As heartbroken as I am about the death of Robin Williams, I am not entirely shocked. I recall about 4 or 5 months ago maybe, seeing him as a guest on some late night talk show. (cannot remember which one) I remember distinctly thinking to myself that he looked exhausted, withdrawn, and old. Not old in the way that he got gray hair or wrinkles, but old in the way that life had beaten him up one too many times. He was coming up with insane one-liners and jokes like always, but his eyes looked vacant to me. He looked lost and in slower-motion than normal. I remember just silently thinking to myself: He seems sad. Then, about a month or two ago, I remember reading that he had checked himself into a rehab facility, for precautionary reasons. Everyone was saying good for him and all that, and it was - but I just felt like something was off. Like it was the beginning of the end somehow. I recognized the darkness in his eyes that night, and the light that had left them - because I had been there too. Before losing my husband to sudden death, I didnt understand depression, or suicide. Not really. Not truly. I was never judgemental about it, but I didnt get it. Then my husband died, and I died too. My soul was in pieces - my light went out. All I could see was darkness. There were many nights, 3 months after the death, 7 months after, 13 months after, 19 months after, where I sat inside my own darkness and thought about not being on earth anymore. The pain was so awful and so unbearable, that I didnt understand what to do with it. Most nights when I felt that way, I would come on here and reach out to the Facebook world, or call up another widowed friend late into the night. Sometimes that got me through. Sometimes it didnt. Sometimes I still didnt want to live. One night, when I felt that way, I called my grief counselor and we talked for a long time. I said: I just dont want to be here anymore. It hurts too much, and I really think the pain is going to kill me anyway, because how can anyone live, being in this much pain all the time? I cant do it. She got very serious and she said to me: Do I need to call the hospital? Do you feel like you might harm yourself? I stopped and thought about it for a minute, and then I said very calmly: No. I dont want to be here, but that doesnt mean Im going to do anything about it. Not wanting to live isnt the same as wanting to die. I just needed to say it out loud. I was grieving, and all I could see was darkness and more pain. I didnt understand or see that there might be a way through that pain, and I didnt have the energy or desire to think forward. I just saw blackness. But even in my days and hours of blackness, and even when I didnt feel any hope - I still was not willing to actively take my own life. I just knew that I would have to sit inside of this awful, horrific, mindblowing pain - until it wasnt as horrific anymore. Depression is different. It is an illness, and it takes you over and screws with your head and hurts you. It makes you think that you are a burden to everyone else, and that maybe the world is better off without you. You just want the pain to stop, and so ending your life FEELS like the only logical way to make it stop. Most times, you are done reaching out or you HAVE reached out but you no longer want to - you just want the hurt to end. So you end it. And its not selfish. And its not cowardly. It is a person in a lot of very real pain. It is a person whose light turned off long ago, and they couldnt find their way out of the room. RIP Robin Williams. Im so sorry that your light went out before you could reach that door.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 04:31:55 +0000
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