It needs saying. I woke up this morning to the news that Robin Williams was dead. At first I thought it was a hoax, but reading the reports and noting where they came from I quickly realised it was indeed real.
Robin Williams, was dead… and he was only 63.
It saddens me to think that the actor who starred in some of my favourite movies as a child, some of which I’m just rediscovering since news of his death broke, will not go on to star in anymore.
I don’t often speak of my own anxiety and depression, because its not something I like talking about publically. It’s not something that people want to know about.
Fact is, mental illness, and disorders carry with them a stigma that has not yet been completely shaken off, and it doesn’t matter how much society has progressed Depression and Anxiety are still two disorders that people fail to understand.
It’s a little like grief really. Everybody deals with it in different ways. No two people are the same and there’s no right or wrong way to deal with it. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another, and that is mainly where a lot of the misconceptions spring from. People read something on Depression and Anxiety and immediately think they are an expert. They start offering up advice on ways to cope that won’t necessarily help the person going through it.
Take my Depression and Anxiety. Music is a massive tool that helps me through both. Writing used to be, but I no longer find that productive as my writing becomes darker when I’m Depression and the words don’t come when I’m anxious anyway, so there is no point but to wait out the symptoms and lose myself in music and other seemingly frivolous distractions.
So it is on that note I end this post… and tonight once my children are tucked up in bed for the night I will be sitting down and watching “Dead Poets Society” and following it with “Good Will Hunting” in Tribute.
Nobody could have played Batty Koda better in Ferngully but you Robin. RIP
