Suicide

Each time I see the posts about Robin Williams' suicide, it's like a slap in the face.  I find it difficult to look at the images, read the articles, and tolerate the comments people put on the sites- defending him for what he did, saying it was ok because he was depressed, that it is an option for people who struggle.

I've been struggling with my father's suicide for two years, unable to come out of the closet and talk about it, because of the stigma of mental illness and what suicide does to a family.  Suicide rips a family apart with secrets, inability to speak about the person who died unless you speak in code, and general isolation for everyone involved, because suicide is just something you don't talk about.

What I don't understand is what makes it ok for a celebrity to commit suicide and not a family member.  A few weeks ago I had a confrontation with a family member because I talked to my children about what my father did and she hadn't told her children.  I have family members who won't talk about it at all.  She was afraid I was going to poison her children with the news.

The way I look at it, suicide became a part of my life when I was three, when my father lost his grip on reality.  He was a paranoid schizophrenic most of his life and attempted suicide three times when I was a child.  What that does to a child is tell her that not only is her father going to leave, he is going to kill himself to do it.

I can't imagine what the emotional toll did to my mother when I was growing up, but I am starting to have an idea.  I had a huge amount of my childhood I blocked out, and now I know why.  The constant emotional draining and chaos that my father inflicted on all of us traumatized me at a very early age.