think about what you are saying. Is it helpful? Or hurtful to the surviving friends and family? If it is the latter... is it really worth saying at all?
