Robin Williams, the light and the darkness

Within the last few day people around the world have been grief stricken by the sudden loss of Robin Williams. Whenever we lose someone to mental illness, it always hits me harder, and it often weighs so heavy on me that it can bring me to my knees. It is the same gut wrenching pain I felt when Whitney Houston passed, or Cory Monteith. I can't help but be taken back to the intensity and the darkness of experiencing mental illness myself. To know what if feels like to be completely enveloped in darkness, hopelessness, and emptiness. My mind automatically goes back to that Halloween night when I almost took my own life; my chest aches when remembering the feelings of being so lost and alone and it aches even more to know many others know exactly what that feels like. Someone so funny, so selfless, so kind and so warm like Robin Williams is gone because of a mental illness, depression.

A depressed person isn't just someone who is having a bad day. Depression is like a shadow, no matter how fast you run, no matter how much you try to smile, no matter how much you want to feel happy, depression will follow you wherever you go, it will push you down, it will squeeze out every bit of life you have in you. Depression is not something someone can control and turn on and off whenever they feel like it, depression is a serious mental illness and it is an illness that no one is immune to, yet our society still holds shame and blame to those with mental illnesses. Whenever someone is diagnosed with cancer, we don't blame that person for it, so why is it that we still blame and shame those with a mental illness. When someone passes away from cancer, we don't say "they should have tried harder", so why is it that when someone passes away due to mental illness, we are so quick to judge them for not trying hard enough and thinking that they are selfish. Suicide is anything but a selfish act and to judge it as such shows just how little we know about what it's like to live with a mental illness.

To Robin,

I wish the love we had for you was enough.

To those who know someone experience mental illness,

Don't just hand them a hotline number and feel you've done all you can. Sit with them, talk to them, be there with them. Let them know that they aren't alone and that someone out there is glad that they are alive. Show them light, show them love, show them the beauty of their own spark. Understand the illness and reserve the judgment.

Show them compassion and show them love, show them that you see them despite their illness.

To those who suffer,

I love you. Please reach out for help because the world is a better place with you in it. Please don't leave, because there is life after the semi-colon and I'm here to report that it is magical.

#robinwilliams #suicide #mentalillness #depression