Judgement

I've written numerous drafts as of late that lay unfinished and seem too insignificant to share, but the news of Robin Williams' death has moved me to, hopefully, type something that will "stick" and find it's way to actual publication. 

Robin Williams dead at 63. I immediately think that my father was 67 when he passed away 13 years ago, and that 63 is such a young age. "Man, Robin Williams was young", I think to myself. "No more movies", I selfishly think. How sad. What a talent lost. 

Robin Williams dies of suspected suicide. "How tragic", I think, as a new sadness rolls in upon my being. Empathy sucks. I research to see who he left behind. A wife and 3 children. Will they ever know the greatness of their father? I sure hope so. Will they ever know or understand the demons he fought? The demons he lost his soul to? I doubt it. 

I think some of the most beautifully talented people are the ones suffering the most. Deflecting their pain with a joke and smile, or diverting attention onto others versus themselves. Playing small in order to hide the pain. And as I read people's opinions of the actions that took place, I shake my head in sadness and fight back the tears. Not because I knew Robin Williams but because I know depression.

Depression is sneaky. It hides behind smiles and diversions of self. Depression cons you into thinking that there are no brighter days ahead. Depression is a chemical bitch, and not a choice. While some proclaim suicide as selfish, I find I focus more on how utterly and devastatingly tragic it is that someone did not get the help they needed in order to be able to hang on for one more day. And as easy as it is for me to type that, "there's always another day", the fact is, depression can convince you otherwise. And bless you if you've never had to deal with the beast.

I commonly say and think, that I cannot imagine how much pain one has to feel to carry out a suicide. I cannot fathom feeling so badly that I felt that there was no other way out, and trust me, I've had some very down days. As down as those days were for me, all I can feel is horrible that for someone, somewhere, they've felt that bad and worse. And for feeling bad, and being chemically impaired or imbalanced, someone should not be judged. They should not be shamed for finding an end to their pain, rather they should be mourned in that they fought and lost the battle that depression invokes. There should be no talk of ungodliness and punishment, as surely they experienced those things in life.

Please think twice before judging someone's, most often, silent battle. Depression is not weakness and suicide is not selfish. It's sadly a coping mechanism, or rather, a lack there of. Life is hard enough, and even harder for some, without having to take on the judgement of others. You must know that when judging someone else in life or death, that you can not actually begin to have even the slightest inkling of the battle going on within them. Try understanding first. Try love first. And perhaps tragedies that so often happen alone, wouldn't have to happen at all. Rest in peace and be free Robin Williams.

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”  ― David Foster Wallace