# RIP Robin Williams



## Guest

What a horrible loss--so glad I got to see him in concert.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/m...eakingNews&contentID=18597691&pgtype=Homepage


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## Itullian

*Robin Williams passes at 63....................*

So much talent. So sad.
Rest in Peace


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## Huilunsoittaja

Tragic news of his death today, cause of death pending, but a possible suicide. He was 63, and made an astounding contribution to film. I was surprised to find out he got his theater degree at Julliard! I ought to watch some more of his movies again, I've only watched about half of the famous ones. What a great comedian and actor he was...

RIP


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## Itullian

very sad
RIP.............


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## opus55

Good Morning, Vietnam


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## KenOC

RIP indeed. Let's also spare a thought for Robin Williams' mentor, Johathan Winters, another manic comic with his own issues. He died last year. When he was "on" (which he usually was) he was absolutely hilarious. You can see Williams in him, and vice versa. Remember him destroying the gas station in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?


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## Guest

"Oh Captain, my captain"--thank you for so many years of hilarious material. I'm so glad I got to attend one of your live performances. _Dead Poets Society_ largely influenced me to become an English teacher. You will be missed.

Wow, with George Carlin and now Robin Williams gone, we've lost the two funniest, most creative comic minds around. It's so sad to think that a person who brought millions so much joy could be so depressed. No doubt that his bi-polar condition was a factor.


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## Morimur

Meh... Comedy died with Richard Pryor. That aside, RIP Robin Williams.


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## GreenMamba

I can't say I've been a fan of his "serious" movies, and I kind if resent the fact that people think you have to graduate from comedy to something else. As though making people laugh isn't enough. 

In addition to everything else, he was always a great guest on Carson and Letterman. RIP.


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## SimonNZ

RIP Robin.

Loved the stand up, and the non-comedy film stuff, especially his scene-stealing moments as the mad revolutionary in The Secret Agent:


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## ptr

A severely sad day indeed! RIP Robin!

/ptr


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## Vaneyes

Stand-up comedy is a taxing profession rampant with clinically depressed and subsequent suicides. To name a couple, Winters and Dangerfield chose to stay with us, while Prinze, Jeni, Williams, etc., etc., chose not to. R.I.P. to them all.

In memoriam...


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## Bellinilover

What a tragedy. I liked him very much in THE DEAD POET'S SOCIETY. I hope that in the afterlife he finds comfort and peace.


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## neoshredder

Strange my dad mentioned he suffered from depression a few years back. As he has the symptoms. First Brad Delp and now Robin Williams. Great talents killing themselves.


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## Lukecash12

neoshredder said:


> Strange my dad mentioned he suffered from depression a few years back. As he has the symptoms. First Brad Delp and now Robin Williams. Great talents killing themselves.


Actually, William's depression didn't fit under the typical description of clinical depression as he had bipolar disorder.


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## Vaneyes

Lukecash12 said:


> Actually, William's depression didn't fit under the typical description of clinical depression as he had bipolar disorder.


PsychCentral to the rescue.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archiv...s-bipolar-sufferer-dead-at-63-due-to-suicide/

Linked 8.12.14...

"Mr. Williams had been seeking treatment for depression."(pdf)

http://www.marinsheriff.org/uploads/857.pdf


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## DiesIraeCX

R. Williams was one of the legends. Hopefully, with time, there won't be so much of a stigma attached to mental disorders like clinical depression and bipolar disorder. I'll always remember him the most in Hook, which was one of my favorite movies.


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## Vaneyes

DiesIraeVIX said:


> R. Williams was one of the legends. Hopefully, with time, there won't be so much of a stigma attached to mental disorders like clinical depression and bipolar disorder. I'll always remember him the most in Hook, which was one of my favorite movies.


Do you think the stigma is still universal? For sufferer and general public? I think education has helped greatly with the latter's perception. Unfortunately, not nearly as much for the sufferer. It seems no amount of listening, talking, reading can ease the burdens of many troubled minds. So sad.

Popeye (1980), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).


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## Morimur

Before I got married, I roomed with a girl who was Bipolar. Sometimes she couldn't even look me in the eyes and others, she was extremely friendly and uhh... physical. I had just become a Christian at the time, so I resisted temptation, but she could be extremely promiscuous. She would cook for me sometimes but I never ate. I felt sorry for her more than anything.


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## neoshredder

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Before I got married, I roomed with a girl who was Bipolar. Sometimes she couldn't even look me in the eyes and others, she was extremely friendly and uhh... physical. I had just become a Christian at the time, so I resisted temptation, but she could be extremely promiscuous. She would cook for me sometimes but I never ate. I felt sorry for her more than anything.


Tough temptation. Are you still Christian?


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## KenOC

Vaneyes said:


> Do you think the stigma is still universal? For sufferer and general public?


I have never been aware of a "stigma," any more than might attach itself to a physical disease. BPD and clinical depression are disasters for the sufferer and are hard to treat -- the drugs may be almost as bad as the disease, and therapy doesn't seem very effective for what seems to be a chemicallly-based disease. I had a good friend some years back with a successful professional career, financially secure and a loving family. He should have been quite a happy man (and so he appeared) but he suffered from clinical depression. Finally one day he shot himself in his car, about 35 years old.

It's very hard for somebody without this condition to understand what it's like.


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## Morimur

neoshredder said:


> Tough temptation. Are you still Christian?


Hells yeah.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx


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## Lukecash12

KenOC said:


> I have never been aware of a "stigma," any more than might attach itself to a physical disease. BPD and clinical depression are disasters for the sufferer and are hard to treat -- the drugs may be almost as bad as the disease, and therapy doesn't seem very effective for what seems to be a chemicallly-based disease. I had a good friend some years back with a successful professional career, financially secure and a loving family. He should have been quite a happy man (and so he appeared) but he suffered from clinical depression. Finally one day he shot himself in his car, about 35 years old.
> 
> It's very hard for somebody without this condition to understand what it's like.


I feel like I understand but I really don't. To some extent you can but at the same time it's apples and oranges when you compare neurological diseases. One thing I am sure of, that must have exacerbated the situation for Williams as a child, was his family. And by that I don't mean anything against them, or that I know the situation all that well. Mental disease takes a toll on the whole family, though, and when you are dealing with these symptoms however caring your family is there is a point where they can't empathize, they don't know how to respond because as you grow up there are naturally expectations, especially depending on the amount of education his family had on the issue.


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## PetrB

Depression (one extreme end of bi-polar) got Mr. Williams, as it has gotten many a person with bi-polar disorder.

I think it more than appropriate here to remind those who might think that along with some disorders come attributable talents that those who are / were extremely talented _and who functioned well_ were functioning talents _despite the burden of their disorder._


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## Guest

I can't imagine what would happen if Carlin and Williams were ever in the same room together...it would probably just explode!


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## Lukecash12

PetrB said:


> Depression (one extreme end of bi-polar) got Mr. Williams, as it has gotten many a person with bi-polar disorder.
> 
> I think it more than appropriate here to remind those who might think that along with some disorders come attributable talents that those who are / were extremely talented _and who functioned well_ were functioning talents _despite the burden of their disorder._


Sorry, but I beg to differ here. There are different levels of severity involved and it's all too easy to say that people are talented in spite of their conditions. I don't think people are ready yet to accept the fairly clear link that has been starting to materialize, that having a disorder can actually feed different talents.

You guys might be interested in some of the "neurodiversity" and advocacy movements that have really been gaining support since the 90s. As we learn to help people adjust and treat these conditions, a whole host of ethical issues gets brought up like "should we abort autistic fetuses in utero" and "are all cases of this really a disease so much as they are a difference". It's not like we don't have some distinct advantages as well. It's not uncommon really for people with these conditions to score on average one median (15 points) higher on IQ tests, or for them to do exceptionally well in spatial reasoning and sub par in abstract/metaphorical reasoning at the same time. I think that it's precisely because of the draw backs that a number of us have other areas that are more developed.

Sure, I had trouble holding friendships, understanding metaphors, how to communicate with people, cluster headaches, anxiety attacks, inflammation of the brain, struggling to become independent as I left adolescence, to perform executive functions like self direction and planning, but on the other hand not many people can be told a random sequence of numbers and letters twenty-four members long and repeat them back in alphabetical and numerical order from memory (they call it the "0 percentile" because the margin is vanishingly small, do you think my parents should have aborted me?). You guys wouldn't believe have many people I've met through Mensa and Prometheus that have some form of dissociative disorder, or sociopathy, high functioning autism, encephalitus, borderline personality disorder, etc. Actually the people I've been most stimulated by have been savants, had comorbids (it's not uncommon especially for people on the autism spectrum to have another disorder), or were dealing with both like myself.


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## Sid James

This is very sad news, in particular because he had many years ahead of him and was such a talented actor. Like many others here I enjoyed his comedic roles (esp. Mrs. Doubtfire) but one other one that stands out in my mind is him playing a doctor in Awakenings, with Robert de Niro as his patient. There was a sensitive and gentle side to Robin Williams displayed in that film but he was quite a diverse actor from what I can gather, reading various articles in the last couple of days. I'm sorry to hear of the circumstances of his death, and its unfortunate that this is becoming more and more common, earlier in the year we lost another great actor in Philip Seymour Hoffman.


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## PetrB

Lukecash12 said:


> Sorry, but I beg to differ here. There are different levels of severity involved and it's all too easy to say that people are talented in spite of their conditions. I don't think people are ready yet to accept the fairly clear link that has been starting to materialize, that having a disorder can actually feed different talents.w backs that a number of us have other areas that are more developed.


I beg to differ, if you are highly talented, and have a disorder, _of course that disorder is part of you and will be the point of reference and sometimes stimulation in producing in your area of talent._ What then, do those towering achieving artistic geniuses who are not working with a disorder depend upon to 'feed their talent?' -- exactly -- whatever is in them, which leads full circle back to _a functioning talented person is, with or without the disability or 'disorder,' working with what they've got, and that the disorder is not 'working with what it has got,' i.e. the person with the disorder._

The trouble with even the least association with "Some disorders make for talented genius" is that they don't, but every time it is said, repeated (and that has happened far too many times already) the general public begins to associate creativity with madness or disorder of one sort or another, to the major dis and disservice of hosts of hard-working creative people.


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## Lukecash12

PetrB said:


> I beg to differ, if you are highly talented, and have a disorder, _of course that disorder is part of you and will be the point of reference and sometimes stimulation in producing in your area of talent._ What then, do those towering achieving artistic geniuses who are not working with a disorder depend upon to 'feed their talent?' -- exactly -- whatever is in them, which leads full circle back to _a functioning talented person is, with or without the disability or 'disorder,' working with what they've got, and that the disorder is not 'working with what it has got,' i.e. the person with the disorder._
> 
> The trouble with even the least association with "Some disorders make for talented genius" is that they don't, but every time it is said, repeated (and that has happened far too many times already) the general public begins to associate creativity with madness or disorder of one sort or another, to the major dis and disservice of hosts of hard-working creative people.


Simply deferring to anecdotal logic and saying that there are talented people without neurological disorders, doesn't establish that such conditions can't have a part to play in the talents of a good number of people with mental conditions. In fact, it's been established that people with such disabilities, even learning disabilities like myself, can reach thresholds of intelligence in one or more of the five standard forms of intelligence not thought typically possible, literally to the point of people doubting test results, and this really can be credited to the disorder(s). When some areas of a person's brain are underdeveloped other regions can be highly developed as a result.

Looking at the case of Williams, surely his mania had a part to play in his wonderful comedy. It is sad that he felt so terrible that he did what he did. However, if better treatment options were available it would be easier to see how his condition actually had it's own part to play in the wonderful things he did.

It's important to note that I'm not trying to express superiority, or to imply that every extremely exceptional thinker like Newton, Aristotle, Tesla, or Einstein must have been some sort of savant, had a personality disorder, etc. What I am proposing is that people begin to accept a broader understanding of how good human variation is, that they understand that such conditions can for a number of people even be good and not seen as an illness by the "sufferer". Of course we should also be aware of others with more severe conditions, but that doesn't mean that there should be a unilateral decision to just cure us away. We can be just as valuable an element of society and the idea of abortion in utero is something I find appalling.

So to be clear: arrogance isn't good, but human variation is.

Of course, on the other end I have all the sympathy in the world for people like Williams, and especially people like my friend here: http://theresidentialautist.blogspo...dated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=45


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## Rhythm

*Koko & Robin Williams share laughter*






Robin Williams met Koko in 2001.


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## Itullian

rhythm said:


> robin williams met koko in 2001.


awwwwwww ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


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## Vaneyes

Kontrapunctus said:


> I can't imagine what would happen if Carlin and Williams were ever in the same room together...it would probably just explode!


Interesting hypothetical. Had they performed together (they didn't), it might not have been funny at all. Carlin was more the political aggressor, who didn't mind stirring it up with the most taboo subjects. And he was always himself, standing up for what he believed.

Williams on the other hand, would often resort to bringing on fantastical characters or dialect to speak for him. On stage, he rarely wanted to take it on the chin for what he believed.

Carlin was the realist...insidiously so, in his later years.

Williams was always the purveyor of fantasy or illusion.

Speaking to your hypothetical, what if they both came back to engage in a shoot-out, with the agreed-upon topic of Suicide?

Carlin did a monologue for suicide--opposed to it. Williams did a PSA for suicide--warning against entertaining such thought.


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## Guest

Yeah, Carlin did a long bit about suicide the last time I saw him--a year or two before he died. He assumed the persona of a person considering suicide who basically went through the pros and cons of typical methods, decided on hanging since "Walmart has rope on sale," then wrote a brutal suicide note to his family. He also included teenage auto-erotic asphyxiation, which was both mean and funny, as was Carlin's wont!


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