Robin

Great re-write of a thoughtless Daily News Headline

Robin Williams death  a few days ago was so shocking to me that I haven't even spoken to my wife  about how its affecting me. I thought I would let everyone else comment and issue platitudes about 'sending prayers' and besides enough wonderful lovely things were being said by others. It affected me because of my own history of depression. Depression is no joke but you can tell jokes about it. Jokers can have it.
I did not know that I was depressed until I walked into a doctors office back in England in 1972 and after he asked me 'what's wrong'? I just unraveled. I literally came apart in his office and it got so out of hand so quickly that I was in a daze as I heard my doctor calling my college principal to tell him that I would not be back. I would have to drop out of the course. Then he rang my parents. After that I was hospitalized briefly, became an outpatient at a the Royal Victoria Hospital's psychiatric facility in Westbourne. I was prodded, poked, questioned and examined extemsively. Then they put me on Temazepam and Valium. I went to group therapy sessions with depressed fired executives and middle-aged woman suffering after the change. People who had received Electro Convulsive Therapy would come to the sessions shaking like leaves as their nervous systems reset. It was horrific and I am unconvinced that it cured me. That I did by myself. However my personal descent in to that brief hell left me with a edgy, defensive nature and sometimes gives people pause. I know that I can be difficult and capricious and I unreservedly apologize to anyone who has suffered because of that but its my defense mechanism. I will never go back to that dark place, I will never stop striving to create, collaborate and this is my coping mechanism. 

Robin's was making people laugh. 

It may seem hard to understand that canceling his TV 'The Crazy Ones show hit him so hard but it make perfect sense to me. Be kind to his memory, he was kind to us all his entire life. 


“Cricket is basically baseball on valium.” Robin Williams onstage at The London Palladium in front of a British audience and The Queen. 

LOVE.