Last month, I wrote this piece for Ezine Articles, The Secret of Robin Williams’ Suicide – What We Do Know. [UPDATE 4/30/2019: Link no longer accessible at Ezine Articles.]
Given the response, I decided to share it here.
Read an excerpt below, and then click on either link to read the entire article. (The link will take you straight to the article.)
No one can truly understand what makes a person commit suicide. It takes a beloved comedian like Robin Williams to help us to understand. Despite the pervasiveness of social and traditional media leading us to believe we really know people, the truth is, we don’t. What we do know is our beloved entertainer who brought us tears of joy, remains in our hearts and minds.
Since caregivers experience depression at higher rates than the general population, looking at a well-known celebrity might enable us to grow more aware, gain greater understanding, so that we may have more compassion for those who live with depression.
Related information:
To learn more about depression, click to watch this 4-minute informative animated YouTube video on The Science of Depression.
Beyond a chemical imbalance, depression is more complex. Did you know that the hippocampus, which controls memory and emotion, is smaller in the brains of people with depression? And that by stimulating neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), the hippocampus may grow? There are implications here for helping people with dementia, as well.
