Refections

Is it odd that this would be my first blog post in amost 4 years?!  I’m generally such a happy-go-lucky person!  I’m outgoing (to the outside world), I love to laugh – and make people laugh, and I struggle and have led a decades-long struggle with depression, I guess my leap to thinking about Robin Williams wasn’t that big of a leap after all….In the words of another song (you’ll notice that I tend to speak in movie quotes and song lyrics) J “guess we’re really not that different…me and you…” Collin Raye

So, while I have my music on shuffle it comes across the Glee version of “Pure Imagination” (please withhold your judgment) J  and it contains the line “if you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it” and from there my warped little mind jumped (however irrationally), to the suicide of Robin Williams. 

As someone who has battled an almost lifelong battle with depression, (I was diagnosed at 18) I get it. I was put on Prozac at 18 and stayed on it until I was about 32, off and on; I also was on a different anti-depressant while I was pregnant with my son.   And even while I was on anti-depressants I wanted it to be over, even through the haze that comes along with those medications I was still sad, I was still…magoo (as I call it now).   I understand what the overwhelming desire is to have the pain stop, to stop feeling so sad, to stop wanting to sleep the day away, to stop wanting to go somewhere but wanting to go back home as soon as you were outside the house. But I also understand now, as I didn’t until 8 or 9 years ago that there is ultimate hope. I understand too, the people that are too “chicken” to end it, and therefore hold people like Robin Williams in higher esteem for having the courage, which sends a dangerous message, but perhaps it will send a positive mental health message too. I understand wishing you could get in a car accident but not have it be your fault so your family could still get an insurance pay out. I assume because I’m still here that Christ had a larger purpose for me because I chose not to kill myself, though at times, literally, the only reason I didn’t was because my mother had told me that she would be mad at me if I had ever killed myself. I still don’t know what that larger purpose is, but now I guess you could say that because I have accepted a saving faith in Jesus, I’m willing to fulfill it.  There are news reporters that have been blasted because of using the word “coward” in reference to Robin Williams’ act; other authors have used the word “choice” and I for one agree.  This was a choice and an act of cowardice.  No one held a gun to his head and forced this upon him, while he may have been seeking an end to his suffering or he may have used terms in head that he was seeking to rid those in this life from having to “deal with him”, it was a selfish act.  Robin Williams has tossed his wife and children into chaos.  And to an exponentially lesser extent, the people who admired him.  He was loved; whether or not he chose to acknowledge that fact is paramount.  He was loved by his children, he was loved by his wife, he was loved by friends and he was loved by a God that sacrificed His own life.  If Robin Williams had had the hope that lies in that knowledge perhaps he would not have made the choice that he made this week.  Maybe he would have made the choice(s) that I made and that many other people have made over the years and that is to keep living, to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  To keep having faith that God has a greater purpose for your life and that He is the one in charge of my life is the ultimate reassurance in life.  Philippians 4:6-7 says:  “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  Which is SO hard to do, but really, really, REALLY the only thing that will bring lasting peace is Jesus!