 |
| Robin Williams - 1951-2014 |
As
the world still tries to get its head around the sudden and tragic death of the
comic comet that was Robin Williams, the righteous have started to creep about on
Facebook, chiding those posting heartfelt expressions of shock and sadness
at the news of his death on their pages, and exhorting them to spend as much
time thinking about the “ordinary” victims of depression: i.e., those who
suffer without fame to cushion them.
Whilst
we now know that this man who made us laugh and cry across so many years as
both comedian and actor was fighting the Black Dog the whole time, there have
also been murmurings about his battle with drugs, and his “comfortable” life
bought with the money he earned making millions of people all over the world forget
their own miseries and smile for a while.
I
seem to remember a similar sort of slime began to ooze all over my Facebook
feed about Whitney Houston before her body was even cold. “She brought it on
herself.” “Why focus on her when real people are dying of drug overdoses?” - Etc
etc etc. The blazingly brilliant actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died of a drug overdose earlier this year aged just 46 received exactly the same treatment. It made me think. We love to be diverted. We love our music and our
films and our theatre nights. Most people have extensive film, and music
collections. Often illegal downloads out of which the artists never make a
penny. Generally speaking, the ‘ordinary’ folk just love to be entertained, but
it seems that few have very much time for entertainers. Especially entertainers
with problems. Such people receive "unfair" attention for their issues when ‘ordinary’
people suffer in silence. The minute a celebrity dies in tragic circumstances, it
only takes a few hours before we find we are being admonished on social media for
being upset about it, and told to pull ourselves together and think of the ‘ordinary’
people.
Performers
don’t always “choose” their lives. Short and chubby as a kid, Robin Williams was bullied senseless in school, so used his talent at comedy to protect himself. After all, surely nobody would
kick the funniest boy in the class or steal his chocolate milk, right?
Good for him, he ended up making a living out of it, and in the process, gave joy to
millions, but sadly it seems the demons never left him.
The
fact that this final desperate act of a brilliant and world famous man might
actually help to highlight the seriousness of Depression, and that sufferers
can’t just “snap out of it”, seems lost on the self-righteous individuals
championing the suffering of the common man and hijacking the death of a talented
and tormented man to do it. All suicides are tragic, but it seems only those of
the famous are accompanied by endless comment, speculation, and inevitable censure.
After all, what does a famous entertainer need to be depressed about, right? Those
telling us all off for being heartbroken at the loss of Robin Williams at the
stupidly early age of 63 might do well to remember his wife and kids when they
post. To have to read such things is something the grieving families of “ordinary”
folk seldom have to suffer.
Personally
speaking, as a nobody with three nervous breakdowns to my name, if I hear that
someone suffers from Depression, I don’t care if it’s the road sweeper, or the
President of the United States - they have my sympathy in equal amounts.
The
fact is that Robin’s fame clearly didn’t “cushion” him, or he might still be
here.
Emmeline Wyndham
12
August 2014
