Robin Williams and the Sine Wave of Suicidal Ideation

The first date I went on- my first legit “pick you up at seven, I have my mom’s car for the night” date- was with Kalli Fullbright. I took her to see Aladdin. It was magical. Mostly because I sat by a pretty girl and got to kiss her. But also because suddenly there was a new Disney cartoon that was worth watching. It was a good story, but way more important to a pudgy, over-acned sixteen-year-old-boy: it was fucking hysterical.

Several years later, I sat between my friend and his girlfriend (who I was not-so-secretly in love with) as we all watched and laughed and cried our way through Good Will Hunting.

These are minor/major moments in my life that included Robin Williams and his turned-up-to-eleven charisma projected in front of me.

I liked some of his movies, some of his comedy. I mostly liked his surprises.

I wasn’t that much of a fan of Robin Williams. I just kind of liked him sometimes. Didn’t care for Mrs. Doubtfire. I thought Patch Adams was awful.

But there was something about that guy.

I said in a text to a friend, “Ubiquity, but in a good way.”

I’m not wanting to talk about how great or not-great any of his movies or television appearances were (although the final moment of his performance as himself in that episode of Louie gives me serious pause).

I kind of feel inclined to talk about how weird and significant it is when a famous person dies, that we “normal people” can take it so personally. But I’ve talked about that too many times in my life.

What I feel like talking about is me. Like usual.

I’ve spent most of my life with suicide. I don’t make much of a secret that I’ve had chronic depression since I was a kid; that it gets really fucking dark, and way too often. I tried to kill myself in 1999, and again a little over ten years ago, and then again a few years later. I have often found myself considering my survival as just one of my many failures.

I probably never told you how angry I feel when I hear the suggestion that failed suicides are a cry for help, or how that if I had owned a gun in those years I would most assuredly be dead.

I may not have mentioned that in April 2013, I set a hard, fast date and a plan for the day I would finally die. A date by which I would own a goddamned gun.

Then Taylor died, and his death taught me the ugly lesson that I don’t get to kill myself.

I’ve been in therapy for the last eight or nine months. It’s helped. I work in an environment that is emotionally challenging, but where my job requires me to be responsible with my emotions, to “manage” them. That’s helped, too.

I’ve been severely depressed during much of the last year, but my thoughts have turned to suicide far less often than they used too.

But “less often” is not “never.”

Lemme tell you a story:

In 2003, I lived in Chicago. When the Cubs blew their series against the Marlins in the National League Championship Series, my reaction was wholly irrational and wholly typical of somebody with my emotional dysregulation. I spiraled completely out of control. I used a lot of drugs- a LOT OF DRUGS- and drank constantly (I drank more often than I got high because drinking is socially acceptable when you’re in your mid-twenties, especially in the city of Chicago. A place where everybody is a drunk).

Now. That episode of depression wasn’t about baseball, of course. It was about the fact that the only thing in my life giving me any sense of joy was now over. I couldn’t see anything positive to look at anymore, and winter was beginning.

Around the same time, I got some sad news. A friend told me that his friend’s father had died. He killed himself. This man was around sixty years of age. A man who owned a successful business. A man with a family, the members of which were, for the most part, happy and healthy. He had grandkids.

The message that day was the same message I got this week when I read that Robin Williams had died of an apparent suicide.

This will always be the condition of my life.

This sine wave of: Okay → Numb → Intensely Morbidly Sad → Numb Again: this would last for as long as I could take it.

And one day, don’t kid yourself, Marty, you will definitely not be able to take it.

I have always assumed that, barring catastrophic accident, I will one day die by my own hand.

That has, at times, seemed so incredibly dumb to me. And not in that simple, “Suck it up” kind of way. This feeling has always preyed on the most formative aspect of my psyche. This feeling says to me:

You aren’t as smart as you think you are.

I’m pretty smart, guys. Way smarter than average.

That’s what I’ve always been told, always been shown, always believed.

I believe it for the better part of most days, anyway. And then I get a minute alone and remember that no book I will ever read, no amount of philosophy or theology, no clever grammar jokes will ever make me feel known or loved.

I can not outsmart my diseased brain.

The sickness in my brain is smarter than me and it is trying to kill me.

I can fight it- and I do every day- but all the evidence shows that my sick brain is going to win.

I have found a trick, though. A sneak attack against the tyranny of my brain.

It is this:

I will tell you about this feeling.

I will tell you now that I feel constantly desperate. I feel at every moment like I could just as soon drift into the ether and disappear from you and any potential love that I may feel. I could easily die in the cold under a bush in Uptown or on a train in Edgewater or in an apartment in Lincoln Square or Hyde Park or Shawnee, OK or on the river or headed to Austin or walking away from any commitment, any engagement.

I am telling you that I think often of my own death.

But I don’t want to.

And now you know this.

You are my friend and publisher. You are my ex and/or future girlfriend. You are or have been my boss or I am or have been yours. You used to live in an apartment with me in Chicago or a house in Portland or Oklahoma. You were my lover’s parents. You are a correspondent for NPR. You edit a weekly publication. You paint trees and moonlight. You tell jokes on a stage. You’re a priest or pastor. You are getting married soon or will be divorced in no time. I sang at your wedding or skipped it entirely. I served you coffee in Chicago or Portland or Oklahoma. You served me coffee in one of those places. We met briefly or loved long or emailed once or never actually met at all. You are my mom or dad, my sister or brother. Literally or figuratively.

And you are now on the hook.

Is that a thing you can do? When you see me getting weird and shitty, can you pull me close so I don’t drift away?

In return, I offer you this:

I am now on the hook, too.

I love you and love you and love you. I do not want to leave.