Where to begin. Anyone born in the 70s hasn’t known a world without Robin Williams. I vividly remember his first appearance on Happy Days, as Mork from Ork. When he “sat” on the couch with his head on the cushion and his butt in the air, I was transfixed. I followed him wherever he went after that: to his own sitcom Mork and Mindy, to stand-up specials and a list of movies longer than your arm.
Williams’ demons were also well documented. His addiction to cocaine, booze, and whatever else he ingested, was a classic case of self-medicating as many people with mental illnesses tend to do. In Williams’ case, it was depression, deep enough for him to apparently take his own life at the age of 63. If you ask, “he had everything, how could he do that?” you have a lot of learning to do.
Mental illness doesn’t care how much you have in your wallet. It doesn’t care how much your family loves you, how big a fan base you have, whether the sun is shining or you drive a new car. The same way a celebrity is just as prone to falling and breaking their arm, so are they susceptible to the dark side. It’s not that he didn’t go for help, it’s that it sometimes comes to a point when help can no longer get through. The window on the world becomes so small that there appears to be only one way out. The pain seems endless and no one can convince you otherwise. Suicide is an epidemic. We need to do more to stop it. Thank you for the laughs, Robin. It’s like a punch to the gut to know that you gave us so much and we let you slip away.