The Devastation We Pretend Doesn't Exist

The death of Robin Williams is sad, very sad.  But I’m having trouble getting past my anger to feel anything but annoyance with everyone talking about it as if it is something new and unique.

Were you this upset when the mom down the street committed suicide?  The teenager at your child’s school?  When your spouse or your child or the clerk you see every week at the grocery store is feeling hopeless and full of despair?

Depression is very common, but we don’t like to talk about it.  Why?  Are we afraid to think it could happen to us?  Or even worse, afraid to admit it HAS happened to us?

Robin Williams feeling so low that he thought it was better to end his life is awful. It’s unbelievable.  It’s heartbreaking.  But it is also just as devastating when it happens to anyone else.  It’s also something that can be helped, and we need to educate ourselves about the true illness that it is.  It is not a character weakness, a personality flaw, a reason to look down upon someone.

It is a disease, just like diabetes or cancer or hypothyroidism or asthma or the multitudes of other physical things we accept as being something a person has, rather than something that defines a person.   Just like a cancer patient needs support and sometimes assistance from loved ones (and even strangers), so does that person with Depression.  There are treatments, but many times people are afraid to admit they need them.  That fear is often because they also fear being ostracized, discriminated against, or even just talked about.  That doesn’t happen to someone with diabetes, should it happen to someone with depression?

In my family, there are a lot of those diagnoses that get talked about.  There is Autism, ADHD, Alcoholism/Addiction, Downs Syndrome, Depression, Anxiety Disorder, Social Phobia.  And those last three are mine.  Years ago I took medication and had regular therapy, which I felt I had to hide because I was a mental health professional and rather than people thinking that might give me some insight, they were more inclined to think I was unfit to do my job.  That treatment, however, along with some amazing supportive friends and the birth of my child who gives me purpose, was lifesaving, and I have learned ways to overcome the symptoms and no longer need active treatment.  I still have a hard time making myself get involved in social situations, and stress over things way more than the average person, and  I’ve had some setbacks, particularly when the youth pastor I worked closely at church died suddenly and when my dad died, but I’ve been able to make it through.  I have been fortunate to have supportive people around me, and to have a stubborn attitude when there are those who aren’t, but not everyone has that.

So be one.  Be that person that someone might need.  Educate yourself.  Understand.  Care.  Love. Support.

That’s why they have wine.  Cheers, Robin, now that your illness can no longer affect you, I hope you can see the amazing person you are.  I hope we can all see the amazing person that we are.