Nanu Nanu - Some Thoughts On The Late Robin Williams And Depression

What a rotten start to the day, waking up to the news that the wonderful Robin Williams appears to have taken his own life last night. He was a brilliant actor and a comic genius. His straight acting was as good as anyone out there, but it was for his ability to make us laugh until we cried that he will be best remembered. Seriously, he could read the phone book, and make it funny. Sadly, behind the mask of unstoppable clown, Robin was battling against addiction and, as we learned today, severe depression. For reasons we may never know, last night those demons took a wonderful human being from the world.
 It's generally pretty easy to tell if someone is sad. They look sad, they cry, they cease to laugh. Usually this sadness will have a cause. It could be loss. It could be worry about money, family or work. It could be disappointment in exams...or love, but there is a cause, and it is valid. Usually, given time and TLC this sadness will lift. The sun will shine again, and the smiles will return.
 It is often much, much harder to spot someone who is severely depressed. Depression tends to be something we hide, something we are deeply ashamed of. Depression often affects those people you would least expect. The strong character who shrugs off life's shitty blows without batting an eyelid. The super successful, happily married friend who can't possible have a care in the world. The one who always has you in stitches, the life and soul of any get-together.
 Sometimes the depression has no obvious, rational source.
 The happily married wife and mother who throws coffee mornings and dinner parties. Her children are adorable and she is always told how incredibly lucky she is...feels like she's drowning in a sea of other people's needs. Who feels like she's disappearing as a person. She is "Darling". She is "Mummy". She used to have a real name. She doesn't feel lucky, however many times she's told she should.
 The successful businessman, with the lovely home, and the 2.4 kids, who grieves for the dreams of freedom that he thought his success would bring him, as he burns the midnight oil trying to keep up with other people's expectations of him.
 The clown who makes everyone around them laugh so that they can join in, because to stop laughing would be to start crying, and knowing that they might never stop.
 Sometimes it's because someone has been fighting battles they didn't want to trouble anyone else with. Addiction, divorce, ill-health, financial trouble. It may be their own, it may be that of someone close to them.
 Being depressed isn't like being sad. Being depressed is insidious. It's as though someone slowly adds a tiny piece of lead to your soul, day after day, until the weight of it becomes unbearable. The business of simply being becomes utterly exhausting. The smallest setback becomes an insurmountable obstacle. It's like being at the bottom of an oubliette. Dark and cold with no way out, and one day it's just easier to curl up on the floor and die, than to continue to struggle.
 Severe depression needs treatment. It needs medication, it needs a professional to step in and throw down a ladder. It needs friends and family to just be there to tell you that they love you and need you, even when you can't love yourself. It needs a lot of understanding, and patience.
 Some of you will know this already, some of you won't, but depression is something I have struggled with on and off for nearly 20 years. My first bad bout came about because of loneliness and money worries. Later episodes have been less clear cut in their origins.
 I have seen psychiatrists, I have been sectioned, I have hit the bottom of that oubliette and wanted to stay there.
 I was fortunate enough to have a loving family, and some pretty fucking amazing friends (you know who you are!) around me when I needed them most. I got the help I needed, and I got better.
 I'm good right now. The older I get, the better I understand myself, and the more ready I am to be selfish. To say "No" more often. To make/take more time for myself, just to be me. I am better aware of the warning signs that tell me I need to be kinder to myself. I can't put my hand on my heart and say it's gone forever, but for now I am in charge and the longer it stays that way, the more optimistic I am.

If you're struggling...

http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/