Christian Lyons’ depression followed the same trajectory as Robin Williams.
The news is filled with the unexpected death of one of the world’s greatest comedians and humanitarians.
I had the pleasure of meeting Robin Williams in the 1970s, just when “Mork and Mindy” was first taking off. I was but a teenager, visiting Colorado from Michigan. In a local restaurant, Williams and crew came in for lunch, he plopped himself at our table and chatted for a while. He bought our meal and proved to be wickedly intelligent, kind, and hilarious. I idolized him through my high school years and bought and wore the rainbow suspenders he was known for in that era.
The experience left a definite impression on me and I followed Williams’ career like his other millions of fans.
Upon news of his suicide, I scanned the social networking sites, interested in the reactions of those I knew online. In this way could I perhaps come to terms with a tremendous loss. I was appalled at those who called Williams’ suicide “selfish” or “stupid” or “what a waste.” There were those who flung worse words at the event, as if they were personally injured by his actions. And perhaps they were, who was I to judge?
—
I come from a family in which mental illness is pretty common. My father was institutionalized when I was seven, diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenic, and my mother suffered Borderline Personality Disorder, a dangerously insidious disease. Perhaps because of these events, I developed a severe case of depression. Or perhaps I was biologically predisposed to it.
Throughout my teens and well into my thirties, I didn’t realize that what I was experiencing was called depression. I felt that my drug and alcohol addictions were personality flaws that I had to somehow overcome. It was a deep-seated addiction that had beset me, resulting in thousands of dollars a month cocaine habit. Sometime in 1997, it was as if I woke up and saw that I was slowly but surely killing myself, and made the executive decision to “either kill myself outright, or get my shit together and live.”
I quit cold turkey, and without the aid of any kind of support group. It took more than ten years to feel that I had overcome those addictions, and it wasn’t a time that was easy or fun or even mildly pleasant. I backslid several times, but didn’t let those instances derail my intentions.
—
However, one side effect of no longer self-medicating was that I peeled the layers off of the depression that had clutched its talons into me for decades, and I was forced to face it head on…and seek help or perish. I spent months and years wondering if that was all there was to life, and wondered whether it was worth carrying on. It was a battle between my survivor side and depression.
My trajectory was very much like the one that Robin Williams dealt with throughout his life. Depression isn’t something you simply “get over.” If you’re lucky, you find a combination of medications that help you function at a level that isn’t like slogging through quicksand, or tar pits; every day a conscious decision and a struggle.
Not everyone’s biology is receptive to medications, and those people will frequently slide back into a debilitating depression wherein they feel or perceive nothing but incredible pain. The pain overshadows everything and everybody around you. It’s all-encompassing. It’s a feeling of just wanting that pain to end, and often, unfortunately, the only way we can possibly see bringing it to an end is suicide.
While people, in their ignorance or fear, claim that suicide is somehow selfish or all about the person in indescribable pain, it is pretty much not that at all. Nor is it a sign of weakness. It is a viable solution to a problem that the sufferer has been plagued by their entire lives. It’s a solution very similar to deciding to pull a broken tooth that’s causing you excruciating pain, pain that no medication will take care of. If that person is lucky, he or she is surrounded by people who recognize the signs and can perhaps intervene in some way. Not everyone has such a luxury.
—
Williams often lamented about being surrounded by so many people, yet feeling overwhelmingly alone. One might even say that his manic form of comedy was a way of releasing some of that depression in a healthy way. But comedy or acting or being there for one’s family is no cure for depression. Sometimes, it’s simply delaying the inevitable.
We may reach a point where we no longer feel we want to fight depression any longer. Williams likely fought the good fight for fifty years or more. Depression is a very real and very dangerous illness. To laugh at or dismiss someone who is experiencing the invisible illness is simply willful ignorance or a person’s own fear responding. It’s interesting how people will dismiss an illness like depression simply because they cannot see it.
Make it a point to understand the things you feel you don’t currently understand. Understand that there isn’t always a “cure” for such things. And that’s where fear comes into play, because we feel helpless that we’re unable to do anything to relieve a fellow human’s pain. Don’t let that fear derail your efforts to simply be there for him or her. Let them know, no matter what, that you are there for them, and you will always be there for them. And still, if that person chooses death over life, know that it’s nothing personal to you or to anyone else. It is simply the only choice that person feels they have left in this world.
Photo credit: Flickr.com/bagogames
I think you can say the biproduct of suicide may be its selfish …but then the reason for suicide just may also be that your own feeling of pain are so overwhelming that you can’t see anything less important or less painful than your own pain!
Very well said. I’ve been thinking the same thing when I hear people talk about suicide as selfish. I take medication for depression, and although I was never suicidal, one particularly low point made me understand it much more. I wasn’t in that town, but I could see the skyline clearly. Anytime you exercise a fundamental individual right, people will call you selfish. Williams decided how and when he was going to die. That’s about as fundamental an individual right as there is. He did not belong to anyone but himself. He did not belong to his audience. He did… Read more »
Below is an excerpt from the CDC. Please take the time to read this important message: ================================================== ASPECTS OF NEWS COVERAGE THAT CAN PROMOTE SUICIDE CONTAGION Clinicians, researchers, and other health professionals at the workshop agreed that to minimize the likelihood of suicide contagion, reporting should be concise and factual. Although scientific research in this area is not complete, workshop participants believed that the likelihood of suicide contagion may be increased by the following actions: • Presenting simplistic explanations for suicide. Suicide is never the result of a single factor or event, but rather results from a complex interaction of… Read more »
I agree with all your points about depression being a very real illness, and I understand the mindset of why suicide would help. If I was in constant pain, I would likely want to die as well. However, I do not think any excuse can disregard the fact that the act of suicide is inherently a selfish act. I am not saying that Robin Williams was a selfish individual–it is quite clear that he was anything but selfish by the way he interacted with other people and loved making others laugh. But when you make a decision that is only… Read more »
Connor, I have to respectfully disagree. When I was in the depths of clinical depression, and contemplating terminating my life, there certainly was a part of me that just wanted the pain and suffering to end, but what nearly pushed me over the edge was the unrelenting thought that my family would be so much better off without me. The mental suffering was indeed great, but I had suffered with that most of my life. And although it may sound contradictory, it was seeing how much my family was suffering as a result of my depression that emboldened me to… Read more »
No one was put on this earth to ensure other peope’s happiness.. THAT is selfish. So according to your definition of selfish: eating is a selfish act cutting your hair is a selfish act walking across the street is a selfish act Watching your favorite show is a selfish act cutting your nails is a selfish act. buying a car without using it to pick up as many people as you can along your trip is a selfish act. reading is selfish playing video games is selfish… I can only imagine the people thinking “he killed himself! how selfish. who’s… Read more »
What is more selfish? Taking your own life OR expecting another human being to continue suffering excruciating pain just so you don’t have to experience losing them. As someone who has attempted suicide twice (and expect that I will eventually die that way), the pain that depression causes is so overwhelming at times that anyone who REALLY comprehended the intensity of it would NEVER want that person to continue suffering. The final irony is that we’re willing to administered incredibly heroic feats of medicine to keep some people physically alive who would very quickly die without it, but those who… Read more »
“What is more selfish? Taking your own life OR expecting another human being to continue suffering excruciating pain just so you don’t have to experience losing them.”
Thank you thank you thank you. As someone who has experienced depression, this is the one thought that always comes up for me when I hear people calling suicide selfish. These people who say things like this clearly have never had depression.
I would have to be rude to anyone who would say anything that resembled the suicide victim as being selfish. I know that the surviving family and friends are in a lot of pain but that’s no reason to say that the person was selfish. They have no idea what was going on in his head. And on the flip side, people who have experienced loved ones who commit suicide should never feel guilt or believe that they did anything wrong. I’m glad that at least for a short time, there will be an increased awareness for male suicide and… Read more »
Yes. Well said. The thought of how suicide might hurt the people around me was a foremost thought when I was at the height of dealing with my own depression. Maybe it was what really saved me from going so far. I don’t doubt for a minute that Robin Williams struggled with how his suicide would affect those around him: most of what he did pointed to what a good and intelligent man he was. He was anything but selfish. It just goes to show us how difficult depression can be.
Well said. Thank you.