The silent killer

When I opened my Facebook last week on Monday morning, I was confronted with the news that one of the best comics, one of the best actors of my youth and childhood had passed: Robin Williams had died. Apparently he had committed suicide. He´d been in and out of a depression for years, and yes, people, depression can kill you. Depression is a silent killer.

You see, depression can happen to anyone, believe me, anyone. Robin Williams seemed to be always laughing, always happy, always rejoicing, but apparently there was this thick layer of sadness in his life. When you ask my dad about suicide, he´ll gladly tell you that it doesn´t count. That Robin Williams or whoever did it to himself, so that it doesn´t matter at all. What my dad doesn´t seem to know - although I can hardly believe it - is that his own daughter - that is, moi - has tried it once and has been thinking about it for years, and that the topic is actually pretty vivid in her thoughts once again right now. Would he talk so easily about it if he knew? I don´t know. I doubt it. My dad never goes to funerals when someone kills himself. Does that mean that he wouldn´t come to my funeral??

Depression is a monster. It lurks in the shadows, and no-one, not even the one who suffers from depression, knows when it's going to attack. Many people who killed themselves did it in an impulse, but there are also others who have been thinking about it and who have been preparing this for months, maybe even years. In my case, if I would ever kill myself, it would be a combination of the two. You see, I have written a few letters already. I have written my own obituary. I've been thinking it through. But still, it would be an impulsive decision, I think, because at the moment, I'm kind of depressed, but not enough to kill myself, if you know what I mean. If I would kill myself tomorrow, then something awful would have to happen today or tomorrow so that there would be enough reason for me to kill myself. 

I told you I've tried it once before. I was barely 18 when that happened and yes, it was in an impulse. I was at the psychiatric youth clinic and things were getting worse day by day. They threw me in the isolation cell a few times a week and I didn't see any progression, rather the contrary. So I decided that it was enough. I wrote a letter to say goodbye, a really short letter, put it at the end of my bed, and I tried to hang myself. Just when I was at the point of doing it, a nurse knocked on my door, and I said no. She didn't come in, but I was already doubting. Why the hell did she have to knock on my freaking door when I was at the point of making the most important choice of my life?? So it happened that I started to doubt about my decision, which was actually my biggest mistake. She knocked again five minutes later. I should have been dead by then, but again, there was this nagging doubt. Again, I said no. And this happened a third time, but then she came in, saw me standing there on my bed, with a rope around my neck. She panicked slightly, asked me to step back, but I refused and so I jumped. But she was fast, I only hung there for a couple of seconds and then she held me up. 

Of course there have been various opportunities in which I wanted to kill myself but I couldn't. I've been wandering around at the railway station, I've taken more pills than prescribed, I've cut myself hoping that it would be fatal... Numerous are the occasions in which I wanted but I just couldn't kill myself. You see, something like that is not that easy. 

The problem is when you get these images, and that's exactly what's happening now and what's been troubling me the past few weeks when I was at home in Belgium. I saw myself doing it. I saw myself going to the river with the counterweights from my telescope, saw myself binding one counterweight on every leg and saw myself jumping in the river. That's annoying, you know, especially because, yes, I was feeling unhappy and depressed, but no, I didn't want to kill myself. Well, not really. If it were only that easy and if it were not painful...

And so it happens that, when you are a psychiatric patient, you've lost lots of friends to the silent killer already. In my case, only three that I know of, which is in fact not that much. But every life counts, especially if you know that none of these people were older than 45, the youngest one in his twenties. The loss of Robin Williams is a big loss to the world of entertainment, and he will be remembered. Whatever other people say about him and about his addictions and depression, he is and will always be the man that put a smile on my face in movies such as Mrs. Doubtfire, or kept me in suspense in movies such as the Dead Poets Society... Oh Captain, my Captain...