To One of My Heroes

Credit to the artist

      "Answer: That you are here, that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you might contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

     "You're only given one little spark of madness... you mustn't lose it"

       “What’s wrong with death, sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can’t we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy, gentlemen. If we’re going to fight a disease, let’s fight one of the most terrible diseases of all: indifference.”

      “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

       

I know that I am not and will not be the first or last to write about Robin Williams. First and foremost, my heart goes out to the family and friends that were so lucky to know him. I cannot possibly imagine the pain they are going through, and I only wish peace for them.

      

 I obviously did not know Robin Williams personally. However when asked the question "Who would you like to have dinner with?" he was the first person after God. (JK Rowling is a close second.)

       

 When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, alone in the mental hospital and very emotional about how I could possibly have something so much more complicated than depression (not, by any means, that depression is an easy disease to have), I remember telling my doctor that there was no possible way I could be "manic depressive". After explaining over and over to me all the medical reasons, he could see that I wasn't in the mood to accept it just yet, still too caught up in the stigma of the disease. He gave me a copy of a magazine where Catherine Zeta Jones had just come out about her Bipolar and time in the hospital. I still scoffed. I only knew her from her role in Zorro and even then she meant little to me at a time when I was so distraught. My doctor then mentioned Stephen Fry, who I also knew very little of. And then he mentioned Robin Williams.

       

I cannot tell you how many times I have watched Aladdin, over and over, a movie that would have been nothing without the magnificence of Genie. How I followed the consequent Disney cartoon every single morning and waited for the next episode. How I loved Jumanji, Hook, even the silly movie Flubber. And then, when I was in middle school and looking through my family's old VHS tapes, I found Dead Poets Society.

     

 I was thirteen when I watched Dead Poets Society for the first time. Unknown to everyone but myself, I had already started suffering from symptoms of my Bipolar disorder. It was the cycles of depression that had come first-- I had already started wishing that I could just die and had tried to overdose on Ibuprofen once, although I had not taken nearly enough to do much damage. 

      

Dead Poets Society did what no counselor had done before. Mr. Keating had an exuberence about him that made you want to listen to every syllable he ever spoke-- and what he said! He talked about how important life was, how precious, how even at a young age you should take control of your life! He had all the wonderful warmth, sweetness, bravado, and knowledge that made it impossible not to want to follow every single thing he said. That life should be lived in the pursuit of happiness, romance, and the ability to create and touch others.

      

And then Neal committed suicide. And the movie did not end. Suddenly the quote of, "And not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived" took a whole new meaning. Keating wept. It was so very obvious now that when Keating had told the young boys who fought against authority and their emotions to take control, the extreme choice of ending one's life was not what he meant. And it was this, the legacy of Keating so poignantly played out through Robin Williams, that helped carry me through my teen years when my symptoms only got worse and worse. This picture of Keating crying over the opening poem that stayed with me.

     

Good Will Hunting and the iconic scene on the park bench-- it gave me the wonderful knowledge that I wasn't alone. That everyone had their own hidden turmoil that others around them might never grasp unless you communicated it to someone. It helped me reach out to others, something that helped keep me alive.

     

What Dreams May Come taught me the lesson of letting go. The idea of Heaven had never comforted me when I was little, not after losing people I loved to death. I didn't know how to cope with the pain of losing someone, and to me Heaven and the idea I'd see them again meant very little when I was alone without them. When my very first boyfriend died, I was inconsolable. It furthered my depression, it made several of my symptoms so very worse to the point where I stopped being able to function normally. I stopped eating, I couldn't sleep, I got terrible grades, I threw myself into volatile relationships-- the stress exacerbated my illness to the point that I started hallucinating. When I went into counseling, I would hardly talk to the counselor. She had to find roundabout ways to get me to open up, and as such we would talk about things like favorite actors-- which led her to telling me about What Dreams May Come. 

        

 The movie starts with the main character Neil narrating and his journey through heaven, while the secondary character Annie blames herself for his death and the death of her children-- causing her to kill herself in the end. Before her death you see the spirit form of Neil over and over trying to console her, trying to reach out to her, and it only makes her pain worse. When she dies, she is in "hell". The sort of state caused by not being able to accept what she had done and that her warped view was what led to her demise. It takes the idea of Neil going through hell with her to wake her up and realize that life (in death and out) are worth living. For whatever reason, the idea that those in heaven suffered simply because I was suffering hadn't occured to me. I had considered it as a cure-all place, and watching Neil go through this journey of pain and heart break because his wife couldn't accept his death helped change my perception and grief and inarguably saved my life.

       

I never would have watched these movies if Robin Williams wasn't in them. Saying that, they would never have made such an impact if it weren't for the very unique and special person that he was. Learning that the man who had saved my life countless times already-- whether he knew it or not-- also suffered from Bipolar Disorder gave me hope. It helped me accept that maybe it was a detrimental disease if not treated properly but that one day I could be the kind of person who brought so much joy and happiness to others despite that.

       

There's a lot of people I know that suffer from mental illness that looked up to him that have lost hope because he lost his battle. When I first heard the news, it was hard for me not to have that initial reaction. Earlier this year I had another friend commit suicide who was the same bright, giving, funny person. Another person that my roommates knew and loved killed herself just a month prior. It's hard not to live with a severe and sometimes lethal illness and not take the statistics to heart-- 1 in 5 people with Bipolar commit suicide. But a man like Robin Williams would not want us to focus on his death. He would want as many people as possible to learn from it. To reach out. To help others. 

       

 Suicide is the 4th leading cause of death in US adults 18-65 under cancer, heart disease, and unintentional injury. Close to 19% of the US adult population suffers from a mental illness that is not developmental or substance abuse related. If you know someone who is showing signs of depression, please reach out to them and help them seek medical advice. Learn what symptoms come with Bipolar and the other major mental illnesses. Odds are, you know someone. Odds are, they might be afraid to say something. No one should feel so alone and afraid of what others might think that they do this. No one.

It's so strange to think the sun can be terrified of how dark it is out there.
— Guy Branum (@guybranum) August 12, 2014