Okay yeah I hear you and it's all true. Totes sincere. Glad you're better.

So let me set a few thoughts off the side, back behind this cabinet, where we can all enjoy them when we're in what communication consultants describe as a "Yes, and…" frame of mind.

Part of the Williams' problem was apparently financial... He had continuing (and presumably righteous) financial responsibilities to two ex-wives.

So despite success enough for a five hundred American men, or maybe enough for 50,000 by world standards, he was still not likely to enjoy the standard of living he'd have expected from his experiences thirty years ago.

Some of what happened to this guy was characterological, but it wasn't all about depression.

Some of what happened to this guy was characterological, but it wasn't all about depression.

Unless it was depression that led him to have two ex-wives.

---

My daughter suffered reasonably serious depression and anxiety from 18-20 years old, to the point of cutting and suicidal ideation.

That was when we yanked her out of college and brought her home.

My temperament and background were not conducive to comprehension.

Fortunately, Crid gave me some excellent advice.

Just sayin.

> Unless it was depression that led him
> to have two ex-wives.

I reject this countermand for coming from a commenter who needs to buttress the end of his surname with a repeated consonant…

How dare you. How dare you.

Naw... Seriousballs... I didn't read this post any more carefully than anything else she's ever posted. (Was there a YouTube link in there? I almost never follow those either, unless there's a funny animal or a topless woman or a fuzztone electric guitar solo from the 1970's.)

No, I just power-scanned it through the usual judgment matrix—

Is she being personal?

Yes; skip mostly over the next four lines, checking only adverbs.

No; Despite a description of deep personal hurt, she's not using her intimate experience as a power grab or anything: Read the next few lines a little more closely.

No; She's offering kind and straightforward advice: Troubled people should get help from their own intimates or the many others in our culture who are enthused about offering it in a spirit of generosity, and sometimes the rest of us a need to back off for a sec. Look for audio/visual support materials.

Yes, with tolerably fancy clothes, stalwart posture, direct eye contact, and good skin; Therefore, attack the post only on practicalities.

And seekers, here now are those practicalities:

Whatever Amy's difficulties back in the 80's —and I won't read about them again to learn the specifics, which are her own beeswax— Amy did not conduct her life in such a way that the burdens she accepted would halve her well-being thereafter; nor would her intimacies & choices of the 1990's halve it again…

…As they seem to have done for Robin Williams. M'kay? Got that? He started two families with children, and then married a third time. (And I sincerely have no doubt the third wife was a thoughtful, adoring doll.)

Whatever Williams' childhood was like —and he used to say it was tremendously lonely (see the original Rolling Stone interview)— He seems not to have accepted lessons about attachment from the passage.

A lot of us have troubled childhoods, and what we learn is that we ought not be too expansive in our conduct when responding to impulse: The beautiful girl we're getting along with GREAT one summer isn't the one to spend a lifetime with, and natural skill for some silly chore might not become a source of achievement in our working lives.

And when our first grown-up failures happen while ignoring these lessons, we listen CAREFULLY to the whispers of adult instruction.

M'kay?


Not kidding.

If childhood (or ANY chapter of your life) teaches you to move slowly, move slowly.

Amy isn't better off now just because she was lucky, or because she was courageous... She was humble, too.

I'm not sure deep humility was something Robin Williams ever accepted. Movie stardom sometimes takes that away from people.

Williams was bi-polar? The default setting for us is suicide and we keep it artificially at bay via meds (drugs and booze work too and are alot more fun but you end up quickly dead anyways).

I've never known of an unmedicated but high functioning bi-polar who didnt have that nagging suicidal voice on repeat in their heads. I used to have it too and I have never attempted suicide.

Chemically bi-polar depression is nothing like major depressive disorder or other types of depression. I would describe it as more "psychotic" in nature.

From Wiki

"On June 4, 1978, Robin Williams married his first wife, Valerie Velardi. They met in 1976 when he worked as a bartender at a tavern in San Francisco.[64] Their son Zachary Pym "Zak" Williams was born in 1983. During Williams's first marriage, he was involved in an extramarital relationship with Michelle Tish Carter, a cocktail waitress whom he met in 1984.[65][66] Williams and Velardi divorced in 1988.[67]
From Wiki.

On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces, a Filipino American and Zachary's nanny, who was several months pregnant with his child. They had two children, Zelda Rae Williams (born 1989) and Cody Alan Williams (born 1991). In March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, citing irreconcilable differences.[66][68] Williams married his third wife, graphic designer Susan Schneider, on October 23, 2011, in St. Helena, California.[69] Their residence was Williams's house in Sea Cliff, a neighborhood in San Francisco, California.[66][70][71]

Williams stated, "My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings."[72]"

"Some of what happened to this guy was characterological, but it wasn't all about depression.

Posted by: Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at August 13, 2014 11:32 PM"

Yep

I'm still not clear if it was clinical depression or bipolar disorder. They are different things and the necessary treatments are different -- notably, the SSRIs that work best against clinical depression make bipolar disorder worse. One would think that after all this time, Williams had been diagnosed correctly and was receiving the proper treatment, but...

Most people when they hit their 60s can look forward to slowing down.
But I think he said it best himself: “Divorce is expensive, I used to joke they were going to call it ‘all the money’, but they changed it to ‘alimony’. It’s ripping your heart out through your wallet.”
Was alimony a contributing factor? I'd guess probably.

Kind of amazong that everyone -- from a blog post and some news stories -- feels they can diagnose what was wrong with Williams.

I think Randy Nesse's notion that depression is an evolutionary adaptation -- "low mood" to slow us down when we are doing frustrating things -- makes sense.

Seemingly unresolvable financial problems could be part of it. Are there other elements? I would guess there are but I sure wouldn't presume to have pat answers because I saw tweets about Williams and a few news stories.

Nesse's work linked here: http://www.randolphnesse.com/articles/depression

And yes, I kept forgetting to take this bracelet shot for Rottenberg and did it one night when I looked nice -- brought it with me the night of my reading at Diesel Books -- rather than taking it while sitting at my computer looking disheveled.

> Kind of amazong that everyone -- from a
> blog post and some news stories -- feels
> they can diagnose what was wrong with
> Williams.

…And that others, in those same contexts, will pretend that his problems were essentially medical, thus requiring "diagnosis" rather than judgment.

A hyooge part of the problem, indisputably, is that boyfriend fucked up.

Whatever the reason so many are invested in mourning - just as cancer didn't make Cathy Seipp a better person (taking her published word for it, no disrespect intended), being a great comic didn't make Robin one. Having faults might have made it easier for him to see ours and make fun of our situation, but it didn't make him the god so many seem determined to worship.

Amy - thanks for posting this and spreading news of a good cause. I'm not one usually to get these bracelets, but maybe it's time.

I looked up to Robin as an actor, and as a fellow human, this was tough. Hopefully enough people talk about it and then follow through with some action. Even in a brief conversation with some colleagues, they stated "you know, next time I'll say hi" and "don't be afraid to ask how you are - and listen."

A hyooge part of the problem, indisputably, is that boyfriend fucked up.

Posted by: Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at August 14, 2014 8:02 AM

It sounds to me like he fucked pretty much everything attractive and female.

Whether medical, or character flaw, possibly a combination of both, it has all the signs of very poor impulse control,

I know this is off topic but you look good with bangs.

Except that if you've ever followed his career, even before the ex-wives and financial problems he speaks about being suicidal and depressed. It has always been a constant dark cloud following him around in his life.

This wasn't the first time he thought about it people. He's always thought about it since before he could get laid or spend money at a snap of a finger.

A quick google search confirms that he was most likely bi-polar. I've seen the meanest and the saintliest of bi-polars blow their brains out.

Impulse control? You better believe we don't have it and no amount of discipline will ever make us partake in it. It's not a "personal responsibility" flaw and it's why I never recommend you get in a relationship with one unless they don't suffer from something you cant put up with (cheating and spending, are the common ones).

If poor financial decisions, angry ex-wives, and alimony were the cause of suicide than all of Hollywood would be dead. Did it contribute to his suicide? Most likely it made whatever problem he had worse. But alot of fixable shit contributes to suicide, none of it rational.

Hard to believe that the doll in the picture was ever tormented. I am glad you found your strength - and sad you found all of the frilly stuff in that photo, concealing so much goodness!

Williams always looked depressed or bipolar in his movies. It was one reason I never really liked them. He usually had the main character self destruct in some embarrassing and public fashion that was easily avoidable.

Often people who chase humor that hard are compensating for personal pain.

Robin Williams had Parkinson’s disease, wife says

“Robin's sobriety was intact and he was brave as he struggled with his own battles of depression, anxiety as well as early stages of Parkinson's disease, which he was not yet ready to share publicly,” she revealed on Thursday after reports circulated that the recovered alcoholic and drug addict may have fallen off the wagon.

So that may have contributed to his depression.

> So that may have contributed to
> his depression.

You can call it cynical if you want, but I find this repairs my admiration for the guy.

Go ahead and ask if I'm glad I wrote this on Tuesday:

Many typical afflictions do not in fact pass.

People shouldn't be glib about suicide when they're young and fit and unprepared for a life in senior torment and disability. Neither should they be too eager to shuck their lives away in a mundane afternoon of unpleasantness.

Being too sunny is as ugly as being too grim. Most days of most lives aren't berries and cream, and it does no good to talk as if they are, or should be.

Yes... Yes, I am glad I said that.

Go ahead an ask if the seemingly oracular purity of my insights on human nature are ever a burden as I ruminate on our tawdry comings and goings in a world that doesn't care.

The answer?

No, not usually... It's just a matter of subsuming one's natural fondness for happy outcomes to one's admiration for unpleasant truth.

I loved Robin Williams enough not to want to imagine him growing sick and clumsy and incontinent and immobilized. Go back and look at his HBO special at the Roxy in 1978; It's on YouTube. The way he moved was a big part of his life.

It's a dark planet.





(PS-- MJF has got to be thinking WTF....)

I don't see how having Parkinson's and offing yourself is better than being bi-polar and offing yourself. Except people seem to be more understanding when you have a physical ailment they can see vs a personality flaw they can't.

Hell half the fucking meds available to me have given me Parkinsoniam shaking.

And I liked Williams but the dude was always sad and depressed,

> I don't see how having Parkinson's
> and offing yourself is better than
> being bi-polar and offing yourself.

Command-of-fate rather than submission to it.

I would rather have terminal lung cancer than have bipolar disorder, major depression or schizophrenia.

If I got Alzheimers, I would kill myself.

No, seriously, I think I probably WILL kill myself someday, though at a very old age. It's decades away, so I don't spend much time thinking about it.

I watched both of my grandmothers waste away in nursing homes with dementia, pissing themselves, drugged up, not able to see or hear very well, just in general living like vegetables with a pulse. They burned through the family's assets and then burned through those of the taxpayers.

And I wondered, why do we think this is the humane way to treat old people? Or anybody?

That isn't prolonging life, it's prolonging death. If there is no way, in 40 years, to request euthanasia, and get it without a lot of bother, I'll just take care of it myself. Maybe things will be different by then. There certainly won't be money lying around to pay for unproductive people with no assets of their own to fill diapers every day. Who knows?

I think each person's life belongs to himself. It's really up to you to decide whether it's worth living. If you decide it's not, whether that's because you have cancer and don't want to bother with chemotherapy, or because you have some kind of mentally debilitating thing, or just because you don't enjoy life, it's totally up to you.

But yeah, I figure I'll die by my own hand someday. It's actually sort of comforting. No one is going to keep me in "jail" - a nursing home bed. I will have some control over it.

Am I wrong here?

I mean, I don't think about suicide all the time, or want to do it any time soon. I just think that in another few decades that's probably how I will die. It doesn't bother me.

At the risk of saying something obnoxiously obvious, here goes:

The brain is a physical organ like the heart, kidneys, and thyroid gland.

The heart controls the flow of blood and oxygen to the body. Some tiny little anomaly in some microscopic structure of the heart can have a devastating impact on the quality of your life and even your ability to live longer than the next six minutes.

The brain controls behavior. All of your actions, thoughts, emotions, moods, beliefs, opinions, decisions, choices, ideas, impulse control, morals, judgment, intelligence, wisdom, desires… things like depression, anxiety, happiness, grief, love, hate, euphoria… what you see, feel, hear, smell or taste… all are functions of the actions and interactions of chemicals, neurotransmitters, electrical impulses and physical structures in your brain (unless those are all somehow mystical, magical or supernatural) As with the heart, some tiny little anomaly, imperfection, defect, malfunction or damage in some microscopic part of the brain can have an extreme effect on your behavior, thoughts, mood, and any of the above.

Bipolar disorder, depression and other mental illnesses are not character, personality or attitude flaws. They’re medical problems. That’s why the most effective therapies, or should I say the least ineffective therapies, for treating mental illness are medical therapies. Cognitive therapies and counseling can help someone cope with mental illness just like they can help someone cope with heart disease. But preaching, admonishing, counseling, advising, nagging, scolding or tough love can’t fix major depression any more than they can fix cancer.

People with depression and other mental illnesses can't help it. If they could they would; they sure as hell do try. But they are no more at fault for having them than someone with tuberculosis, leukemia or breast cancer.

Poor choices in life can certainly create stress that can make depression worse, just like stress can make heart disease worse; but choices themselves are functions... or malfunctions... of physiological processes in the brain and not some mystical, magical, supernatural phenomena that originate somewhere independent of it.

Thanks, Ppen, for your insightful comments on the subject.

I appreciate your comment Ken R.

People think there is something noble against the struggle mentally ill people undergo because they assume it was purely a struggle of the mind.

I think what people were implying here were that his poor life choices lead to the guilt that lead to his suicide.

I will like to let everyone know that is not how guilt works in a mentally ill person. You have guilt even before you stick your dick in every pussy available or blown all your money away.

What kind of guilt? Guilt for even existing. You do all the mean fucked up shit later in life and it just adds to the overwhelming guilt that has always been a part of you.

Bi-polar depression isn't sadness. It's apathy and guilt.

Parkinson's might be a struggle that Crid can see no one coming out of. But if that is the case bi-polar is a pro-longed Alzheimer's sentence. Either I take the meds that deteriorate my body or I await the quicker physical deterioration of my brain.

Yes I loose matter in my brain because every mood cycle is essentially a mini seizure. I even have the FDA approved choice of taking anti-seizure meds.

I took a gamble with the former only because I lost my ability to make money. If I could be a booze hound and druggie cheater while making a ton of dough while offing myself at 63 I would consider that making it.

I don't care how many ex-husbands I had to pay alimony to.

Williams didn't care what I thought of his future.

We have new information, and thus new understanding: Now, I'm not sure depression or mental illness or maybe even merely unpleasant patterns of thought were a factor at all. Ex-wives, drugs, wut-evar.

The kids are grown, nobody wants to wipe his backside whether he owns a Napa estate or not...

Punching the clock might be rational.

Seriously, that fucker hadn't even called me for several yea

…Well, it had been a VERY long time.

How sulty you look in this picture.

I will never understand people, who pops out children and kills him/herself.

It is like telling your kids, yes, life sucks and that is why I had you, so you can suffer just as much as I did. See you in hell.

W.T.F.

"But yeah, I figure I'll die by my own hand someday. It's actually sort of comforting. No one is going to keep me in "jail" - a nursing home bed. I will have some control over it."

"Am I wrong here?"

If you are, I'm right there with you.

Comforting? Absolutely.

> I will never understand people,
> who pops out children and
> kills him/herself.

I see where you're going with that.

But I never understood wanting children in any context. You'd have to admire a planet much more than I admire this one before inviting someone you loved for a visit. I've spent a contented and responsible lifetime avoiding contexts where the young and impressionable are told 'It always works out in the end'... I know better.

But props to the normies, the babymakers... Some of them actually mean well, and aren't having kids just for the pleasure of sharing their disappointment with someone who can't resist.

Having kids shouldn't compel you to pretend that life is worth living no matter what for ever and ever.... Especially when the kids are moving on their own inertia and you've already had a lifetime of fulfillment, but have nothing but the uglies to look forward to.