Robin Williams: A Selfless Act

Robin Williams: A Selfless Act

He made you laugh in Mrs. Doubtfire and Night at the Museum. In Jumanji, he had you on the edge of your seat. You know his voice from Aladdin and Good Morning, Vietnam. With an unforgettable performance in Good Will Hunting, no one would ever think that the man who gave life to so many of these amazing characters would eventually take his own.

Because he made so many people laugh for so many years, it is almost out of the question to believe that this same man was unhappy for most of his life.

Many people argue that suicide is a selfish act because the person gives up on life and leaves his/her friends and family behind. However, it doesn’t occur to most of those people that the person simply could not go on being depressed all of the time.

“We don’t kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, “he fought so hard.” And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.” – Sally Brampton Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression.

It would make much more sense to people if they could look inside the mind of Robin Williams and see just what he was thinking when he killed himself, but the sad fact is that we will never know what he was struggling with. That doesn’t, however, mean that he wasn’t in pain or that he wasn’t fighting his own battle every day of his life.

Depression is an illness, not a choice of lifestyle. Robin Williams suffered from depression, a serious mental illness. Depression comes with a sense of hopelessness and despair and can occur once or many times throughout a person’s life. Perhaps the reason why Robin Williams tried so hard to entertain the public was because he was also trying to make himself happy. Unfortunately, this failed to ultimately make him happy and content with his life.

Robin Williams’s death brought a great sense of awareness to the public about depression and how you can seriously misjudge a person. Perhaps if he conquered his depression, he would have been a great example to look up to for everyone struggling with his or her own mental illness. But, because he was unable to finish the fight, his death will now be used to raise public awareness about just how dangerous untreated mental illnesses can be.

On August 11, 2014, the famous actor, Robin Williams, took his own life after a long fight with depression. This act was anything but selfish. Depression is an illness and most people simply do not understand the battle that he was fighting.

He killed himself to escape from the pain that he was dealing with everyday of his life. Suicide is a result of depression and those who do it do so because they need to escape.

Robin Williams will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and fans around the world.