Robin Williams was found dead today. He'd committed suicide after battling drug issues and depression, leaving behind three kids and a recent marriage. The drugs were likely to allow him to escape the things that wouldn't leave him alone, the depression was there to remind him that the drugs were not a permanent solution. It's a vicious cycle that is self-feeding. The depression feeds the drugs and the drugs feed the depression. Most people focus on the drug use as the issue...maybe it is the issue or maybe it's just a catalyst.
It got me to thinking...about all the shit I went through growing up and my own battle with depression as a teen and young adult. I can certainly understand the 'how' and 'why' mechanics of being overwhelmed by things you can't control. Feelings that you cannot escape. Mistakes that haunt you every waking moment. I stayed away from drugs, somehow, in spite of both parents being heavy drinkers and at least recreational/moderate drug users. I watched a lot of people with amazing potential completely destroy their lives. I know the names of far too many people who are not breathing right now. I learned a lot by watching others make all the wrong decisions for sustainable life. I was almost fascinated by the decision making process and wound up using quite a lot of what I learned in my own life. That's been both positive and negative. I've taken chances I'd have avoided and settled when I should have kept going.
It doesn't matter how great your life is or how fantastic all the people around you are capable of being. If you can't get your head wrapped around how 'okay' everything is, then it is not okay. All the trappings of being 'well to do' don't help, they merely become distractions. If you spend enough money or travel often you can 'forget' just how fucking miserable things are when you're alone with your thoughts. No one can torment you like your own sense of nothingness.
People have varying degrees of tolerance for things-mine is way too low for a great many things-and the 'snap' that pushes things over the edge can be very quiet-so low in volume that only one person can hear it. If that person doesn't speak, for any reason, they often just let go. The questions and reasons are endless and debating them is pointless because the only person who really knows the answers will never reveal them.
It's hard to know exactly what pushed Robin Williams over the edge. And it really isn't anyone's business to know. It's just a fucking shame that so many great and talented people, like Robin Williams, give up and very quietly let go. They may struggle for days or weeks, months or years. They may win a great many battles and still lose the war because the 'fight' or the reason for to 'keep on keeping on' just doesn't matter.
Greg Giraldo and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are two more examples of people who just quietly let go while others expected them to keep going. Keeping up the fight is what they'd been doing for so long that no one expected that they'd just say 'fuck it' and let go. But sometimes when you're hanging on to a rope struggling to find more of that inner strength and you're slipping further down...you get to a point where you realize that the end of the rope is a noose that's wrapped around your neck. At some point, you just don't have the energy to keep fighting, to keep holding on and the silent, dark permanent end becomes appealing because you're so tired of the struggle. Of trying to do it for someone else. Of trying to just hold on a little longer.
It's just time for the end. It's selfish but there's no other viable way to end the struggle. It's the only thing that will actually fucking happen...you can count on it.
So you just let go. Knowing you just can't go on anymore.
I just wish that it would stop happening to people like Robin Williams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
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