SHAZZBATT!!!

Today turned ugly in a heartbeat with the news of Robin Williams’ death.

My mind keeps spinning through all of the amazing roles. “Mrs. Doubtfire.” “Dead Poet’s Society.” “Good Morning, Vietnam.” “The Fisher King.” “Good Will Hunting.” And on and on.

It wasn’t just the comedic roles either. He scared the hell out of me as the psychotic killer in “One Hour Photo.” He can still reduce me to tears in “What Dreams May Come.”

Then you would see him on some talk show or another, just going off, impromptu, twice as funny off the top of his head as anyone else was after months of polishing their routine.

The “Comic Relief” telethons, where after hours of some of the best and funniest had done their acts, Robin, Billy, and Whoopi would come out as hosts, only to have it devolve into Robin & Billy spinning off into an alternate reality while Whoopi occasionally threw them a straight line, which was like throwing raw meat into a pool of piranha. The rest of us couldn’t catch our breath for laughing.

Who else could have ever, ever been Mork from Ork?

I generally don’t get too upset over celebrity deaths, but some hit me hard. Jim Henson. George Carlin. And now Robin Williams. I guess I’ve got a thing for people who can make me smile and laugh.

We’ll never know what demons he was fighting and the depth of the pain his depression gave him. We can only pray that he’s found a release and can now rest in peace.

For those of us still here, let’s remember Robin Williams by fighting harder against the disease that took his life. Depression isn’t a mood, it isn’t a weakness, and it isn’t something to be ashamed of, any more than you should feel weak or ashamed if you got cancer or appendicitis. Depression is a liar, a stealer of souls, a demonic voice that no one else can hear, constantly telling you that everything is useless, you’re worthless, no one loves you, and no one can help you.

All of those messages that depression bombards you with are lies.

If there’s any good to be found in this, let it be that we spread the word far and wide and loud:

If you are suffering from depression, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are people who care, people who will help you.

If you’re in the United States, call any time from anywhere,

1-800-273-8255 (TALK)

or go online at SuicidePreventionHotline.org.

You can also go to Suicide.org for an immediate connection to local hotlines in every US state, international hotlines, as well as immediate help by chat on that site.

If you’re a veteran or on active duty in the military, the Twitter account @realwarriors is staffed 24×7 to help.

If you are anywhere else in the world, check here or here for a list of crisis hotlines in your country.

If you want to read an excellent personal account of the battle against depression, read Wil Wheaton’s story here and here.

The bottom line is simple — talk to someone, get help, you are not alone. It might be terribly hard to do, to accept, to ask for help, to break through the disease. You have to find a way to do it, to ask for help, to talk to someone.

Talk to a friend, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse, a counselor on a hotline, a radio call-in talk show, whatever. Hell, call and talk to me if you need to, 24/7/365. I want us all to be on this fantastic ride for as long as we each possibly can.

Tonight we’re grieving and trying to understand what’s impossible to understand. Over the next few days we’ll see news reports and documentaries and retrospectives and interviews. None of that will help us understand, but with time we’ll laugh again. Probably at some old Robin Williams movie or television show, the laughter now mixed with a dose of melancholy. But as his family has asked, we will remember him for his life, not for his death.

On Facebook I said, “Days like this I almost hope I’m wrong and God exists – there are more than a few choice comments I would like to make about her job performance.”

I don’t know if I’ll ever actually get to have that conversation, but if I do, one of my questions will be, “Why do funny, intelligent, and wonderful people like Robin Williams have to be so tortured? Doesn’t that qualify as a design flaw in the universe?”