Robin Williams’ suicide has started people talking again about mental health and depression. I work with children and families who have experience with depression in one way or another. This is an issue that needs to be spoken about often and on a National level. Mental health affects most families but we still don’t talk about it until tragedy happens.
Unfortunately with suicide, families still hide the cause of death from others because of shame and embarrassment. I have read different perspectives on the idea of suicide since Robin Williams’ death. This is the perspective that I would like for you to consider. Depression is not a choice and it is not logical. Those of us who have not experienced depression have a hard time relating to it because we continue to think logically.
Robin Williams was a man that was loved by many and I believe that the world has suffered a great lose because of his death. We can all sit back and look at all the things he had based on his celebrity and how much joy he brought us but depression is not logical. He was not counting his blessings daily and able to see all the gifts he had.
People say that suicide is a very selfish act because of what it does to the people that are left, I agree. I think it’s a selfish act but I know that depression is very selfish and a lonely place to be. The person is not thinking about others when they kill themselves – they are only thinking of their own pain and misery, and it’s not logical. They are not able to see the forest through the trees.
Mental health is quite thankful that there are medicines that can help ease some of this pain but taking medicine is not that easy. Depressed people can’t remember to take it or they are too depressed to take it or they take it and then think clearly enough about a good plan to kill themselves. Depression is a serious, significant disease that needs to be addressed by everyone because it touches everyone.
Everyone has experienced grief and loss or tragedy. You know how hard those times have been for you and you may have been depressed for a while about it. Imagine feeling that way and it not going away. You never got to a place where you wanted to get out of bed or stopped crying, you were just stuck there in that pain. That’s just a peak of what depression can be like for others, except there may not have been an event to cause the depression.
Be thankful often if you do not suffer from depression or any other mental health issues and try to be compassionate for others who do.
#depression, #robinwilliams, #childhooddepression, #compassion
