There’s been a little bit of it<\/a>. \u00a0Thanks, Fox News. \u00a0Stay classy.<\/p>\nFor the most part, though, his death has been handled as a tragedy. \u00a0So far, there hasn’t been the blustering, holier-than-thou, accusatory vindictiveness that I half expected around a suicide.<\/p>\n
In other words, the through-line hasn’t been, “He took his own life, hurting those that loved him. \u00a0What a selfish asshole.” Instead, it has been, “Robin Williams succumbed to his depression, an illness as difficult and dangerous as cancer.”<\/p>\n
I’m pleased with the reaction to Robin Williams’ suicide. \u00a0I wish that it hadn’t happened, but if anything can be salvaged from this difficult event, it can be a greater perception surrounding depression.<\/p>\n
Depression isn’t weakness. \u00a0It isn’t laziness, or something a person\u00a0can just “shake off.” It’s an illness, every bit as serious as a broken leg or a viral infection. \u00a0Perhaps it’s worse, because it can be invisible and insidious. \u00a0Left untreated, it can be just as deadly as leukemia.<\/p>\n
If we cannot erase his suicide\u00a0and bring him back to life, then maybe we can learn from it. \u00a0Maybe we can\u00a0be a little less hesitant to seek help for those in our life that are suffering from depression. \u00a0Maybe we can be a little bit more respectful of those that are facing such an illness, and treat the depression with the seriousness it deserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before I work on some fiction, I want to\u00a0contribute a few of my own thoughts to the milieu following Robin Williams’ death. Like so many others, I am saddened by his passing. \u00a0I never met him, but I have many memories involving him. \u00a0I wish that he hadn’t suffered such depression. \u00a0The world is darker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}