“Robin Williams Didn’t Kill Himself”: This Person Wants People To Stop Using The Actor As A ‘Suicide Awareness’ Case
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Actor and Oscar winner Robin Williams passed away on the 11th of August, 2014. His death, however, remains a hot topic. Recently, Imgur user Nonameisthatfrench posted his thoughts, saying that “we need to stop using Robin Williams as a case for ‘suicide awareness'” and it quickly went viral. The main thoughts they’ve presented come from a publication in the journal Neurology, written by the actor’s widow, Susan Schneider Williams.
Titled ‘The terrorist inside my husband’s brain,’ her personal piece provides a detailed explanation of what exactly Robin was suffering from. “Robin is and will always be a larger-than-life spirit who was inside the body of a normal man with a human brain,” Susan wrote. “He just happened to be that 1 in 6 who is affected by brain disease.” (Facebook cover image: Rune Hellestad )
We need to stop using Robin Williams as a case for ‘suicide awareness’
Image credits: Peggy Sirota
“Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it. Can you imagine the pain he felt as he experienced himself disintegrating? And not from something he would ever know the name of, or understand? Neither he, nor anyone could stop it—no amount of intelligence or love could hold it back.”
He had dementia with Lewy body disease. He didn’t spontaneously commit suicide due to mental illness, it was self-inflicted euthanasia
On May 28th, Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson disease. “When we were in the neurologist’s office learning exactly what this meant, Robin had a chance to ask some burning questions. He asked, “Do I have Alzheimer’s? Dementia? Am I schizophrenic?” The answers were the best we could have gotten: No, no, and no. There were no indications of these other diseases. It is apparent to me now that he was most likely keeping the depth of his symptoms to himself.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. Throughout his battle, Robin had experienced nearly all of the 40-plus symptoms of Lewy body disease (LBD). “Robin’s was one of the worst LBD pathologies [medical professionals] had seen and that there was nothing else anyone could have done.”
“But would having a diagnosis while he was alive really have made a difference when there is no cure? We will never know the answer to this. I am not convinced that the knowledge would have done much more than prolong Robin’s agony while he would surely become one of the most famous test subjects of new medicines and ongoing medical trials. Even if we experienced some level of comfort in knowing the name, and fleeting hope from temporary comfort with medications, the terrorist was still going to kill him. There is no cure and Robin’s steep and rapid decline was assured.”
“The massive proliferation of Lewy bodies throughout his brain had done so much damage to neurons and neurotransmitters that in effect, you could say he had chemical warfare in his brain.”
“After months and months, I was finally able to be specific about Robin’s disease. Clinically he had PD, but pathologically he had diffuse LBD. The predominant symptoms Robin had were not physical—the pathology more than backed that up. However, you look at it—the presence of Lewy bodies took his life.”
People had a lot to say about Robin’s case
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Fully in favour of "right to die" - to be treated as compassionately as we treat our sick pets when there is no hope and life is unbearable. People shouldnt have to jump through hoops and spend a fortune (that some may not have) to die in a foreign country.
!!! I really don't get why we don't have the right over our own life. That's horrible and no freedome at all.
@Jennifer Scott We should have the right to die peacefully and with dignity, surrounded by our loved ones. Not alone, terrified and in pain... It kind of make sense when you think about it, which you clearly don't...
@Jennifer Scott, you don't actually. Not really. Committing suicide alone is risky, because if anyone you know finds you they will stop you - and getting revived would be terribly painful as well as financially burdensome to go through. If you ask for help or convince someone not to stop you, I'm fairly certain that in most countries that person would go to jail for that. Doing it alone also means needing to consider how you do it and how the people you love are going to find your body. The quicker, less painful methods may be much more traumatizing to discover. Changing the law would mean not having to do it alone and not having to risk failing.
It also comes back to moral and religious beliefs. With most religions suicide is taboo.
The ethical problems don't come from your right to die but from other people's responsibilities to help you die. Also, many doctors and nurses are not trained in palliative care, that's a specialized care. Implementing assisted suicide would imply a booming need for this kind of skills. It's not easy to implement overnight.
Imo, everybody needs to make and keep on file with your medical records a Living Will. A Living Will is your chance to state outright what happens to you in case you can't make decisions and, while you cannot legally choose to terminate you life in many states (some are working on legalizing medically assisted suicide in certain circumstances), you can choose to not be resuscitated and specify how that decision is made. It is frustrating that we do not have these rights over our bodies. At least a Living Will gives us some measure of control, even if it is limited.
Personally, I never want to end up as a mere shell with no cognition - kept alive as an inanimate object just because they can. Equally I would not wish to continue if the severe pain or other symptoms became unbearable with no hope of recovery. It is difficult to even think about something worse than "unbearable."
This comment has been deleted.
Wow, I had no idea. Poor guy to have to deal with such a horrible disease with no hope of healing and no easy way to end his suffering and having to restore to ... damn 😢
One of the issues regarding assisted suicide in the UK is that the person could be influenced by family members for their own gain. The opposite argument is also possible. People can pay up to £10,000 to travel to a Swiss clinic. For a person with limited financial means there is always the possibility that they may be discouraged from spending a large proportion of a potential "inheritance" on what they wish by those who would benefit from it in the near future.
Influence by family members, and the feeling of duty to not be a burden, were arguments used by right to die opponents in Oregon in 1994 when the measure first passed, and then in 1997 when the repeal was rejected. Maybe there are people who would abuse it, but terminally ill patients are surrounded by people invested in their care, and the euthanasia process has controls in place to mitigate abuses. The thing about legal right to die is that it puts the patient in control of their condition. They now have the option to choose when it's time, instead of that being dictated by a disease.
Fully in favour of "right to die" - to be treated as compassionately as we treat our sick pets when there is no hope and life is unbearable. People shouldnt have to jump through hoops and spend a fortune (that some may not have) to die in a foreign country.
!!! I really don't get why we don't have the right over our own life. That's horrible and no freedome at all.
@Jennifer Scott We should have the right to die peacefully and with dignity, surrounded by our loved ones. Not alone, terrified and in pain... It kind of make sense when you think about it, which you clearly don't...
@Jennifer Scott, you don't actually. Not really. Committing suicide alone is risky, because if anyone you know finds you they will stop you - and getting revived would be terribly painful as well as financially burdensome to go through. If you ask for help or convince someone not to stop you, I'm fairly certain that in most countries that person would go to jail for that. Doing it alone also means needing to consider how you do it and how the people you love are going to find your body. The quicker, less painful methods may be much more traumatizing to discover. Changing the law would mean not having to do it alone and not having to risk failing.
It also comes back to moral and religious beliefs. With most religions suicide is taboo.
The ethical problems don't come from your right to die but from other people's responsibilities to help you die. Also, many doctors and nurses are not trained in palliative care, that's a specialized care. Implementing assisted suicide would imply a booming need for this kind of skills. It's not easy to implement overnight.
Imo, everybody needs to make and keep on file with your medical records a Living Will. A Living Will is your chance to state outright what happens to you in case you can't make decisions and, while you cannot legally choose to terminate you life in many states (some are working on legalizing medically assisted suicide in certain circumstances), you can choose to not be resuscitated and specify how that decision is made. It is frustrating that we do not have these rights over our bodies. At least a Living Will gives us some measure of control, even if it is limited.
Personally, I never want to end up as a mere shell with no cognition - kept alive as an inanimate object just because they can. Equally I would not wish to continue if the severe pain or other symptoms became unbearable with no hope of recovery. It is difficult to even think about something worse than "unbearable."
This comment has been deleted.
Wow, I had no idea. Poor guy to have to deal with such a horrible disease with no hope of healing and no easy way to end his suffering and having to restore to ... damn 😢
One of the issues regarding assisted suicide in the UK is that the person could be influenced by family members for their own gain. The opposite argument is also possible. People can pay up to £10,000 to travel to a Swiss clinic. For a person with limited financial means there is always the possibility that they may be discouraged from spending a large proportion of a potential "inheritance" on what they wish by those who would benefit from it in the near future.
Influence by family members, and the feeling of duty to not be a burden, were arguments used by right to die opponents in Oregon in 1994 when the measure first passed, and then in 1997 when the repeal was rejected. Maybe there are people who would abuse it, but terminally ill patients are surrounded by people invested in their care, and the euthanasia process has controls in place to mitigate abuses. The thing about legal right to die is that it puts the patient in control of their condition. They now have the option to choose when it's time, instead of that being dictated by a disease.