Robin Williams and Me

Robin Williams is dead of an apparent suicide.  I think in all suicide, there runs a dark thread that no one really wants to talk about but everyone beats themselves up about: could I have done more?  This is the answer from my perspective

I battle depression (Bipolar II).  Not daily but at least once a month or so.  When the battle is going well thanks to my relationship with God, my therapist, or my wife (of 8 years today, Happy Anniversary) I never get close to what I can only characterize as staring into the abyss.  However, despite the best efforts of those closest to me, sometimes I do take a glimpse into the abyss and wonder what it would be like to fall infinitely. To be done with the battle, with the unending nothingness of detachment, and, above all, with the feeling of being a net negative in the world.  A world that would go on without me.  This, to a non-depressed person, makes absolutely no sense.  And to me, on even an average day, the thoughts are insanity.  Why would I deprive my daughter of a dad?  My wife of a husband?  The world of all that I have to offer?

But that's the point.  The thoughts are insanity.  An awful lie.  Dexter calls it his dark passenger and that's what it is.  A thing not of myself which attempts to manipulate my person hood into believing I am merely a speck of dust hurtling through space on a bigger speck of dust and inconsequential to everyone.  And this, my acquaintances is where you come in.  I can dismiss my relationship with those I impact in the immediate (close friends, family, etc) because I see what I do to them and can ignore what good things they say to me because they're supposed to say those things or they notice my depression and don't want to aggravate me.

The kindness of an acquaintance, however, is not so easily dismissed. You never know who is petering on the abyss and what a huge impact a single compliment or "hey, I know we haven't talked in awhile but I was thinking of you and wanted to say hello" will have.

All of those who know someone who has committed suicide wonders, in their darkest times, whether they could have done more.  It is almost never those that you know personally and closely that you could have saved.  You were already doing everything you knew how to do.  Could you, had you been a trained psychiatrist, known that the detachment was from depression and not just residual anger due to a fight? Maybe, maybe not.  My fiancee didn't see it coming and she's more emotionally intelligent than 99% of people I've met.

I have around 800 Facebook friends.  Of those, I probably see or interact with 20 daily, 75 on a weekly basis and maybe 150 a month.  The other people I am friends with because of a single interaction or a few interactions perhaps years ago.  I remember all of them.  Their faces are a tapestry of joy.  I may remember a few bad times but I dwell on good stories and better times.  And it is those stories that you can tell someone, through a simple text or a Facebook message, that will bring a smile to their faces and turn them, if only for a second, from the abyss.

To those who have thought of me even though we may have not seen each other for years, you will never know what your simple message, thoughts, or prayers have done.  I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for those sacrificed moments.  I hope this reaches you as a thank you and I hope to sacrifice moments for those I know in the coming months and years.

And to those who have lost someone near and dear or known in passing and everything in between, know this: the person didn't commit suicide because of you.  They did it because they thought they were doing it FOR you.  The only thing you can do is tell as many people as possible that they mean or meant something to you in the hope that your love will not fall on deaf ears.  Because sometimes it does.  And when that happens, no one will see it coming.

PS This is not a cry for help.  Only a message from one person.  I hope you get something out of it.