I Never Cared for Robin Williams,...(keep reading)

Vince Sangmeister works for Project HOME as a Navigator for the Philadelphia Alliance for Supportive Services for Veteran Families (PASSVF).  He wrote these reflections in the wake of the suicide death of Robin Williams, which his family said was due to his long struggle with depression.

I never cared for Robin Williams......(keep reading)

………….as a comedian.  I doubt many of you are old enough to remember his being thrust onto the comedy world via Happy Days and then Mork and Mindy.  Robin Williams’ comedy was fashioned after Jonathan Winters, and if you’ve ever seen HIS schtick you’d see they were birds of a feather.  And, I never cared for Winters, either.  Their comedy was, to me, inane and sophomoric and never seemed to evolve.  Every time I saw Robin Williams on any talk show it was the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame old crap, and if you’d seen his act during the ‘70s there was no need to see it in the new millennium. 

HOWEVER………….my opinion of his career being known…..there are few people I respect MORE than Robin Williams.  While his acting career was……eh….ok in that he had some good roles from time to time, that’s not why I respect him.  My admiration goes out to him because of his character-filled promise to none other than………SUPERMAN!!! 

Many, many years ago Christopher Reeve (the man himself in the early S-man franchise of movies) and Robin Williams attended Julliard together.  They promised each other that if one of them hit the big time and the other did not, in the event of a tragedy they had each other’s backs.  Flash forward 20 years, and Chris Reeve got thrown from a horse and was instantly a quadriplegic.  Quite human and not very Supermanish after all.  His wife stuck by him despite the exhaustion of their entire small fortune on hospitals and treatment.  Enter stage left…….Robin Williams.  As he’d promised many years earlier, he ponied up the necessary money for Chris to continue treatment.  And I mean….millions.  There was nothing in writing…..no legally binding contract.  Just two guys shaking hands and agreeing to help each other during a catastrophic event.  As well, either one would potentially have had the opportunity to renege on the deal if he felt in his heart he had the right to do so.  Robin Williams……didn’t.

Flash forward ten more years……I was taking care of my mother who was also a quad, and it was Chris Reeve’s story that helped us cope with her tragedy.  We would talk about his trials and relate how those struggles translated into my Mom’s new life.  Robin Williams’ heroic rescue of Chris’s dignity and self-esteem reminded me daily that being unselfish is the ONLY way to go.  PERIOD!  And…..Robin Williams’ philosophy of humility and unselfishness kept ME going every day.  Still never liked his comedy, though.

I believe the things we should take away from the tragic death of an honest man, this particular man of integrity, are these:  He had money, a loving wife, and children.  He had a nice house, prestige, and powerful friends.  And….he was sick…..diseased.  The man was mentally ill. Depression in any or all of its manifestations transcends everything.  Wealth. Love. Family. Friends. Religion. Power. Status. Race. Sex. Honesty. Integrity.  None of these things can quash the disease, and despite having some or all of those, none of us is immune.  NONE of us!  Every nanosecond of every decade a person battles mental illness is an eternity.  Asking rhetorically: At what point in Robin Williams’ recent weeks did he feel there was no one left to turn to?  At what point in the metastasis of tragic desperation was the illogical insanity of suicide……sane and logical?  No one knows nor will ever know.  But understand this…in the back of the mind of every person with depression, that point of no return is very real, very palpable, very terrifying, and at times….very logical.  By default if such a catastrophic event of this magnitude can befall a “Robin Williams,” a man of power, prestige, and wealth with incalculable resources, then what’s to keep it from happening to the average Joe Schmo?  Those of us with depression hope and pray that when the tentacles of that insane logic of suicide engulf us, sanity will somehow reemerge, and we will realize that suicide is the ultimate, permanent solution to a temporary problem – and we will reach out, and that someone….anyone….will understand that level of desperation and bring us down off the ledge. 

In closing….if any of you….EVER….get a phone call from me at 2:00 in the morning, please do NOT look at the caller ID, see “Vince – The Whack Job” and subsequently ignore it.  Because as you all know……..I, Vince Sangmeister, am quite sane. (Now you can laugh because that’s utter BS.)