I’ve been rolling around in thought about Robin Williams’s
suicide. A tragic course of events for sure. Well for us the public he always
bought his A game, from the serious role in Dead Poets Society to playing Genie
in Aladdin, but we only now see the role that he had outside of the public; the
role of living with depression, anxiety, mental illness. As I posted on Facebook last night this was a
loss was not one that needed or ought to have happened.
Having been
in the place where I was just two steps from actually committing the act of
suicide something stopped me. I think now several years latter that it was an
inner longing of the hope I knew remained. I still cared some how. But to often
it comes to the point where the thoughts, the plan, the letters the notes come
about and hope and desire to live ends. I wish I could have been in the place
of his death with Robin to talk to him to listen to his pain or as I say in
pastor counseling/listening; sit in the shit with the person, dwell.
In working
in peer mental health I see the spark of hope persistently poking through as
one client states of his depression ‘the frozen lake’. Some how kindling that
spark that fire even in the frozen of a deep Alaskan winter. But I know as a peer, a professional and as a
family member, that at a certain time after you as a helper can not do more
then hold hands with the person and call them to remember who they are from the
soul. But it then is in the persons hands, giving it over to their soul their
spirit to defend and concur the pain inside their brains.To kick ass and get
the golden perhaps platinum metal of valor, honor and strength.
It pains me that only when the
death of celebrity do we discuss the power that mental illness has to scare, to
cause stigma, to be sad and scared. But we never discuss it when it is
manageable and treatable when it’s the persistent sadness, lack of interest,
the over sleeping the odd eating patterns the crying jags. When there are a
many options for treatment and management.
Likewise as a person of faith who
is a peer, it is our God given duty, to love. Especially when people cannot
love themselves. Not to heal but to love to simply love. To act as the way
Jesus acted reaching out to less then desirable of society. To celebrate them
as fellow children of God.
